Damon Krukowski

My email was titled “getting artists paid.”

There’s never been an era where getting your art to turn into money has been easy. But the COVID-19 pandemic and growing corporate greed have crafted a brutal trap for modern musicians. Stories of major artists like Animal Collective canceling tours, venues stripping bands of profits by demanding cuts from merch sales and Spotify paying vanishingly little towards the artists that make their business thrive have all crashed down at once to create a bleak future.

But there are those fighting back. Damon Krukowski, formerly of ‘90s indie stalwarts Galaxie 500 and currently in dreamy slowcore duo Damon & Naomi, has become one of the finest minds plotting a route out of the rot. In tandem with the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers, Kurkowski has presented his own vision of an equitable and sustainable future for artists. We talked about it with him below.

Notes:

You can follow Damon @dada_drummer. His Substack is https://dadadrummer.substack.com/. Before the interview, we chatted about an album he recommended that blew me away: Se Ve Desde Aquí by Mabe Fratti.

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File Under: Interviews