Regardless of a decades-long profession that has generated quite a few multi-platinum and gold-certified albums, Staind guitarist Mike Mushok claims he’s but to obtain a royalty from the gross sales and streams of the band’s catalog. That revelation was made throughout a current dialogue the profession musician had with The KiddChris Present. The dialog steered that approach after the royalty woes of other steel band Chevelle have been introduced up.
Again in 2021, Chevelle‘s Pete Loeffler revealed that regardless of promoting some six million albums amid their tenure with Epic Information, the band had but to obtain any cash immediately from document gross sales. His bandmate and brother Sam later provided a proof as to how that got here to go, citing clauses of their document contract and different intricacies in the case of coping with a serious label.
On this new interview, Mushok himself relayed an analogous expertise, providing [transcribed by Blabbermouth.net]:
“Hear, I’ve bought I don’t know what number of thousands and thousands of information, and I’ve by no means as soon as obtained a royalty from the document firm after — no matter — 20, no matter, 25 years. We nonetheless owe them cash. We haven’t been on the label since — I don’t know — 2011 was the final document we put out on Atlantic, and we nonetheless owe them cash.
And hear, I’m not gonna lie — they gave us massive advances, and that’s why [we still owe them money]. However severely, they should be paid off. However in any case, I believe it’s estimated, I believe we’re saying, like, one other three years it’ll be paid off and I’ll truly begin making royalties on our information.”
When requested if the band ever count on to get the rights again to their masters from the label, Mushok responded:
“Yeah. So supposedly after 35 years, the masters are alleged to revert again to you. However I used to be speaking to our lawyer about that, and he mentioned that no label ever enables you to try this. They attempt to purchase you out and provide you with cash to allow them to proceed to personal the masters — until you battle them.”
The advances that Mushok speaks above are usually massive sums of cash supplied to the band/recording artist up entrance throughout the creation of an album and through an album cycle. These advances exist in a way as a loans and are anticipated to ultimately be paid again to the label via proceeds generated from gross sales and streams of the band’s recorded works.
In what was a commonplace association, a label would thus retain rights to the band’s masters for a prolonged time period and never be required to pay the artist till the label had recouped on the varied investments they made within the band, be it advances, promotional budgets and extra.
Nevertheless, that’s to not say the artists don’t generate any cash from their recorded works per se, as they often retain a share of their publishing royalties, which are inclined to fall below a special umbrella.
That mentioned, Staind‘s state of affairs might probably be a bit extra nuanced than defined above by Mushok. The band have been taken below the wing of Limp Bizkit‘s Fred Durst early on of their profession, with Durst being instrumental in getting them signed to Flip Information.
For those who’ve been following the information currently, Limp Bizkit themselves have been additionally signed to Flip Information together with the likes of Chilly, Dope and extra. Flip Information are at present tied into a $200 million lawsuit filed in opposition to Common Music Group by Limp Bizkit vocalist Fred Durst.
That swimsuit has discovered Durst accusing Flip Information of manipulation and fraud, with Durst searching for a recession of Limp Bizkit‘s recording contract with Flip, together with different associated label preparations in flip.
Do be aware, that Staind themselves should not immediately part of these authorized proceedings and don’t seem to have commented on the matter. It ought to at the least be identified nonetheless, that every one of Staind‘s studio albums from 1999’s “Dysfunction” via to their 2011 self-titled opus have been issued partially below the Flip banner as a part of preparations that label had struck with a number of different massive labels, together with Elektra and Atlantic Information.