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Speaker 1: You are listening to w m and H S ninety
five point three Command God, don't get up green Lea.
Speaker 6: Maxill Coving, Good morning, everybody, here we go.
Speaker 1: It is that time again. Matt Connorton unleashed and we
are live from the studios of w m n H
ninety five point three FM. Inglorious of Manchester, New Hampshire.
Of course, you can stream the show at Matt connorton
dot com slash live and you can go there for
all your live streaming options, social media links, contact and
fosshow archives, et cetera, et cetera. Today is Saturday, November thirtieth,
two thousand, twenty twenty four and I am not alone.
Speaker 7: Jen morning.
Speaker 1: Jenny is here as well at the news table. Yes,
we have a great show for you today coming up
in just a few minutes. We're going to be joined
by phone by our friend Isaac Sierra, also known as
Truth also known as True Rhymes. And then on the
second hour, let's see, second hour, we've got Tony and
Martin from the project Naked Without It. They're going to
be skyping in from the UK. And then in the
third hour today we have a Vice's Ink returning to
the show and this time they're going to perform live.
They're from Portland, Maine and they drive all the way here,
which we appreciate totally. That's gotta be what hour and
a half I'm Portland, yeah, baby, So welcome everybody, and uh,
let's see, well if you had a great Thanksgiving by
the way we are going to I think it's the
world radio premiere of Isaac's here as new track bar
none where it's kind of new. It's been out for
a little bit, but we have a radio edit of that.
We're going to spin to open the interview. Let's see.
I want to remind everybody today if you don't know,
is a Small Business Saturday and our great sponsor, the
Sister Witch Company, they've got a great event. I'm looking
for the tab. Did I close that tab? Well, they've
got I'll reopen the tab but on the computer here.
But today they've got a great event going on at
the Manchester Masonic Temple here it is the Magical Market
Small Business Psychic Fair. This begins at eleven thirty am
and goes to six pm today. This is from their website.
Come join us on Small Business Saturday from eleven thirty
to six where you will find some of the most
amazing vendors and they're handsome arts and they're handsome items
and art. This will be a packed event, one floor only,
with a separate room dedicated to our readers and healers.
This is the time of year where small businesses need
you more than any big box store. As I like
to say, you know, Walmart doesn't need any more of
your money, but small businesses do. Come out and meet
us and watch us light up when we make a sale.
This is being held at the Manchester Masonic Temple, which
is at fifteen oh five Elm Street in Manchester. So
that's happening today. They've got another one too, by the way,
coming up on December twenty first, from noon to five pm,
which will also be at the Masonic Temple. But today's event,
of course, like I said, small Business Saturday, please support
your small local businesses. It is so important and so
vital to the economy. And you know, yeah, those big
box stores they're going to be just fine with or
without your patronage, so we don't have to worry about them.
But Sister Witch Company a great small business who I
suggest you support. They've been on the show and they're
great people. And I actually participated in one of the
events that they had at Sister Witch Company. Hey, welcome
back everybody. It is Matt Connorton Unleashed. We are live
on Saturday Morning. Our guest is m I A. So
we are moving on.
Speaker 8: But here we go.
Speaker 1: So on the program, when that on the rare occasion
something like that happens. You know, the good thing is
we always have other things to talk about. We do
have great guests coming up later in the show. Of course,
second hour we have Tony and Martin from the project
Naked Without It. They're going to be skyping in all
the way from the UK. And then in the third
hour we are joined live in studio by Vices Inc.
A great, great band from Portland, Maine, and they've been
doing a lot of a lot of really big stuff,
so looking forward to talking with them. They have some
new singles and they even well actually I have something
else too from them, but that's a surprise. So lots
to do on this Saturday morning. But you know, we
do talk. We know a lot of people in the
industry listening to the show, in the music industry, and
we like to like to talk about things going on
in the music industry. Unfortunately, a lot of what does
go on in the music industry that is particularly fascinating
is it often has to do with people suing each other.
You know, I had put way back, remember when we
did the segment about Don Henley, uh suing someone because
Don Henley is very litigious. That segment I had, I
had clipped it and put it up on YouTube, and
that is by far the most listened to segment that
we've ever done on the show. That still gets views
on the YouTube, uh, on our on our YouTube channel.
But what is uh, what has been happening, So there's
a little bit of new information here on this particular subject.
You know, the band Limp Biscuit, they were they first
got very big in the nineties, and you know, they've
had a resurgence and they do very well when they tour.
And that that song was that song Dad Vibes maybe
a year ago, maybe maybe longer, maybe two years ago
now that I really like it was kind of kind
of a comeback single, maybe a year and a half ago.
