We Owe Warner $10 Million....Catch Us If You Can!

If you remember my last blog, I explained how bands go about getting into a seemingly awesome record contract, only to be screwed by empty suits who are more business savvy then a young up and coming band; thus swindling them out of more than money. So here a bands sits, broke and owing yet more money to their label. What are they gonna do? One option is to tour, tour your ass off. Going back to our Fall Out Boy example: Let's hope the boys were smart enough to set some of that money aside to finance the initial leg of their tour. When you're the "next big thing" or you're a hot band that will pack a crowd into a mid-sized venue (St. Andrews, Blind Pig, etc) you won't have to pay to rent the club, in fact, the club will pay YOU! How cool is that? OK, so let's say that the tour is in 10 cities (for mathematical purposes) and they are paid $100,000 per show from the club promoters. Because the album was somewhat weak, there is quite an elaborate stage show, and it costs $5,000 per show, and payroll for all your techs, roadies, gophers, drivers and the like runs another $5,000 per show. If you're lucky enough to have a manager that loves you and manages to score you 10% of the gate on top of the $100,000 per show you get for just showing up, AND he scores you an appearance in town which pays $5,000. Sounds pretty dope right? RIGHT! But wait, there's MORE! On top of all that freakin' money, you get more from the sales of your swag. T-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, and other vital emo gear. Nothing says I'm in individual like having the same hoodie, t-shirt, and haircut combo as Pete Wentz. FYI, emokid, having the same gear and 'do as Pete won't mean you get to fuck Ashlee Simpson...or even a lookalike, but that's a totally different story. Moving on....
So here's where we stand.

PERFORMANCE FEES: $100,000 (x10) = $1,000,000
+ 10% of GATE (2500 @ $40 each at 10% times 10 shows) = $100,000
+ Swag Sales (1000 units @ $20 each times 10 shows) = $200,000
+ APPEARANCE FEES: $5,000 (x10) = $50,000
TOTAL INCOME = $1,350,000
- CREW PAYROLL $5,000 (x10) = $50,000
- STAGE SETUP $5,000 (x10) = $50,000.
- MISC EXPENSES (management's cut, hotels, gas, food, etc.) = $50,000
TOTAL EXPENSES = $1,200,000

Well, fuck, we still owe the label another $2.8 million. That means we have to tour MORE! This is why you will see years between albums from your favorite bands, because they have to tour all over the planet just to cover their asses with the label. Some bands will tour for 2-3 years criss-crossing the globe to cover fronted money. If the band mimicks the same tour as before, would have to tour 3 more times just to come out ahead of owing the label. After the second leg, they still owe $1.6 Million, after the third, $0.4, and after the final leg, they are up $800,000 which still needs to be split amongst the members of the band. So after being away from your families for in excess of 1 year you only made $200,000. Not a bad deal, if you discount the fact that you had to bust your ass to make someone else $10 million and all they compensated you for was $200,000 and said "Thanks, now go make another record." The next stage is the part that makes or breaks a band in terms of survival....stay tuned!

Taking Down Sony...If They Didn't Own Me

One of the largest problems I have with the record industry is the control over EVERY aspect of an artists life that they hold. Bands are at the complete mercy of their label and have to go to them for nearly everything. Granted, given a band's popularity, ANYTHING they want will gladly be provided to them, however any funds "fronted" by the label MUST be paid prior to the artist receiving any royalties. In addition, any work done under a label becomes property of the label. So, in essence, the artists write and record fantastic work, pride themselves on it, and technically, it isn't even theirs. Yes, bands get a percentage of the sales of the record and any royalties from licensing the song, but they have no control over who the label sells their work to. For example, let's say Fall Out Boy's "Dance, Dance" is licensed to BMW for a commercial. Maybe Pete Wentz is USA true blue kind of guy and only buys American-made products and doesn't want his work associated with anything but American products....well, too fucking bad, bro. You and your emo haircut have no say, because you don't own the rights to your song, and besides, you owe the label another 4 million for all the crap you guys bought during the recording of your last album. Yeah, that's right, take a peek at this, again let's use Fall Out Boy as an example, and during the recording of their new album, the label fronts the guys 10 million for studio time, new guitars, and misc. expenses. So, they cut the album and it sells...poorly. The take from the sales after the first year is 4 million. Let's say the label licensed a song form the album for 1 million and it produced 1 million in royalties. Sounds like FOB is living fat right? Wrong. Check this:

"Fronted" Money: $10 Million
Sales: $4 million
Licensing: $1 million
Royalties: $1 million

Money Owed to label: $10 Million
Sales, Licensing & Royalties: $6 million
Money STILL owed to label (Fronted money minus S+L+R): $4 Million.

That's right, they STILL owe their label $4 Million bucks? Which means they they will see ZERO dollars from their work until that $4 million is paid. Which could take years if the album was awful and stopped selling. What's a band to do? Stay tuned....

A Message to the "Big 4"

Many of you know my feelings behind the music "industry" as a whole and my thoughts behind record labels and whatnot. For those of you who don't....to surmise, I hate them. An interesting question was posed to me the other day; and its one that many up-and-coming artists and bands are faced with almost daily. When you have an empty suit from a label with a contract and the resources that come with it, are you REALLY man enough to say "No Thanks?".

Honestly, I couldn't answer that question. My goal musically has always been simply to have people hear my work. The best way to have people hear your work, is to have a marketing team behind you that creates are groundswell about your band. Record companies do exactly that. Basically they are just glorified marketing agencies. Do you really think that the head of Warner Brothers Music Division is rocking out the new Avenged Sevenfold CD while some guy is driving him around in a Bentley? I don't think so.

If you wiki the term "record label" you will find that there are four (yes, only FOUR) Major record labels, all of which are owned by larger corporations. Something is wrong with this. Somehow I don't think that the bigwigs at Sony care about the hot new metalcore band in Des Moines, Iowa. What they see, are 500,000 Myspace fans, which equates to 500,000 dollar signs. There are many things that are wrong with the "business" side of music, and there are some thoughts and changes that I propose or have heard of that could change the way things are being done. Stay tuned......

While You Sleep

So after some suggestion, I've decided that my blog on myspace needs a second home. Stay tuned for more posts regarding my musical opines coming soon.