{"id":109195,"date":"2025-11-01T05:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T05:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/109195\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T05:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T05:43:10","slug":"will-anderson-of-hotline-tnt-on-pulling-the-plug-on-spotify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/109195\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Anderson of Hotline TNT on pulling the plug on Spotify"},"content":{"rendered":"

The past year has been a defining chapter in the life of Will Anderson, lead singer with rising indie rock band Hotline TNT. In June, the New York group released a critically lauded third album, Raspberry Moon \u2013 a blast of retro indie goodness that joined the dots between My Bloody Valentine<\/a> and Nirvana<\/a>. Eight weeks later, Anderson announced he was taking Hotline TNT off Spotify<\/a> \u2013 a step many in the higher echelons of the music industry will assure you is full-on career self-sabotage. With the dust having settled, Anderson has no regrets. <\/p>\n

\u201cSpotify is a bit worse than all the other services, in my opinion. Which is why we took our music off there,\u201d says the quietly-spoken singer. He feels streaming is generally a negative for music, but acknowledges that it is part of the new reality we all live in. To paraphrase Cher, you can\u2019t turn back time. You can, however, boycott corporations that you believe have a malignant influence on your art. <\/p>\n

\u201cI still stream music myself. I\u2019m walking around town, I have music in my AirPods, and it\u2019s great. It\u2019s very convenient. It is what it is: that\u2019s the world we\u2019re in now. But I think not participating in\u201d Spotify \u201cis a good thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

His reasons for pulling the plug are simple \u2013 Spotify is bad \u2013 and complex. The general assumption is that Hotline TNT exited Spotify because of its founder, Daniel Ek, and his connection to the German AI defence company Helsing<\/a> (of which he is chair). There are also, of course, widespread misgivings about Spotify\u2019s refusal to ban music made with AI and the perennial chestnut of its royalty rates \u2013 paltry compared even with other streamers (100,000 plays on the service will net an artist a whopping \u20ac300).<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone points to the Helsing thing. That was not the tipping point for us,\u201d says Anderson, though he acknowledges it was a line in the sand for other artists. \u201cIt was a flash point for a lot of bands to get their music off there, which we were excited about. We want to make it as loud as possible: we\u2019re off the service, and you should be too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hotline TNT are not alone in boycotting the biggest music streamer \u2013 Massive Attack and Deerhoof have done likewise. It is notable, however, that many politically vocal Irish artists have not. They may be willing to speak truth to power but not to Spotify. <\/p>\n

The unspoken fear is that leaving Spotify means becoming invisible. But, this myth is debunked by the ongoing success of Hotline TNT. They have continued to win new fans with their dreamlike alternative pop, proving that having a profile is not solely dependent on a streaming platform. Their upcoming show at Dublin\u2019s Workman\u2019s Cellar on Tuesday, November 11th, is a testament to their thriving career post-Spotify.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a myth that Spotify loves to perpetuate that they are the ones who solve the problems of how we can find music,\u201d says Anderson. \u201cMusic was alive and well for many, many years before Spotify came around and will continue after they\u2019re gone \u2013 which they will be.\u201d <\/p>\n

With their hazy guitars and Anderson\u2019s free-floating vocals, Hotline TNT have been heralded as leading a revival in shoegaze. This ethereal 1990s genre counts Irish-UK quartet My Bloody Valentine among its original guiding lights. Over Zoom from his apartment in New York, Anderson speaks with awe of MBV, established in Dublin in 1983 by former Col\u00e1iste Eoin, Booterstown student Kevin Shields. <\/p>\n

\"HotlineHotline TNT are not alone in boycotting the biggest music streamer \u2013 Massive Attack and Deerhoof have done likewise <\/p>\n

\u201cH\u00fcsker D\u00fc is number one [as an influence],\u201d says Anderson, referring to the 1980s hard-core trio that would influence Nirvana and Pixies. \u201cBut My Bloody Valentine is right nipping at their heels. They\u2019re the most influential band to me. Loveless [MBV\u2019s classic 1991 release] is an album that, no matter how many times I listen to it, never, ever gets old. I can put it on right now and remember how I felt the first time I heard it. It\u2019s still interesting, and it still blows my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Anderson isn\u2019t particularly fond of the \u201cshoegaze\u201d label when it comes to his band. Hotline TNT are more than the second coming of MBV or similar shoegazers such as Slowdive or Chapterhouse. <\/p>\n