But yeah, you know I was I was kind of
a fan of Limp Biscuit back in the day. I
was in a band called I was in a band
called the Jinx and wait was it in the Jinkster
in My Life Crisis. Our singer Rhino Ryan Pope, he
would well, at one point we were covering the song
break stuff, and I wasn't a big fan of doing
covers in the bands I was in because I felt
that our originals were strong enough, we didn't need to
do a lot of covers, but they talked the guys
talked me into doing break stuff. And the breakdown in
that song where Fred Durst gets really intense and like
really angry, Ryan would like would like turn red. He
would get so into it and get so into that
part of the song. It was fun. So anyway, So
part of why this is so fascinating to me is
this is not an uncommon tale. What we're going to
talk about if you don't know about about this, Limp
Biscuit is suing their record label, UMG Universal Music Group
for two hundred million dollars in unpaid royalties. Now, artists
having to sue their record label for unpaid royalties is not,
in and of itself a new story, but for two
hundred million dollars is pretty staggering because what has happened is,
according to Fred Durst and his representation, Universal Music Group
never paid Limp Biscuit anything after selling millions and millions
and millions of albums.
Speaker 7: But they're claiming.
Speaker 1: That's not true UMG, Well, of course they are.
Speaker 7: UMG says they paid lymp Biscuit one point zero three
million dollars in back royalties in August of twenty twenty four. Yes,
after uh after wait after the fact, yeah yeah, backwards.
Speaker 1: After after Fred Durst spoke up and said, hey, uh,
I think you guys owe us some money. Yeah, so
they finally, but olymp Biscuit is alleging they owe they
owe them two hundred million or or a lower number
plus damages however that works out. Now. Unfortunately, this is
not an uncommon tale though. There's a there's a term
I learned recently, spaghetti accounting, and it's a way that
these big labels and you know, and you even hear
stories with smaller labels, independent labels, but hopefully a lot
less because you don't you don't want to hear those
stories because uh, those stories are unpleasant, you know, because
you know, especially in a venue like this, we always
advocate for artists. But but it's not unusual for record
labels and other entities within the music industry to use
some creative accounting, shall we say, or spaghetti accounting. That's
a term that I just learned recently. And I learned
that term for me. Yeah, oh, spaghetti accounting, Yeah, yeah,
I mean, I like spaghetti but I don't think I'm
a fan of spaghetti accounting, must accounting when I think
that's the idea, So that way it's hard to figure out, uh,
where all that money went. I learned that term from
there's a YouTuber that I really like, uh who we've
talked about taught music attorney and or law tuber. That's
another term I learned recently, which is a a lawyer
who YouTube's does youtubing.
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: Law tuber?
Speaker 7: Law tuber.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's a lot of law tubers. They're they're lawyers
who do we have to keep making up new works
like the Might's Touched that, like the Might's Touch Network,
which we're fans of. You know, they're law tubers. So yes,
there's always new term. Young people are always coming up
with new terms. Anyway, what was the one that I knew?
There was a term that I knew that that DJ
Reckless didn't know, and I was like, how do I
know this? And you don't remember what it was?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 1: It was thought th h O T And I'm not
gonna and I'm not gonna say on the air what
it means. But I was stunned.
Speaker 7: I don't even remember.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you off. But I was stunned that he
that he didn't know what that meant, and I did.
But anyway, but it's not it's not a nice uh
it's not a nice term. But and it's not yeah, yeah, right,
right exactly.
Speaker 7: But uh u m G at this point is trying
to say this whole thing should be thrown out because
they're making it up.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 7: Oh, of course making this up, that's what they're saying.
Speaker 1: Of course, now what they also claim, So people who
don't know how this works with major labels, when a
major label signs you, they give you. When they sign
you and they're gonna release your album, they give you
they give you an advance on that album. So say,
for example, we'll use nice, big round numbers because I'm
not good at math, so it makes it easier for me,
But it also makes it easier to explain these concepts
for people who don't know how this works. So because
I think people outside of the industry have this idea
that a record label signs you and they give you
tons of money up front, and now you're suddenly a
millionaire and you're being flown out to LA and you're
put up in the Playboy mansion or something, and you're
surrounded by supermodels all day and everything. I think, at
least I think there was a time when that was
the general perception that people had about how this music
industry works.
Speaker 7: And it's not.
Speaker 1: The money that you're giving up front is actually an
advance so they give you. So say they give you
a million dollar advance. And again I'm using big round numbers,
but let's say they give you a million dollar advance.
That's to make your album. So you're going to spend
that money. That's not like your money to just put
into your bank account, and now you're a millionaire and
you get to go make your album. But now you're
you're a millionaire because you're about to be famous, or
you're already becoming famous. It doesn't work that way. So
that's that's actually an advance on your earnings. So they're
giving you that money, they're investing that money in you,
giving you that money up front for you to go
and spend one making your album. Now, what some artists
might do in a situation like that, they get that
million dollar advance, but they're only going to spend a
half a million making their album, you know, So there
are ways to do that. Tom Scholz from Boston famously
or infamously did something like that where the label advanced
him something like the label advance some some something like
fifty grand and he made the record for fifteen hundred
dollars at home, in his home studio or something like that.
That's awesome, yeah, so so so that that does happen.
But but again it's not they're not paying you this
money to keep. It's an advance, and advance is recooped.
So this term recoupment is where people can get tripped up.
So they're gonna get that money back. And the way
they're gonna get that money back is you make the album,
they release the album, they do all the promotion and everything,
but they're gonna recoup that money they advanced you. That's
not yours to keep and you which means you don't
get anything from sales anything until that money is completely
paid back. So you're not getting a check from the
label until all of that advance money has been recouped
by the label. So limp biscuit. So according to UMG,
and again they've they've made additional statements now in recent days.
