Falling in Reverse frontman Ronnie Radke went on a profanity-laced onstage tirade against the very venue his band was playing on Friday night (December 8th). The singer lambasted The Armory in Minneapolis for asking for a 25% cut of the band’s merch that night, leading Radke to refuse to sell any items at the club.
Radke and company were playing the 93X Nutcracker radio festival along with Daughtry and Sleep Theory. Before launching into the song “Popular Monster,” the vocalist took some time to address the crowd.
“If you haven’t noticed, there’s none of our merch in the back,” he began. “It has nothing to do with the radio station, it has to do with this venue. This venue is trying to charge us 25% of our fees. … What that would mean is that we’d have to charge you guys way more to make any money. So what I did was [holds middle finger up], ‘Fuck them!’ We’re not paying [this venue] fuckin’ shit! That’s fucked up. If you guys want our T-shirts, go online and pick them up. We’ll probably lose a little money … but I’m not selling my merch to lose 25% to this fuckin’ venue.”
After the show, Radke took to X (formerly Twitter) to further explain his stance, writing the following:
“.@93XRadio Nutcracker was an amazing show with Daughtry. I’ll do it again next year if they want, amazing radio station and I’m grateful for the support. Last night I refused to sell Falling in Reverse merch in the venue we were playing in because @ArmoryMn demanded I paid 25% of gross sales to them so I told @ArmoryMn to go fuck themselves and just didn’t sell merch because it didn’t sit right with me to have to up charge the fans 100 dollars a hoodie because the greedy venue thinks 25% of gross merch sales from a band is okay, for your information these venues taking a merch cut is criminal, there is no reason or excuse for venues to take bands merch % — they do it because we let them get away with it, it’s literally stealing. There’s not a single reason these venues have that makes this okay. so to anyone out there ever wondering why merch is so expensive it’s because these venues are STEALING from the artist. Last night I told @armorymn to go fuck themselves on stage and if any of you bands play this venue I’d advise you do the same, the only way this bullshit is gonna change is if we as bands all stand together and fuck their bottom line up. Streaming takes our money, the venue takes our money, the artist gets DESTROYED and disrespected by these greedy fucks. So one more time FUCK @ArmoryMn in Minneapolis but thank you to the fans the huge show and the radio station and I’m sorry we couldn’t sell our merch!”
Like Radke, back in August, Lochie Keogh, singer of the Australian metalcore act Alpha Wolf, paused his band’s set to blast a venue for taking merch cuts.
A month later, indie rocker Jeff Rosenstock called out venues for taking substantial merch cuts, sharing a detailed breakdown of the money that artists lose out on due to the common practice.
A few weeks after that, Live Nation announced it would no longer take merch cuts at any of its owned-and-operated venues, at least until the end of the year. However, the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) called Live Nation’s decision a move to lure bands away from independently owned clubs.
Watch Ronnie Radke’s onstage tirade in the TikTok video below.
@roxxreplay Thank you Ronnie 🤘🏻🎶☠️ #taken #metal #radiopersonality #morningshowhost #emo #ronnieradke #fallinginreverse
.@93XRadio nut cracker was an amazing show with daughtry I’ll do it again next year if they want, amazing radio station and I’m grateful for the support
Last night I refused to sell falling in reverse merch in the venue we were playing in because @ArmoryMn demanded I paid 25%… pic.twitter.com/4vvCiGXGDM
— Ronnie (@RonnieRadke) December 9, 2023
