La Roux Insists She Doesn't Make Money On Record Sales, Artist 'Doesn't Break Even'

Praise for the music industry is few and far between these days, with many artists struggling to make financial gains on the album charts.

Count La Roux as one of the disgruntled stars who's currently relying on her live act to bring in the dough. In fact, she told Digital Spy, "I've never made any money from record sales, and we sold nearly 8 million records if you count all the singles."

How can that be?

"I spent two years on Trouble in Paradise and I most likely won't make any money out of it," she said. "The only money I will make is from radio play. All the money I've had up until now is from radio. I think people find this really, really, really hard to believe. It's not a lie, it's just the way it is. It's fine as long as people don't think you're a millionaire, which people sort of do."

The key to success, she said, now lies in how reputable an artist is as a live act.

"Until you start getting to much larger venues, if you've got a five-piece band like I have, you find it very difficult to break even," she said. "We don't break even. Thank God we're really passionate about what we do and we don't mind when we lose money. We will try to make money by moving up to larger venues and building ourselves up as a live act, so that's become unbelievably important, which has been great for the music industry."

And then there's the typical apocalyptic soundbite when it comes to the new generation of music fans.

"I don't think we should all be like the '80s and have 20 cars, be millionaires and be like George Michael or anything like that, but there's a happy medium that, at the moment, isn't being met," she said. "I don't think we're instilling the value of music into a younger generation. It's also really scary that people can listen to such low quality files and not get a headache. It freaks me out."

Check out the full interview here.

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