Matt Connarton Unleashed 11-30-24 hour 1

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6:00 Speaker 6: Maxill Coving, Good morning, everybody, here we go.

6:36 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.

7:10 Speaker 7: Jen morning.

7:15 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.

7:43 Speaker 1: 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.

8:25 Speaker 1: 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.

9:01 Speaker 1: 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.

9:37 Speaker 1: 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.

10:07 Speaker 1: 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.

10:16 Speaker 8: But here we go.

10:18 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.

10:48 Speaker 1: 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.

11:25 Speaker 1: 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.

12:09 Speaker 1: 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.

12:53 Speaker 1: 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.

13:50 Speaker 7: But they're claiming.

13:52 Speaker 1: That's not true UMG, Well, of course they are.

13:55 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.

14:07 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.

14:55 Speaker 1: 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.

15:34 Speaker 1: That's another term I learned recently, which is a a lawyer who YouTube's does youtubing.

15:41 Speaker 2: What is it?

15:42 Speaker 1: Law tuber?

15:43 Speaker 7: Law tuber.

15:44 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?

16:11 Speaker 7: Oh?

16:11 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.

16:19 Speaker 7: I don't even remember.

16:22 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.

16:38 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.

16:44 Speaker 1: Right.

16:44 Speaker 7: Oh, of course making this up, that's what they're saying.

16:48 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.

17:40 Speaker 1: 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.

17:47 Speaker 7: And it's not.

17:50 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.

18:18 Speaker 1: 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.

19:07 Speaker 1: 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.

19:48 Speaker 1: 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.

20:27 Speaker 1: 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.

20:38 Speaker 9: So what.

20:41 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.

20:51 Speaker 7: To sign in.

20:52 Speaker 1: It's like a record label, a big company like UMG.

20:57 Speaker 8: They they will.

21:00 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.

21:15 Speaker 10: Right.

21:16 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.

21:52 Speaker 1: 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.

22:26 Speaker 1: They're trying to hide things from you. They don't want you to see what the real numbers are.

22:30 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.

22:48 Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, of course it's yeah, it's a dirty business.

22:54 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?

23:09 Speaker 1: We've that mic up a little bit, would you? Uh so I'm not loud enough. Yeah, there you go.

23:15 Speaker 7: This is something that we don't normally experience.

23:17 Speaker 8: There you go.

23:19 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.

23:51 Speaker 1: Universal Music Group, this enormous, multimillion dollar company. But you know, like it's it's hard. I mean, this will all.

24:02 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.

24:49 Speaker 7: 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.

25:14 Speaker 1: Track of it, right right.

25:17 Speaker 11: This is.

25:19 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.

25:52 Speaker 1: 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.

26:53 Speaker 1: 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.

27:31 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?

27:48 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.

28:15 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.

28:36 Speaker 1: It's faked spaghetti accounting.

28:38 Speaker 7: How the heck does that work in law?

28:39 Speaker 4: Though?

28:40 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.

28:50 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.

29:09 Speaker 7: Two factor identification.

29:11 Speaker 1: Yes, it's probably very, very up to date.

29:14 Speaker 7: I'm sure it operates much like insurance portals.

29:16 Speaker 4: You know.

29:17 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.

29:25 Speaker 1: Yeah, send us a certified letter.

29:27 Speaker 7: Meanwhile, give us your money.

29:28 Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you'll get your royalties.

29:30 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.

29:38 Speaker 4: So this is the update.

29:39 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.

30:15 Speaker 1: 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.

30:54 Speaker 1: 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.

31:53 Speaker 1: Unquote.

31:54 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.

32:22 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.

32:57 Speaker 1: 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.

33:27 Speaker 7: So interestingly, Dearth is the sole owner of Flawless Records. Interestingly, I think I may have.

33:41 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.

34:25 Speaker 1: 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.

34:54 Speaker 7: But did he did he ever break anybody?

34:57 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.

35:08 Speaker 7: You would think that would have made more money than Lunchbox.

35:11 Speaker 1: But no, oh no, well, oh no, no, no, no,

35:17 Speaker 1: 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.

36:03 Speaker 1: In other words, the advance had not been the advances because an advance for each album had not been paid back. According But the.

36:10 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.

36:24 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.

36:35 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.

36:44 Speaker 1: Right, they're just now responding.

36:46 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?

37:00 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.

37:07 Speaker 7: Then the two million to the record to the label.

37:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's kind of a separate thing the sub label.

37:12 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.

37:22 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.

37:33 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.

37:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's barely anything. Spotify doesn't a lot of art.

38:01 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.

38:29 Speaker 8: There is there is this.

38:34 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.

39:20 Speaker 1: 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.

40:10 Speaker 1: 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.

40:51 Speaker 1: 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.

40:57 Speaker 7: So I thought that way.

40:59 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.

41:15 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.

41:22 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.

41:41 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.

42:15 Speaker 7: 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.

42:34 Speaker 1: I mean, if you've never.

42:34 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.

43:12 Speaker 7: 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.

43:49 Speaker 7: 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.

44:18 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.

44:55 Speaker 1: 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.

45:09 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.

45:17 Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, yes, indeed, and that and that's.

45:20 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.

45:52 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.

46:24 Speaker 1: 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.

46:33 Speaker 4: W m n H riponomas.

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47:47 Speaker 8: You came around the corner and my robbins wearing a wig because its beads beda be dead.

48:00 Speaker 11: Spineers speede spine boat some spinis spinis spinny.

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48:13 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.

48:27 Speaker 8: As you dunce till you say.

48:30 Speaker 10: Be spinning to the yamis a spinech spinis.

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49:41 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.

50:13 Speaker 1: Hi, guys, can you hear me?

50:15 Speaker 4: Hi?

50:16 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?

50:36 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.

50:46 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.

51:11 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.

51:47 Speaker 12: 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.

51:55 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?

52:21 Speaker 2: Is that?

52:21 Speaker 1: Was that your approach to this?

52:23 Speaker 4: Yeah? You did, Yeah, Okay.

52:26 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.

52:55 Speaker 1: 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.

53:33 Speaker 4: But yeah, exactly.

53:34 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.

54:14 Speaker 12: 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.

54:37 Speaker 4: To the next one. But yeah, we did it. We got we got a little bit random every every now and again.

54:42 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.

54:48 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.

55:11 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.

55:30 Speaker 4: So yeah, and it just it just kept it fresh for us as well.

55:33 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.

56:01 Speaker 13: 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.

56:07 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.

56:21 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.

57:03 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.

57:17 Speaker 4: I mean, I constantly write lyrics.

57:19 Speaker 12: Lyrics just keep coming, so we keep we write them down and then we work on the ideas.

57:24 Speaker 4: We we live.

57:27 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.

57:53 Speaker 4: Generally.

57:54 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.

58:15 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.

58:56 Speaker 1: 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.

59:32 Speaker 1: Y.

59:33 Speaker 4: Yeah, we did, I mean we did in lockdown.

59:35 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.