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Wealth & Money Quote by Jerry Only

"It's not how many tickets can we sell, it's where do we want to play, not where should we play to make the most money. We don't really care about that"

About this Quote

Jerry Only is doing something rare in the modern touring economy: admitting the business logic, then refusing to kneel to it. The line is built like a self-correction. He starts in the language of promoters and spreadsheets ("how many tickets"), pivots mid-sentence into a different metric ("where do we want to play"), and then seals it with a blunt dismissal of the expected motive ("We don't really care about that"). That rhetorical turn is the whole point: it performs independence in real time.

The intent is less about purity than about control. For a band with a long shadow like the Misfits, touring isn’t just revenue; it’s narrative maintenance. Choosing venues becomes a way to protect the myth, honor the scenes that raised them, or chase the kind of room that actually fits the music. It’s the difference between being a legacy act cashing checks and being a living subculture that still gets to decide where it shows up.

The subtext is also defensive, because everyone knows money is always in the room. Saying "we don’t care" reads as a preemptive strike against accusations of selling out, especially in punk, where authenticity is policed like a border. Even the clunky phrasing helps: it sounds unpolished, off-the-cuff, more like a guy drawing a line than a PR-approved mission statement.

Context matters: live music has become the main income stream as recordings shrank, and ticketing dynamics have grown uglier. In that landscape, "where do we want to play" is a small rebellion - a claim that the band’s identity is still the product, not the profit margin.

Quote Details

TopicMusic
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Only, Jerry. (2026, January 15). It's not how many tickets can we sell, it's where do we want to play, not where should we play to make the most money. We don't really care about that. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-not-how-many-tickets-can-we-sell-its-where-do-142924/

Chicago Style
Only, Jerry. "It's not how many tickets can we sell, it's where do we want to play, not where should we play to make the most money. We don't really care about that." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-not-how-many-tickets-can-we-sell-its-where-do-142924/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It's not how many tickets can we sell, it's where do we want to play, not where should we play to make the most money. We don't really care about that." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-not-how-many-tickets-can-we-sell-its-where-do-142924/. Accessed 6 Feb. 2026.

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Jerry Only (born April 21, 1959) is a Musician from USA.

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