brian wheat says TESLA keeps touring because the band makes its living onstage. In a new interview with Charlie Kendall's Metalshop, the bassist and founding member said the group is “not wealthy guys” and that live work is how it pays the bills.
TESLA Live Show Economics
“what people don't — I don't think they realize is that TESLA's not wealthy guys. But when we play, that's how we earn our living. We have to go to work,” Wheat said. He also said record sales no longer support the business the way they once did, adding that people do not buy records like they used to, Spotify pays “really shitty rates,” and terrestrial radio pays four cents a play.
Wheat framed that reality against TESLA’s place in the old rock hierarchy. “We were never that big of a band. We weren't as big as [DEF] LEPPARD or MÖTLEY [CRÜE] or METALLICA or GUNS N' ROSES,” he said, calling those acts the “A bands” and TESLA the “B band.” The result is a band that still has to route its income through performances, not catalog money.
100-Minute Sets Now
Wheat said TESLA has been on the road for 41 years and no longer plays the marathon sets it used to deliver at the height of its career. “We used to [play longer sets]. I guess the height of our career, when everything was firing, multi-platinum albums, MTV, radio play, and everything, was probably '91, '92, when we had the album out called 'Psychotic Supper'. And we used to play two-and-a-half-hour shows. And now we do 100 minutes,” he said.
That shorter format is tied to Jeff Keith’s voice, which Wheat said is still in great shape. “We have lost a lot of great singers, and the voice is a muscle,” he said. He added that TESLA now avoids five nights in a row and said, “It takes a lot of time to do a record, and that means that's time that we have to spend off the road.”
Homage Due July 17, 2026
Wheat said TESLA plans to keep playing and issue a couple of new songs every year, even as the band prepares Homage for July 17, 2026, via Frontiers Music Srl. He said the project began as an EP before becoming a full-length album, and it arrives more than 20 years after the Real To Reel series that helped inspire the new original TESLA song “Never Alone.”
For TESLA, the practical answer is already set: more stage time, fewer studio detours, and a schedule built around earning on the road rather than waiting for old revenue streams to do the work.
