Tobias Forge Quotes

I remember, a couple of years ago I was playing my first headline show, and it was to 100 people in St Pancras Old Church in London; and me and my mum were like, 'We don't know 100 people, how are we going to sell these tickets?'

If you get half a million, at a certain stage you probably will get 4 million people, if they are able to hear it. The touring thing is unbelievable. It really is amazing from what we did the last tour even to what we are doing now.

I'm not like a legend that - so I'm sort of in the middle in this sort of gray area where, you know, I'm creating music, and I'm not saying there isn't an audience, because there is; because all of those people go out and spend $80 to $150 on a concert ticket.

Big shows are more like events and small shows are more like traditional gigs.

Definitely, when you get into something where bands are playing for 30,000 people, it's not like the post-punk, U.S. independent scene.

My biggest dream is to headline an arena tour.

We have not had a ton of innovation and marketing in the concert industry, much like the record industry. We have been a fairly old-school business compared to Coca-Cola and the big packaging/marketing companies.

You play shows all over the country and hope that radio gets a chance to get out to see you, but that doesn't always happen like that.

I'm not Kathy Griffin. I can't do 1200 seat venues. I need 300, 400 something like that.

I recall us selling out L.A.'s 5,000-capacity Gibson Amphitheatre and flying straight to Germany to play a 300-capacity room where we'd only sold 120 tickets. This was when 'City Of Evil' was really taking off in the U.S., but it seemed like Europe was less interested.

When I have 7,000 people plus at Red Rock just for a show of mine, I think it's wonderful to get that many people to come see you.

A stadium tour would be amazing - that's definitely one of my goals. Just to keep putting out real, honest music that people can really relate to and connect with.

I am a touring artist - I get a kick out of it, like, a huge kick.

I really loved touring with my band, but it felt like we would spend a lot of time playing in empty rooms - empty clubs. We had some good successes, but it's so physically hard to load up a van and drive all day.

When you make albums like I do, and it's based off fanfare and based off touring - I make these albums, and I get on the road. It's not really a radio-driven thing. I get on the road, and I see my fans, and I touch each and every last one of them.

It's not the fact that your single can sell. It's the fact that you can sell hard tickets. People will spend money to see you.

Patrick and Joe were so young when we started the band. As slow as it was, with all the touring and crappy clubs we played, we still never had time to stop and reflect. When we took a break, it finally gave us time to reflect and grow up.

Scandal rarely toured after those first few hits. I want to go out and sing and connect with fans who may have never seen us live.

Iron Maiden and Metallica are bigger now than they ever were. They're playing stadiums across the entire planet. Even though it seems like their heyday was back when MTV and the radio played their songs all the time, the truth is that they've gotten bigger now because they play all the time, and people know they're going to get a great show.

As musicians, we are quite literally singing for our supper. Don't get me wrong, I love touring, but the reality is that our idols from the '70s and '80s never toured this hard. They'd do a record, have one big world tour, maybe two, then break to do another record.

Rihanna can sell just as many tickets in Cape Town as she can in Detroit.

The concert industry lags dramatically behind the great hospitality businesses out there, whether they're theme parks or hotels or sporting events.

That's why, to this day, K.I.S.S. can sell out wherever they go... because they sell tickets, and they have that core fan base. You may not hear K.I.S.S. on the radio with a new single today. And they can still sell out anywhere.

It doesn't matter if people take the music for free, because you can't illegally download a ticket to a concert.

I played the Azteca Stadium in Mexico to 100,000 people - that's something I never thought I'd do.