But according to UMG. Back when this was first filed,
their claim was, well, no, we we hadn't paid Olympus
get anything because they hadn't you know, they hadn't settled
the recoupment yet. Now this is this is where it
really gets nuts and again. And I have an article
in front of me, and I know you you have
something as well. I have something from Billboard that'll explain
this in a little bit bit more detail. But right
now I'm just speaking extemporaneously about what I know about
this so far, because I've been following it pretty closely.
Feel I'm fascinated by this kind of thing.
Speaker 9: So what.
Speaker 1: What what happened at one point was so either Fred
Durst or representatives of Fred Durst's management or attorneys whomever,
probably all of them, at various points, tried.
Speaker 7: To sign in.
Speaker 1: It's like a record label, a big company like UMG.
Speaker 8: They they will.
Speaker 1: Create a portal like you know how for anything financial, right,
you know, whether a bank account or some sort of service.
You know, you have a portal that you log into
and you can see all your numbers and see what
your bank balance is and do all this stuff.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 1: So the record label gives you as an artist a
portal to sign into. But I guess there was one
point where Olympus gets this sounds so we're talking about
this huge, you know, multimillion dollar company here, right. But
they create a portal and they give and so the
artist actually gets you know, a username and password basically
to sign into their portal where they can look at
all their stuff. The idea being, you know, you can
see what your recoupment balance is, how much is left
on your recoupment, what royalties are owed to you. You know,
you can compare these numbers. And I guess limpis gets
portal wasn't working correctly, or hadn't been updated or something
just weird stuff. Well, we're talking about a multimillion dollar
company here, right, umg is a huge company, but they
can't get the little things right to even make it
so that limp Biscuit as a business entity, can see
what's going on with their account. And but the suspicion is,
well that's intentional. Of course, they make it hard because
they're trying to hide things. They're trying to hide things
from you. They don't want you to see what the
real numbers are.
Speaker 7: And the other side of that too, that you forget about.
Is that the longer that UMG has the money in
their bank account, the more money it's making for them,
right and exactly exactly. Insurance companies do the same thing.
The longer it takes that they have to pay out,
the more money they make.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, of course it's yeah, it's a dirty business.
Speaker 7: So makes you wonder if there wouldn't be some way
to prevent that, Like, could there be some way to
protect artists and in law that precludes them from being
able to pulled onto money like that?
Speaker 1: We've that mic up a little bit, would you? Uh
so I'm not loud enough. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 7: This is something that we don't normally experience.
Speaker 8: There you go.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, and that so that one million dollars,
it was roughly one million that they finally paid Limp
Biscuit in September of this year of this year, twenty
twenty four, after after they started making noise about hey,
we haven't been paid anything that that they they claim
that the reason that wasn't paid, it should have been paid,
but the reason that wasn't was because of a software error.
So because of a software error that that one million
dollars just sat there and hadn't gone to the band
yet again. Universal Music Group, this enormous, multimillion dollar company.
But you know, like it's it's hard. I mean, this
will all.
Speaker 7: The blaming game too. It's a blaming game because UMG
is saying, oh no, that this is your management's fault,
that your your bit manager wasn't like keeping track of things.
It's not us, because they're saying that they can show
for over a year they were having good communications with
this guy Paul, who's in charge of the manager, but
the business manager, and that they were keeping in contact
with him, and it's all about them not you know,
it's interesting how they try to like go, oh, look
over here, your guy wasn't keeping track of things, so
never mind us, Like, look over, it's your guy's fault,
he didn't keep track of things, so it's not our
fault for not paying you. You know, that's like so
twisted that that's what they walk in with and that's
actually considered a possibility, Like how does that even get entertained? Oh,
your guy wasn't paying attention, so we got away with
keeping more money. So hahaha, this seems wrong. Maybe I'm
reading it wrong, but that's pretty much. What it sounds
like they're trying to indicate with me is we didn't
conceal anything. You guys just didn't keep.
Speaker 1: Track of it, right right.
Speaker 11: This is.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's not always necessarily malfeasance. Sometimes somebody just
signs a bad deal or or people get in over
their heads they don't understand how this all works. Remember
when TLC, this is probably one of the greatest examples.
When TLC. You know, that first album, Crazy Sexy Cool
was huge. It's sold a gazillion copies, right, well, I
think it was triple platinum, but it seems like it
was because CLC was everywhere. It seems like the album
was h you know, I think he sold three million.
But they were broke with a triple platinum album because
of the way the contract was structured and the recruitment,
they weren't getting any royalties and they and they were
very public about it, and they got their deal renegotiated
because because they were very public about it, like they were,
they were not shy about talking about what was going on.
But they're you know, they're at the Grammys, you know,
getting an award for Best New Album or whatever it was,
and they're like and they're like, yeah, we we have
no money and and we've sold three million copies of
our album and we're broke, and and that's that's one
of the most well publicized examples because I think because
they were so public about it, because a lot of
times too, you learn about these things later on because
at the time that it's happening to an artist, they
don't necessarily want to go public about it because they
don't want, you know, they don't want to deal with
the embarrassment of it. You know, Oh, I got I
kind of got screwed here or whatever. My favorite band.
