huskerdude wrote:
Jesus what a shitty turn of events. That expression of Brant's in the video is him trying to make the connection between four high school friends making music together and them suing one another.
This is one result of turning the righteous endeavor of making music into a vehicle to pay the bills. As soon as a check is on the table, friends become enemies. Rules get thrown out. And I'm not saying I would act any differently. I would like to think I would, but who knows. That is the evil power of the greenback.
Why is it that Mario Lalli, Fredo Hernandez, and the rest of those high school buddies continue to make music, regardless of line up and band name? Because they haven't had money fuck things up. And thus they've been able to focus on the important things, like playing music with your buddies.
So the moral of the story, if you're in a band, and someone offers you money, do not say "Cool, I'm getting paid for doing what I love to do." There is a catch, there always is. And this story is that lesson. Rip up that check.
Or send it to me.
You make it sound like only the big evil capitalist dollar is the only thing that creates problems with bands, its not. Hell, drugs, women, and clashing personalities/creative control have broken up more bands and created more problems than money ever did in the world of bands and musicians.
We recently fired out singer for being one of the biggest douche bags on the planet (screwed the drummers wife, stole two guitars and we believe he is on dope but can't prove it) - he threatened "physical violence upon us" if we used his lyrics or song titles in anything moving forward. Next gig with a fill in vocalist - we used his lyrics lol. But an interesting point outside of the terroristic threats: while lyrics were mostly written by the singer, the music for those songs were written by me or as a full band. We had discussion on this subject with a multi platinum, Billboard number one artist friend of of ours who is no attorney but has lots of experience in this area - and he told us that if the songs were written together as a band as they were (lyrics were written on the fly during the course of jamming a song out) that we all would have rights to those songs and if it went to court, that is most likely to be the case. Now there is legal positioning to work around that but more than likely, a court would find we all had ownership o the material and the name.
