Indie icons refuse to charge over £30 for their gigs because ‘nobody has money anymore’-Danni Scott-Entertainment – Metro

Charlie Wood, Ciara Doran, Heather Baron-Gracie and Hugo Silvani of Pale Waves (Picture: Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage)

Indie icons Pale Waves have stressed there is a worrying trend in ‘ridiculous’ ticket prices for gigs, as the cost of attending a concert rises to eyewatering levels.

Musicians have recently been angering fans with single concerts costing as much as a weekend ticket to Glastonbury, or even more if you want a VIP experience.

Billie Eilish’s tour is priced around £300 per ticket and Sabrina Carpenter’s nosebleed seats came in at a whopping £240.

Pale Waves are gearing up to head out on tour later this year for their new album Smitten, and the cost of tickets is very much on the mind of lead singer Heather Baron-Gracie.

‘I’ve seen pop artists charge ridiculous prices,’ Heather, 29, tells Metro.co.uk ahead of the release of new single Gravity.

The She’s My Religion hitmaker continued: ‘I mean, I get it when you get to a certain point in your career, like if you’re Taylor Swift or something, but you have to make them a bit more affordable, especially in this time when it seems no one has money.’

Pale Waves are keeping the cost low for fans (Picture: Kelsi Luck)

Pale Waves – consisting of Heather, Ciara Doran, Hugo Silvani, and Charlie Wood, became indie darlings after the release of their debut single There’s A Honey in 2017.

The track has become a 2010s classic and their 80s edge and guitar-led tracks have made them festival staples with Heather’s distinct voice carrying them through the past decade.

The Manchester-based singer points out they are deliberately keeping their gig prices as low as possible – capping the next tour at £30.

‘I don’t think we would ever personally charge that much,’ she shared. ‘I’ve seen people that are at our point in their careers as well and their ticket prices are like £60 or £70.

‘We’re even doing a VIP package, and I think that’s only £25 or £30 and we’re putting so much more into that package than a pop star is charging like £300 for and they get, what – a goodie bag and early entry? Which is madness. I don’t think it’s right.’

However, the need to charge more is not always down to the whims of greed, with bigger tours come bigger costs which Heather believes fans can sometimes be naive to.

She feels that ‘because you’ve been going for 10 years and you can play to 1000s of people’ sometimes means people ‘get a bit delusional’ over the realities of artists’ earnings.

‘They think that everyone’s filthy rich,’ the Perfume singer laughed. ‘That is not the case because there’s so much money that goes out to be able to even afford a tour.

‘It’s absolutely madness how much money you have to spend to be able to tour these days.’ (Picture: Luke Brennan/Getty Images)

‘It’s absolutely madness how much money you have to spend to be able to tour these days. It’s just so expensive. But I do think people who aren’t in the music industry forget how much or they don’t really see how much it costs to even put on one show.’

This is the double-edged sword of success that Pale Waves has been delicately balancing for the past decade, as charging more may alienate their dedicated fanbase.

Chart success somewhat eluded the group for the majority of their tracks and Heather admits the group ‘could be way more successful’ given their breakout hits over the years, for which she is endlessly ‘grateful’.

There’s a ‘hunger’ and a ‘drive’ in the musician, who has recently taken up singing lessons to continue to grow as an artist.

‘I still strive for a lot more for Pale Waves and I definitely won’t settle and I’ve not settled – I don’t think I ever could settle as a person,’ she confessed.

However, debut hit There’s A Honey still haunts the group as their greatest commercial track that their follow-up albums have failed to build on.

She shared: ‘It is hard to get past those first debuts for any artist because I feel like those always do the best. I’m just putting more into the graft now.

‘I just believe if you’ve been around for a minute, there’s a level of what people expect and I feel like you need to meet those expectations.’

Growing means experimenting, and their 2022 album, Unwanted, moved into a much more pop-punk sound, a stark difference from what fans had been used to.

Pale Waves began in 2014 (Picture: Daniel DeSlover/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock)

Heather calls it an ‘odd one out’ spurred on by post-lockdown frustrations and a deeply turbulent period for the band.

During this time, they also were involved in a ‘serious accident’ as their bus spun off the road on tour due to icy conditions, prompting Ciara to say they ‘thought they were going to die’.

The much moodier sound reached number one on the UK Independent chart and claimed the second spot on the album chart but it isn’t Heather’s favourite.

‘Don’t get me wrong, I love playing Jealousy live,’ she reassures Metro. ‘It’s one of the funnest songs in our whole entire set to play live. (sic)

‘But if I was gonna listen to any Pale Waves record, Unwanted would probably be the last one I would turn on.’

Smitten, to be released September 20, is said to be a return to their softer Northern roots after they ‘got the hell out of our system’

She describes the tracks as ‘big, romantic, dramatic songs that sound like they could be from an 80s or 90s movie soundtrack.’

While singles chart success continues to slip through the band’s well-established fingers, Heather reflects that could be due to the fact that alternative tracks always struggle in the top 40.

‘Alternative music is missing from the charts, it is very pop nowadays,’ she reflects, comparing it to the indie domination of the 2010s or even the 90s Britpop landscape.

‘Alternative music is missing from the charts’ (Picture: Robin Little/Redferns)

‘It’s made on a laptop these days, which is cool, but there’s not a lot of bands [in the charts] and there’s not a lot of bands in general. I really hope that more bands emerge.

‘I know it’s difficult, it’s a lot easier being solo artists but bands are cool. I like the dynamics that they all bring to a table.’

As for her own band, Heather shares she wishes their track Change had been one of their more popular songs.

‘When I wrote change, I was like, “wow, this is so good”,’ Heather said. ‘It’s very 90s.

‘A cool Alanis Morissette vibe but not as good as her because she’s the queen.’

Pale Waves’ new single Gravity is out now, with album Smitten following on September 20.

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