Of course, as longtime listeners know, Kiss they actually sued PolyGram.
They were on PolyGram. This was in the early eighties,
very early eighties. This was like when they were making
the transition from makeup to non makeup, and they sued
PolyGram for back royalties and they got a settlement over it,
although it was kind of it was kind of small,
but they did get something from it. But we should
look at so the other thing about this though.
Speaker 7: This isn't just Limp Biscuit. And I didn't even realize
this until looking back on the notes now that there's
another organization that apparently owes some of this, owns some
of the copyright, the Flawless Records. It's called yeah, so
apparently that's his imprint, by the way, So what do
you mean is imprint?
Speaker 1: So there was this thing it started happening in the
nineties where some artists would if they were on a label,
the label would give the artist if they were interested
in developing other artists, they would give them almost like
a sub label, oh, which is part of the bigger label,
and they would call that an imprint. So Flawless Records
was Fred Durst's imprint, and he actually did break a
couple of bands on his imprint label.
Speaker 7: Well, it's just interesting that you noted they gave Limp
Biscuit a million. Well, they gave another two million the
Flawless Records. But we don't really owe you any money.
It's made up. They're claiming you've made this up. Yeah,
but we're dishing out over three million more dollars. Ooh, sorry,
you know, just some money, but we didn't really do anything.
Speaker 1: It's faked spaghetti accounting.
Speaker 7: How the heck does that work in law?
Speaker 4: Though?
Speaker 7: How do you how do you say this is all
made up? And then you're paying money out the other side.
But it's like it's like I'm guilty, but I'm not guilty.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, I think I think probably they would say, uh,
flawless records. I mean that's a separate account from the
limp biscuit account. In fact, flawless records. Probably they probably
have a separate username and password for their their their
big fancy portal.
Speaker 7: Two factor identification.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's probably very, very up to date.
Speaker 7: I'm sure it operates much like insurance portals.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: It's like you want to appeal that. Okay, get a
pen and paper. Let's sit down and write an old
fashioned letter. Nothing electronic about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, send us a certified letter.
Speaker 7: Meanwhile, give us your money.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you'll get your royalties.
Speaker 7: You don't even have to put your card and just
skin it. I'll take your money very easily. Yeah, but
not the other way around.
Speaker 4: So this is the update.
Speaker 1: This is from billboard dot com. UMG hits back at
Olympus gets two hundred million dollar lawsuit, calls hidden royalty
accusations fiction. It says here UMG is firing back at
a lawsuit from Olympus at front Manfred Durst claiming the
label owes the band more than two hundred million dollars,
calling the allegation's fiction and demanding maybe three out of court.
The blockbuster lawsuit, filed last month in LA federal court,
claimed that Durst had not seen a diamond royalties over
the decades, and that hundreds of other artists may have
been treated similarly under systemic and fraudulent policies. But in
UMG's first response, this is UMG's they're finally responding to
this officially after several months, well a couple months. In
their first response on Friday, attorneys for the label said
the lawsuit must be dismissed immediately because it is based
on a fallacy. Writers. Rolin A. Ransom, an attorney with
the law firm Sidley Austen who represents UMG in the suit, said, quote,
plaintiff's entire narrative that UMG tried to conceal royalties is
a fiction. Plaintiff's complaint fails as a matter of law
and should be dismissed with prejudice unquote. The key problem
with Durst's claims, according to UMG's attorneys, it's that documents
included in his own lawsuit eviscerate his allegations. They specifically
cite emails in which a UMG exec appears to have
reached out to get royalties flowing, but was rebuffed by
the band's own business manager. Yeah. I remember reading that
part too, and that doesn't make sense, like why would
that even happen, But that's that's what they're claiming now.
The company also said in Friday's filing, quote, over a
year before plaintiff's discovery of allegedly concealed royalties, UMG affirmatively
and unilaterally reached out to Olympis guits representative so that
it could begin making royalty payments to the band, and
was instead informed by him that all members of Olympis
Gut but one, including plaintiff Durst, had assigned their royalty
shares to others and were therefore not entitled any royalty
payments from UMG. Unquote.
Speaker 7: So it's not that I owe you money, it's that
you're not. I don't. You don't actually have the right
assume me. So even the way all your money, I'm
not going to give it to you. I don't know,
don't alst, I don't know. That's what it feels like,
but you were right. There's another notation I just found
on Music Business World that it's also involving other artists. Yeah,
from that Durst did have under flawless records. Yeah, yeah,
so it's not just Lumbiscuit, it's other bands music as well.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mention who are there anything it does it does
It just says other because there's at least one one
band that that he broke, that broke big, that had
a big hit, and I can't remember who it was now.
