Fear Factory's Dino Cazares: 'The Cost Of Touring Is Making It Impossible To Make Any Money'

Fear Factory guitarist and producer Dino Cazares has joined the chorus of musicians currently discussing the difficulties of touring in the post-pandemic stages of COVID-19.

Lorde recently wrote an in-depth explainer on the state of touring in 2022, where she commented, "touring has become a demented struggle to break even or face debt." The Royals singer is one of the latest to decry the struggles musicians and their crews are facing at the moment. 

She followed The Avalanches, who shared, Bonobo, who "draws bigger crowds than us, can no longer make it work financially. Artists need to be real about the financial toll of touring. For us, it means massive debt. Oh, but we can earn a living through streaming." 

What's happening for metal musicians, though? In response to a Metal Injection article about Dark Funeral guitarist Lord Ahriman's frankness about venues taking merch cuts from bands, Cazares wrote, "That's why this tour we are doing coming up we’ll be in a van, the cost of touring is making it impossible to make any money."

He also replied to a fan discussing merch cuts: "u may need a resellers license to sell outside and the venue owner may still try and tax u cause your selling on his property, he may also call the police cause he knows u probably don’t have a license to sell, so to avoid all that u would have to go down the block to sell".

We recently caught up with Cazares upon his return to Australia, playing shows with Soulfly at Good Things Festival. He's an avid social media enthusiast, directly interacting with fans. 

"I think that [social media] is great," Cazares told us. "Obviously, there are some positives and negatives with it. Some people believe everything they read on there; there's a lot of misinformation and a lot of fighting. It's a big outlet for negativity, but there are positives, too," he explains. "You can talk to people all around the world, which I really enjoy. Especially when you're in a band, and you get to talk to your fans all the way across the globe." 

Read the rest of our interview with Dino Cazares here.