Their sound is a blend of influences, and Anderson\u2019s reluctance to be pigeonholed adds mystery and excitement to songs such as the ferocious Julia\u2019s War and the gloriously chugging Letter To Heaven. Despite this, Rolling Stone hailed Raspberry Moon as \u201ca trip to shoegaze heaven\u201d and Pitchfork described Hotline TNT as \u201cshoegazers swinging for the rafters … with a newly realised arena rock gleam\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just like how indie rock has lost all meaning over the year. Shoegaze is kind of the new indie rock,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s anything loud with distorted guitars \u2013 somewhat pretty and not aggressive.\u201d <\/p>\n

Anderson was born in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin \u2013 not far from Bon Iver singer Justin Vernon\u2019s hometown of Eau Claire \u2013 and spent his teens and 20s playing in bands. Before Hotline TNT, he lived in Vancouver for several years, where he was one half of the duo Weed. But after that project petered out, he felt it was time to take on a day job, and so he studied for a Master\u2019s in Education to become a guidance counsellor. He continued playing on the side, though, and in 2018 established Hotline TNT \u2013 with the idea that he would be the sole consistent member, joined by a rotating line-up of guests. <\/p>\n

The band created a splash from the outset. That was partly a reflection of their effervescent songs \u2013 but also because Anderson released their 2021 debut, Nineteen In Love, exclusively on YouTube. Halfway between a stunt and a commentary on how music is distributed and consumed today, it brought them to the attention of Jack White\u2019s Third Man Records, which released their second LP, Cartwheel, in 2023 and which, as an artist-driven label, is fully behind their boycott of Spotify. Such achievements have been driven by a strong work ethic and punishing live performance schedule \u2013 during an early tour, Anderson played several shows despite being diagnosed with meningitis. <\/p>\n

\" Will Anderson of Hotline TNT performing during Austin City Limits Festival at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. Photograph: Jim Bennett\/WireImage <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t think the thought ever crossed my mind of actually cancelling the tour. There were two shows where I went to the hospital, and we couldn\u2019t play. Other than that, there are too many people relying on me that I felt I had to soldier on. When I went to the doctors, they said, you know, there\u2019s nothing to do except to rest. There\u2019s nothing else I could do. So we tried to, as much as I could, kept it going.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a time when the live music industry is defined by greed and squeezing punters until the pop \u2013 cough, Oasis, etc \u2013 Hotline TNT are part of that small but important minority of acts that believe in making shows accessible to their audience. Anderson thinks a lot about ticket prices and how much people can or cannot afford in the current economic climate (though he clarifies that he is talking specifically about the US). He understands that people have only so much spare cash \u2013 their time is precious, but so, too, is their disposable income. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything\u2019s getting more expensive; it\u2019s something that we have to deal with. I\u2019m going to talk about it mostly from the American perspective, because I\u2019m here, and that\u2019s what I see happening. It\u2019s like, we\u2019re touring, and everyone\u2019s touring right now,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re touring at the same time as bands like Alex G, MJ Lenderman and Turnstile. The economy here isn\u2019t super awesome right now for a lot of people. People are losing their jobs. The rent is going, and it\u2019s like, okay, if I want to see a really banging show, I have, say, 100 bucks for my entertainment budget. Am I gonna go see one Turnstile show \u2013 or am I going to see Hotline plus, say, Alex G? Decisions like that gets harder and harder as the industry is getting older \u2013 it\u2019s weird.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hotline TNT play Workman\u2019s Cellar, Dublin, on November 11th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The past year has been a defining chapter in the life of Will Anderson, lead singer with rising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,71131,85,46,9028,71132],"class_list":["post-109195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-hotline-tnt","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-streaming","tag-will-anderson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}