So in a statement to Billboard on Monday, Durst lawyers
sharply refuted the arguments made in UMG's motion to dismiss
the case. Attorney Mark Fabiani said, quote, when someone has
caught red handed, their first response is often to hire
very expensive outside law firms who first, as a matter
of course, try anything to dismiss the suit when they
are in trouble with the facts. In this case, we
believe UMG is using a typical, formulaic, well trodden strategy
of reaching for any escape route by desperately grasping at
technicalities unquote. Durst and Lymbiscuit sued UMG in October, claiming
that the band had quote never received any royalties from
UMG unquote despite its huge success over the years, quote,
the band had still not been paid a single cent
by UMG in any royalties until taking action unquote.
Speaker 7: So interestingly, Dearth is the sole owner of Flawless Records. Interestingly,
I think I may have.
Speaker 1: When I was talking about how an imprint works, I
may have misspoken. It's not like it's a part of
the label, but it's so because there were a number
of artists who who did this. This was a thing
in the nineties and into the two thousands, like I
think jay Z had an imprint and some others. So
it's it's like a separate record label, but the major
label that the imprint is associated with handles all the distribution.
So even though the imprint kind of is kind of
is an independent label, in a sense, the major label
that's associated with does well. The imprint gets used the
major label's entire distribution pipeline and whatever other promotional resources
are available. So that makes sense. And I think Gene Simmons,
by you know, I mentioned Kiss earlier, Gene Simmons had
an imprint label actually before it was even really a thing,
in the eighties, he had an I think I think
it was. It was just called Simmons Records. I think
it was. It was before imprints were really a thing.
Speaker 7: But did he did he ever break anybody?
Speaker 1: No, it didn't last. Tried a lot of things in
the eighties that didn't last, Like he tried producing other
artists and you know, and of course he had a
short lived acting career, and.
Speaker 7: You would think that would have made more money than Lunchbox.
Speaker 1: But no, oh no, well, oh no, no, no, no,
it says here. The claim was something of a stunner.
How had one of the biggest bands of its era,
which sold millions of records during the music industry's MTV
fueled Turn of the century glory days, Because remember we're
talking late nineties into the early two thousands, how did
they still never have been paid any royalties nearly three
decades later. According to Durst, the answer was an appalling
and unsettling scheme to conceal royalties from artists and keep
those profits for itself. He claimed the company essentially kept
Limpiskit in the red with shady bookkeeping, allowing it to
falsely claim the band remained unrecouped, meaning its royalties still
had not surpass the amount the group had been paid
in upfront advances. In other words, the advance had not
been the advances because an advance for each album had
not been paid back. According But the.
Speaker 7: Bulk of the main thrust of the claim was that
they sold like forty five million albums and never got
a dime of royalty. Yeah until they filed a lawsuit. Yeah,
then they got money. But now they're still saying, no,
you made that up.
Speaker 1: Well or until they well, yeah, well until they until
they started making noise about it because they got that million.
UMG finally gave them that million back in September, but
the suit was actually filed in October.
Speaker 7: No, but the motion to dismiss they filed was November
twenty second, So that just happened. You just filed the
motion to dismiss.
Speaker 1: Right, they're just now responding.
Speaker 7: But quote unquote, because the complaint is based on a fallacy,
how do you say that after you just handed out
three million dollars? Like, I don't get that, Well, how
is that a viable motion after you just handed over
three mins?
Speaker 1: Well, but I think they're saying that's all that's all
they were owed, you know, the million, the million to
um Biscuit that's all.
Speaker 7: Then the two million to the record to the label.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's kind of a separate thing the sub label.
Speaker 7: Yeah it is, but it isn't because there's is a
Stone owner, So technically he's the dude on both ends. Yeah,
he's getting the three mil. It's just under two different names.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is strange that his imprint label would have
more money coming to it than you know, the band
he's in that sold for forty five million records, right yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well it because goes to back up everything we've
been talking about. Ye, how these companies really have ripped
off artists for a really long time. Yeah, I mean
what do they artists get? What's an artist get these days?
If they're streaming like less than a quarter of a
penny or something like that, Like they there's no they
have to have a ridiculous number of plays before they
can even make enough money to pay for a meal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's barely anything. Spotify doesn't a lot of art.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they won't put their stuff on Spotify because it
is a big rip off for them. Yeah, they don't
get anything out of it. But on the other hand,
if everybody's using Spotify and you don't put your music
on there. You know, it's a catch twenty two for
an artist. You want to be heard, but you also
want to get paid, you know. It's kind of the
part of the point. Yes, sharing music is wonderful, but
it's also about getting paid as an artist. To everything
you bring to the table.
Speaker 8: There is there is this.
Speaker 1: There is a certain truth though. So another thing people
probably don't know who aren't in the industry is that
it's really always been the case to some degree that
artists don't make that much in simple royalties in the
sense that like I remember I remember Meat Loaf talking
in an interview once about how you know, like like
when Bad Out of Hell, which I have no idea
at this point, how many millions of uh. I mean,
it's probably surpassed one hundred million albums sold by now,
But I remember early in his career he was talking
about how little money he got, you know, like like
pennies per units sold The Bad Out of Hell. But
the truth is the real money, for a very long time,
the real money has been in touring. You know, you
can you can make a lot of money on tour,
a lot more money on tour than actual than actual
sales as as albums right, which is why some artists
tour so much. For example, when Jerry Garcia died. I
remember I was never a big dead head, so I
didn't I didn't even realize this. But when when Jerry
Garcia died, I was reading about how because people I wondered,
why why did he keep touring so much? Because apparently
toward the end of his life there were people close
to him who wanted him to stop because his health
was failing, and people wanted him to take a break.
