Touring or Stay at Home?

Question: Ive always wondered how esential to a bands survival is touring? I know that loads of bands talk about how through touring its how they make money, but on the other side of the coin look at a band like ulver or ewigkiet who actually have some mystique about them and are able to do other things musically because they dont play live, what side of the fence do earache sit regarding this? From:

Answer:For new bands, Its all about building an audience..by any means necessary, and touring is the most sure-fire way to do it that i know of.Music is booming, online and onstage- so any new band starting out which doesn't tour is basically a hobby band, and in staying at home, thats most likely how they will remain.I firmly believe touring is an essential ingredient to kick start the career of any professionally-minded band- professional in the sense that all the members would want to make a living from the band, no dayjobs.Plenty of bands we know have less lofty ambitions, people of course have different ideas on what constitutes a 'career' - sadly, we dont work with such bands for long.
The live circuit for bands is booming nowadays as kids download music for free and instead prefer to check out bands live, rather than purchase a CD.In many ways the sheer hard work involved in the touring aspect is what weeds out the serious bands from the wannabees.The band meets the public for real, in the flesh, and its this constant real interaction with the public which i beleive magically leads to success.

I admit there is probably a handful of examples of biggish metal bands who have never played a gig, but are quite legendary in the scene- tho I cant actually think of any right now, even Emperor did actually tour quite a bit in the early days.

In the internet era, message board promo, myspace fan interacting & youtube clips could in theory replace the touring aspect, but the merchandise income is what many band members live off nowadays, so no touring severly limits this aspect.