Elbow frontman Guy Garvey has said that those people who are able to afford music but opt instead to download it illegally are "going to hell."
His comments came after being asked if he was worried about the follow-up to "The Seldom Seen Kid" being leaked online.
Garvey told BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat, "If you genuinely can't afford music then of course you're going to rip it. If you can afford it and you don't pay for it then you're going to hell and you've got your own room. Especially when it's a smaller band. There's no excuse."
He added, "
Without the live side nobody's making any money."
With 20 years experience in the music business, Garvey understands how important having a supportive record label is. He said, "You come across people [record labels] who've dropped Elbow all the time. If you throw a rock in London you'll hit one. We're lucky to have a paymaster in the current climate. It's not lost on us."
As for the inevitable pressure that comes with following up a critical and commercial success like "The Seldom Seen Kid", Garvey doesn't believe it has changed the band's creative process. "We get asked a lot of whether the success of 'The Seldom Seen Kid' has put any pressure on us for this new record - I'm sure it has. We've never taken writing and recording records that lightly. I can't remember an album where we weren't concentrated on it for a long time. It's not like we're suddenly now thinking more about the numbers than we are about the music."
Thanks for the report to Spinner.com.