They wanted him to stop touring, whether it was with
The Grateful Dead or the Jerry Garcia Band, and he
just kept going because you sometimes these artists get to
a point where they can't afford to stop, because you
stop and then the money stops. And if you have
an entire organization to pay for, you're not just supporting yourself,
but you've got managers and lawyers and got many jobs
there many people. You know, these organizations become bloated, and
you know, you might have touring staff who you want
to keep on retainer even when you're not touring, so
that they don't go off and work for somebody else.
When you're not touring, and then you can't get them
back for your tour, so you might be paying them
all year round, even when you're not active.
Speaker 7: So I thought that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So a lot of artists, you know, they tour
so much because it becomes a situation where they cannot
afford not to, like they can't get off of the
road because it ends up costing more to be off
the road than on the road.
Speaker 7: That makes sense, It certainly doesn't make sense because that's
where you're gonna make your money. Ye, not just ticket sales,
but march.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and now touring has become more expensive,
and so it's kind of become a situation now where
it's it's hard to tour, it's harder to tour. So
look at now the money's made more with merch than anything.
Speaker 7: Look at the guests we had recently, Green and Yellow, right,
they're constantly touring. And not only are they constantly touring,
they try to keep their expenses down, Like they have
actual school busses that have beds in them so they
can actually sleep on the road, and there's other vans
and the equipment that goes along, so they can keep
their costs down, but they're like constantly touring. They might
get to take a small break of maybe a few
days or you know, but you go check them out
and they're constantly going all around the country Canada. They're
constantly on the move, and you know, you can imagine
it's it would be hard for them to stop because
then the money stops. How do you put gas in
the car if you're not touring, you know, you can't
afford to have the money stop. So it is it's
a vicious circle. You have to really love what you're doing,
that's for sure, which obviously those guys do.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've never.
Speaker 7: Seen Green Jello when they come back around, you have
to see them. They're amazing in person. They just freaking
amazing and so much fun. If you want to go
to a show that's joy, go see Green Jello. It's
just joy. I know. I thought, you can't help but
feel good at walking away from one of their shows.
But they're constantly in motion, and that constant motion comes
with a lot of expenses because I'll see, oh, what
was it? There was something that went recently. It was
like their their starter and one of the buses went,
so they were fundraising to get the starter repaired because
they're in the middle of a tour, you know. Yeah,
it's a vicious circle. And these guys, especially nowadays, you
don't make you're not making the money off of streaming.
Certainly right now, there is something to be said for
physical media. You know, there can be some money these days.
Records are coming back CD. Yeah, but it's not gonna
be It's never gonna be like it was when we
were younger, no where. The only way you got the
music was to go find it in a store in
a record store and bring it home, or sit in
front of the radio with your fingers ready on record
so you could try to record the song off the radio.
Oh yeah didn't Yeah, we all did, right That was
that was how you got to hear your song, or
you had to wait for it to come back around.
Now we have instant gratification music through streaming. It's just
it's never going to be that again. It's instant gratification.
So really the artists are limited on where they're going
to make their money. It really is in those live venues,
in selling merch at the live venues, and that's really
the only way they're going to sustain themselves off their art.
Speaker 1: That's why a lot of artists get into podcasting too,
although you see it more with stand up comics than
you do with musicians necessarily, but there's you know, if
you're that's the thing, if you're even a tiny bit famous,
you can start a YouTube channel and monetize it, get
monetized quickly and create content that way. Justin Hawkins is
a great example of that from the band The Darkness.
You know, he has a very popular podcast called Justin
Hawkins Rides Again and and it's it's really good. It's
a lot of fun, and it's also very informative because
he delves into a lot of these music industry issues
as well. So that's another one I would recommend if
you're interested in this stuff, Justin Hawkins Rides Again. But yeah,
so a lot of people in the industry have had
to seek other revenue streams, and it's in.
Speaker 7: That really these days, it's in that live concert. It's
in moving those bodies into a venue that you're going
to make the most money.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, yes, indeed, and that and that's.
Speaker 7: Harder, it's harder on artists, and it certainly benefits people
like UMG, yeah, obviously, but I really it just kills
me that they pay it all out and then they suddenly, oh,
this is made up. How do you do that? I
don't know. Is it just me that I find that flabby?
It's awful to see what these lengths companies will go
to to rip off the artists that they're making their
money off of.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So, we are approaching the top of the hour
and I think I think our guests are in the
queue on Skype. So while we're gonna do is, we're
gonna go ahead and show some love to our amazing sponsors.
We'll take a quick break and we're gonna play this
track spinning from the duo Naked Without It, who are
skyping in all the way from the UK. I love
the guy, Yeah, absolutely so. And then so we'll play
that and then we'll bring them in via Skype and
talk with them. So looking forward to that. So we
are crossing the bridge in our number two. Matt Connorton Unleashed.
