Response
to a letter from Rick
wrote: That
is what a rock band does! That is the gig! Rock and Roll is
not for the timid. Like Lynyrd Skynyrd you've got to become
STREET SURVIVORS! Every band in the world starts out playing
shit hole bars and clubs and some do that for their entire lives.
That's where 99% of every rock group that is or ever was performs
their music, very few play Madison Sq. Garden or headline at
Bonnaroo.
Some
of the lucky ones bust out of the bar scene….become 'big
time' for a while and then end up back in the bars.There are
hundreds of examples, but lets take Leslie West. Started out
in The Vagrants, one of the greatest bar bands in history and
played every dive in New York. Then he put Mountain together
and they moved up the food chain headlining at the Fillmore's
and doing Woodstock and all that. Then he even rose higher with
West, Bruce and Laing and headlined the big arenas and festivals.
Rick:
For a while, things didn't really change that much. We had spent
more on recording "Snappin' Necks" than the record
company had given us as an advance. Rick:
Now we are approaching the end of 2006 and, as the Machine Head
album so appropriately notes, "The More Things Change,
The More They Stay The Same."
Ray: I agree, that's what I'm talking about here. You and your band may be young and doing your thing today, but nothing that you are going through is new. Another way to say it is… it's always new for someone… and in this case you and your band are that someone. Maybe you don't know about it, but it is the way it always was. From The Pogues web site: "Shane MacGowan suffered severe damage to the ligaments of one of his knees when he fell on stage at the Orpheum Theatre, Boston on March 11. Regrettably this injury caused the late cancellation of the March 14 opening (sold out) New York show at Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan." Flashback to March 11, mid 70's. I was the local promotion guy in Manhattan for The Who and I got word that Keith Moon "got messed up somehow" at the gig in Boston and that the sold out show in New York was cancelled. "The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same." Rick:
In the past twelve years I've had seven official releases with
Stuck Mojo, three with Fozzy, one with Sick Speed and one with
The Duke, my solo effort. Rick:
Every success was accompanied by a great desire to achieve
and do more. Every failure was an opportunity to learn from
our mistakes and was humbly embraced. Everything I have learned
from being signed to four different record companies and from
having licensed albums to over a dozen distributors around the
world has brought me to a single conclusion. From now on we
really should try to make and sell albums without them. Rick:
Looking back, Century Media was a great record company
for Stuck Mojo. The people who worked for the label took pride
in doing a great job and worked hard for our band. The down
side was that, at that time, we were just a bunch of young,
eager and naive musicians who signed a contract that would prohibit
us from making much more than if we had taken jobs at McDonalds.
Of course, that's our fault, not theirs, as they did not force
us to sign the deal. In fairness, we never cared about the contract,
the publishing or the royalty rate. Rick:
We just wanted to destroy the stage in whatever town we were
in and then get in the van, drive to the next town and do it
again and again. Rick:
In retrospect, it was the best experience that I ever had with
a label. We were broke, but we had lived the dream. But, this
is where the nightmare began. Palm Records, after putting out
the debut Fozzy album in October of 2000, disappeared off the
face of the earth. Palm has never returned a phone call, paid
us a cent of royalties or even attempted to send us a sales
statement. Sonic Rendesvous, the Dutch label who released my
Sick Speed record in 2002, delivered my first statement on schedule
(didn't include the check, but that's nit-picking), but shortly
thereafter disappeared and is still selling that album years
after the contract has expired. To date I have still never received
a cent from the sales of that album. Rick:
When the process began to write and record the third Fozzy record,
"All That Remains," the decision was made to record
(Rich) and finance (Jericho) the album ourselves. This would
allow us 100% creative control with a maximum return on the
financial investment. Well, once again....not so much. But I'll
get to that in a second. To get the album in shops, we licensed
the album to a different distributor in each major market around
the world. In Europe, it was distributed by SPV....and they
still owe us money. In Canada, by Koch.....and they still owe
us money. But, the award for the largest debt (in excess of
$100,000) goes to our US distributor, SMD. At least all of these
companies admit to owing us the money. I guess that's the first
step toward collecting on a debt owed for almost two years.
Rick:
I signed "The Duke" to Spitfire/Eagle Records for
a two album deal. The debut album, "My Kung Fu Is Good,"
was released in April of 2005 and, as stated in the contract,
my first sales statement was due by September of that same year.
As of today (12-10-06), I have still not received that first
statement from Spitfire. So, as you can imagine, no royalties
have been paid either. |
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