"We started playing music from an early age and so we wasn't really aware of that side of it, the weird thing is the more successful you get the more free booze and drugs you get, they should be given to the bands who don't have the money"
About this Quote
Success is supposed to be the grown-up reward: stability, control, a little dignity. Ville Valo flips that fairy tale and exposes the music industrys funniest, bleakest incentive structure. The punchline lands because its true: the people most at risk of excess are the ones most subsidized for it. In his telling, fame doesnt just come with temptations; it comes with a delivery service.
The quote works on two levels at once. Theres the offhand, conversational honesty (we wasnt really aware) that signals this isnt a sermon about sobriety; its a field report from someone who stumbled into the machinery. Then theres the darkly comic logic: if booze and drugs are being handed out like promo flyers, why do they flow upward to the already-successful? It reads like an inverted welfare state for hedonism, where the rich get richer and the mess gets messier.
Subtextually, Valo is pointing at how scenes normalize self-destruction as a perk, not a problem. Free substances arent generosity; theyre lubrication, a way to keep artists social, pliable, spending, performing, and mythologized. The industry loves the aesthetic of chaos right up until it becomes a liability.
Theres also a quiet empathy in the last clause. Hes not endorsing starving artists getting loaded; hes underlining how absurd it is that need and support never line up. Its a joke with teeth: capitalism can find a way to comp your downfall, but it wont cover your rent.
The quote works on two levels at once. Theres the offhand, conversational honesty (we wasnt really aware) that signals this isnt a sermon about sobriety; its a field report from someone who stumbled into the machinery. Then theres the darkly comic logic: if booze and drugs are being handed out like promo flyers, why do they flow upward to the already-successful? It reads like an inverted welfare state for hedonism, where the rich get richer and the mess gets messier.
Subtextually, Valo is pointing at how scenes normalize self-destruction as a perk, not a problem. Free substances arent generosity; theyre lubrication, a way to keep artists social, pliable, spending, performing, and mythologized. The industry loves the aesthetic of chaos right up until it becomes a liability.
Theres also a quiet empathy in the last clause. Hes not endorsing starving artists getting loaded; hes underlining how absurd it is that need and support never line up. Its a joke with teeth: capitalism can find a way to comp your downfall, but it wont cover your rent.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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