We are live on wmn H ninety five point three
f M Matt Connorton dot com slash Live. We'll talk
to you in a few minutes.
Speaker 4: W m n H riponomas.
Speaker 9: Well, we'll coup this morning now he wasnd some will
be shining m low you just degree.
Speaker 8: But all my mistress, but still not sure whether they
will take me.
Speaker 12: Look cure.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm sorry if I hurt you. I knew this
had to be done. You could be and everybody's doctor.
Speaker 10: Or anybody's something brother next they fixing me, someone's got up.
Speaker 5: Pay well.
Speaker 8: You came around the corner and my robbins wearing a
wig because its beads beda be dead.
Speaker 11: Spineers speede spine boat some spinis spinis spinny.
Speaker 8: Spine spine is spina.
Speaker 11: Well, as you dance in the road, as you dance
in the streets, I should dunce till my fingers burn,
my skips a beet, I should dance till I say
you can't find a betty.
Speaker 8: As you dunce till you say.
Speaker 10: Be spinning to the yamis a spinech spinis.
Speaker 8: Who has some spinechs spinis spin.
Speaker 10: I didn't know about your sister, I didn't know about
your car.
Speaker 8: I didn't know what you were like. Where now so
you from a bar?
Speaker 5: You came out of the dots jumblelonial man.
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speed speedy.
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Speaker 1: That is quite catchy. Indeed, that is Naked Without It
from the UK, and we have these guys on with
us via Skype. We're going to introduce them in just
in a moment. This is Matt Connorton Unleashed and we
are live from the studios of w m n H
ninety five point three FM and Glorious Manchester, New Hampshire.
Of You can stream the show at Matt connorton dot
com slash Live. Jenny is here as well at the
news table, president account and joining us via Skype. We
have Tony and Martin from Naked Without It. Hi, guys,
can you hear me?
Speaker 4: Hi?
Speaker 1: We've got yeah, awesome, awesome. It's always a little nerve
wracking with a transcontinental Skype call because it doesn't always
work out, so it's nice when it does. But great,
great to have you guys here with us this morning.
So what what do you each do in Naked Without It?
What are your roles respectively?
Speaker 4: And I play rhythm guitar and I sing okay and
I'm Martin. I play all yellow guitar and do a
bit of BVS as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, very good, very good. Now that song
spinning is it's very catchy. And I noticed all your
songs are are like that. They're very easy to kind
of sing along to. Has that always been? Has that
always been kind of them? Is of naked without it?
Have you always written songs that are, you know, just
very accessible and just kind of get stuck in your brain?
Has that always been been kind of the approach? Yeah,
we do.
Speaker 12: We do like a chorus and we do like a
sing along, So we do like a sing along when
we play live. And we started when we started out,
well restarted out a few years ago. We did an
online interview during COVID, So we did an online interview
and I can remember, I always say, I can always
remember Martin saying to me at the time, just wait,
we're the entertainment. So it sort of dawned on me
then that, you know, our job really was to entertain
So I've always sort of found there was no point
doing heartfelt songs that people aren't going to catch out.
I suppose there's a place, but but for us, it
doesn't really work. So we're here to entertain, really, and
I think a big chorus is a way of entertaining.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh absolutely, I'm interested in So these songs that
we're playing, these are from an album called Singles Club.
Now tell me if I have this right. And there's
a specific reason why this is so interesting to me.
This is a series of Did you release these each
individually as singles and then compile them into an album
called Singles Club?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 1: Was that your approach to this?
Speaker 4: Yeah? You did, Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: The reason I'm so curious about it is because this
has been a topic of conversation on the show. You know,
I'm old enough to remember, and I suspect you guys
are too. When there was really kind of a standard
way of doing things. You know, you've got an album
coming out, first single goes to radio maybe six to
eight weeks before the album's coming out. Then the album
comes out, then you have the second single and so forth.
And it was, you know, everybody released albums. Somebody might
occasionally release an EP, but that's sort of the old
record company model. Now we live in an era where,
because of the Internet, there's so many different ways you
can approach it. You can release albums, you can release EPs,
you can just put out singles forever and never release
an album. But I've noticed, especially in the past couple
of years, a lot of the guests that we have,
their approach is, rather than putting out an album and
a series of singles, releasing a series of singles that
eventually become an album. And it seems like you guys
have kind of taken it to a new level where
it's like, that's clearly what this is, because you're calling
the album Singles Club because it's literally a collection of singles,
And I think that's very interesting that you've taken that approach.
Speaker 4: But yeah, exactly.
Speaker 12: We back in twenty twenty two, we were talking about
what we were going to do because we'd done one album.
We did a first album, Habits Far Too Bright, which
was along the same lines, along the normal lines. You know,
we got it all together, we released it as you
should sort of think, and then I sort of we
had a conversation and just sort of said that music's
a bit more immediate now. Nobody sort of wants to
wait for anything. Everything is done straight away. So we
sort of thought, well, we'd we'd we'd instead of instead
of holding things back, what we would do is we
would plan to release a single every six weeks and
then at the end of it we did add the
intention of putting out like the Hard Hard CD version.
