Hotly-tipped Canadian prog duo Crown Lands have a new album out. Apocalypse came out via InsideOutMusic earlier this month, and while the band have shows lined up in Canada, any European fans hoping to see the band in 2026 will be disappointed – and you can blame the cost of touring.
"We had a very difficult discussion about it yesterday," says guitarist/bassist/keyboardist Kevin Comeau, interviewed in the new issue of Classic Rock. "Our management showed us a budget where if we went over to the UK and Europe to play ten shows, we would lose about thirty-five thousand dollars.
"The reality of being a musician means you need to have very rich parents, the willingness to completely financially ruin yourself, or a label with very deep pockets. And unfortunately, we have none of those things."
The pair, whose deal with Universal Music ended before they signed with InsideOut, also revealed how much debt the three-year relationship with the major label saddled them with.
"We owed the label, like, half a million dollars," says Comeau. "There was no way we’re gonna pay that back. We will never see a dime from the self-titled record [2020 album], White Buffalo [2020 EP], Wayward Flyers [2021 EP], Fearless [2023 album]. They own those records in perpetuity, so hopefully they recoup their loss from us, eventually."
Crown Lands are the latest in a long line of critically-acclaimed acts whose ambitions are being thwarted by the cost of doing business.
Earlier this year, Serena Cherry, guitarist and singer with post-hardcore four-piece Svalbard, told the Heavy Stories podcast why her band were calling it quits – and the rising costs of touring were one of the biggest reasons.
“It’s becoming the case where, if you want to tour … and be in a band, you have to be from a privileged background now," said Cherry. "I’ve never had a parent’s place that I could go and live in rent-free. I have to make a living every month to put a roof over my head.
"If I’m not making money touring – because of 25% merch cuts, visa fees, carnet fees, bus fees, petrol, all these massive outgoing costs – I can’t afford to do it. It’s going to become the case where every single voice you hear in metal will be from a place of privilege."
