While I am certainly grateful for your appreciation of my/our creative legacy (though some of you also feel the fact that you "don't like the later stuff" is important enough to share in the comments as well) it does not translate into any sort of real world reward or incentive. All stick, no carrot.

When the bottom fell out of the music industry in the late 90s - an avalanche initiated by Napster but hastened and encouraged by corporations who foresaw their accountability to artists regarding "units sold" would be reduced from physical copies changing hands to an almost impossible to prove digital transfer - those of us who made our living by record sales began a plunge into poverty. Meanwhile music consumers (and even the usually more savvy-on-the-social-issues creators of South Park) fell hook, line, and sinker for the corporate con that Metallica was "suing their fans!" rather than spending millions on lawyers in a desperate bid to save independent music. We all lost in the end.

Almost overnight, the business model turned upside down. Back then, bands toured for exposure in hopes you would become a fan and buy our music. That's where the money was. Touring was a break-even prospect at best, particularly in opening slots where the nightly guarantee was a token fee that barely covered gas and per diems.

We were lucky enough that our merchandise sales often rivaled those of the headliners - causing more than a few raging phone calls from Glenn Danzig to his supplier ("The Hellfire Club is selling hundreds of these baby doll tees! Why don't I have baby doll tees?!?" {hey - it was the 90s}) and a distribution offer from Type O Negative's merchandise company - and made it possible if not profitable for us to remain on the road. If we did well, the record sales would recoup the tour support money we had taken in advance. We had broken even that way for years. It was a vicious circle...but it was a living and we loved it.

All of a sudden there were no record sales to offset the tour support...and before you start thinking "well that's just because your last two records sucked", all sales slumped - including the early albums that had consistently done good numbers. We had our own section at Best Buy fer chrissakes. And it wasn't just us.

It had been bad enough when the consumer technology to make CDRs became prevalent and suddenly every market where we sold 10 copies became one where we sold a single copy to the diehard "fan" who then burned copies for 9 friends. That fan killed us...and the industry. Now we were touring just to sell t-shirts and tread water.

This model continues today. It's why concert shirts at arenas and large halls run in the $50 range - though after vendor fees, the venue's cut, local taxes, shipping costs, etc. the artists are barely making a profit.

Fast forward to a world where selling 5000 copies of an album on a major label is considered extraordinary (back in the day, we could be relied upon for an "organic 10k" that could grow to 40 or 50 while the bigger artists were doing hundreds of thousands of units sold). Most sales, when people aren't "sticking it to the man" (another con they've bought that hurts only the artist) by stealing downloads, are digital cherry-picking of single songs - reducing the pittance still referred to by the misnomer "royalties" to literal pennies.

And for some reason I am supposed to be excited about making "new music"?

"So you were only in it for the money?"

A) No. But it was what facilitated creating the music and supported the lifestyle that inspired it.

B) Isn't that why you go to YOUR JOB?

I might sound bitter, but I'm really not. I just find it both annoying and insulting when people suggest I work for free or give away the fruits of my creative process because...well, they "want new music".

All that being said...I will make new music. In fact, I've already started. I'm sure most of you won't like it. "I liked the early stuff better". Fuck you. That was 25 years ago. Are you still wearing the same clothes you wore then? Watching the same TV shows? Living in the same place? Doing the same things with the same people? If you are...this conversation is already over. If not, well neither am I. If you think the music I made changed a lot between 1992 and 2002, imagine how different it will be another 15 years later.

I may sound like a broken record, but "Failure to evolve is exactly that: failure."

I'm a different man with different ideas. Like I said at the end of the interview I recently did with DECIBEL magazine: "I have different priorities these days."

When will you hear this music? When I'm ready to release it. Meanwhile, perhaps you can content yourself with some of my work in other mediums (painting, writing, etc.) as I wander the cultural wilderness as a "Jack of All Trades - Master of None". For those of you who read this to the end, kudos. I'm not sure I'd have stuck with it if I were you. For those who have been unyielding in your support and joined me on this journey, thank you.

More will be revealed.