Of course, we didn't actually realize because we didn't work
this one out very well. Is that when we decided
that in twenty twenty two to do twelve singles, it
was going to take us seventy two weeks, So we
didn't realize we were actually committing ourselves to a year
and a half's work, which was right recording, you know,
we've got a recording releasing, you know, or the artwork, publicizing,
et cetera, and then we're on to the next one
and on.
Speaker 4: To the next one. But yeah, we did it. We
got we got a little bit random every every now
and again.
Speaker 12: But yeah, seventy two weeks later we ended up with
with the Singles Club album, So yeah, and we're really
happy with it.
Speaker 1: Was that Was that a difficult decision for you both
because obviously, you know, we're all or we all were
used to doing it the old way. I mean, it
was this something did you a lot of thought into
is this really the right way to approach it, or
maybe it instinctively just felt right and obvious to you.
I mean, was that a difficult decision to come to
or or did it come easy.
Speaker 13: I think we thought that, you know, like, because people
generally will stream a song or they like a songs,
so we thought, if we just keep giving them songs,
you know, spaced out rather than just all together, then
there's more chats that they might listen to more of
what we do rather than here's an album or that
what's the single, I'll listen to that and ignore the rest.
Speaker 4: So yeah, and it just it just kept it fresh
for us as well.
Speaker 13: And it was a good, you know, kind of time
to keep working on things and you can change things
is you know, as you know, you can start with
a song, but then over time it might evolve into
something slightly differently. So with a six week gap, if
you like, in between what we were doing, we did
have that luxury of saying, well, actually, maybe we should
change this a little bit and we can try things
out and you know, give a few different ideas. So
from a you know, from actually a creative point of view,
it was quite helpful rather than we have to get
the album done within this amount of time and then
once it's done, that's it. Whereas with this, you know
you're only doing it one song at a time essentially,
So yeah, we had a bit more bit more flexibility.
Speaker 12: So yeah, and we had a bit of engagement from
like the people that come and see us play because
of course they knew something was coming in six weeks time,
so people we're asking us when the next one's due,
when's the next one jew which which was nice. So yeah,
kept us on our toes.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah, I can see how it would be kind
of liberating to to be able to approach it this way.
And something else too that we talk a lot about
on the show is the importance of adaptability to a
constantly changing music industry. And uh, in fact, that was
a big subject in some ways in the in the
in the previous segment that we were doing. So is
this going to be the new approach going forward? Do
you think you're going to keep doing it this way?
Or I mean, obviously you're promoting this album singles Club,
these singles that have become an album, So I don't
know if you're even thinking that far ahead, but are
you thinking about kind of the future or are you
in the moments just more focused on promoting what you've
what you've just released recently.
Speaker 12: Well, I mean absolutely we we We had a gig
last night and we basically went into a studio this
morning and recorded the basics of like the first three
tracks for something that's planned for later on in the year.
Speaker 4: I mean, I constantly write lyrics.
Speaker 12: Lyrics just keep coming, so we keep we write them
down and then we work on the ideas.
Speaker 4: We we live.
Speaker 12: About one hundred miles apart. Ok, so we so we've
sort of embraced the technology. So we send each other
ideas all the time via WhatsApp, and then so we
pass some sort of forwards and backwards like that, and
you know, we work on bits at the other end,
and then we sort of come together for gigs. We
were saying today, we don't really rehearse very much because
we just sort of we do. If we do, I
rehearse my bits. My rehearses is bits, and then and
then we bring them together at gigs.
Speaker 4: Generally.
Speaker 12: Yeah, and we're quite We're pretty disciplined, to be honest.
So we're well, i'd say we are. I mean, if
you if you see us life sometimes were not particularly
just disciplined. Some of the crowd know the lyrics better
than I do. Sometimes just a bit embarrassing, especially when Yeah,
sometimes so if I go into the wrong verse and
somebody will give me a look from the crowd, and
you'd be, oh, okay, cheers.
Speaker 1: Right right my. So you know, that's another you know,
in terms of being able to send tracks back and
forth on WhatsApp, I mean, that's another example of how,
you know, being able to adapt to the changing technology
and the changing dynamics of the industry is so important.
And I always say this comes up a lot too
reflecting on the pandemic. You know, the pandemic was terrible,
but we have to find these silver linings where we can.
And I think one of the one of those, uh
few silver linings was the kind of forced people, creative people,
I think musicians in particular, to kind of find new
ways to create and to and to get comfortable with
creating from a distance. Like you guys said, you know,
you're one hundred miles apart, and you know, I think
for a lot of people pre pandemic, the idea of
even being able to work that way, even though the
technology was already there and has been there for a
while to be able to, you know, just send tracks
back and forth online, I think for I think a
lot of people pre pandemic were resistant to that, who
then became comfortable with it, who now now it's very
freeing because it's just another way to create, and to
be able to create and collaborate with somebody who is
one hundred miles away is really cool. Y.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we did, I mean we did in lockdown.
Speaker 12: We sat, we started, we were doing a few There
was a few internet radio sort of shows, but we
also did sort of gigs at home. Yeah, you know,
we we we got into when the times we were togain,
we got together and just sort of played played it
played an online gig sort of like on Facebook Live
or something like that.