Dammit! All I have from Sore Throat is that frickin cuckoo clock song on Grindcrusher!
you're not missing much...
A: They were, and still are a set of moneygrubbing businessmen with no interest in metal. We had NO advertising at all for the album. Not fucking advert anywhere at all. Very few copies were sent out and we have NEVER received a sales statement either. The reviews we did receive were 90% excellent raving about us and 10% indifferent. We got one interview from a national magazine from it. That was the extent of Candlelight's incompetence."
Yeah, I was so money-grabbing I took a chance with an unknown doom metal band rather than signing every big-name black metal band that was offered to me... (and believe me, I turned down some of the biggest names out there)
As it happens that album nearly put the label under. It was released at the same time as the Whores Of Babylon album and they both died a complete death, selling less than a thousand each in the first year. Sometimes if you take a chance with untrendy stuff shit like this happens. At the end of the day I did the best job I could at the time given the resourses and experience I had. With hindsight they probably do have a genuine cause for complaint I guess, but nothing was ever said at the time. Perhaps I should have held off until the Emperor album came out and I finally had some money in the bank? You learn this type of thing as you go along, and you certainly don't release an album expecting it to be a horrific sales-flop. The fact that the recent re-issue flopped too says something...
Misanthropy didn't fare any better with their next album either, and that was advertised everywhere.. Sometimes a band doesn't sell, no matter how much money you throw at 'em. Beyond Dawn was another example. We spent a lot of money (about $15,000 in total - not including pressing, etc) on the "Pity Love" album and it, again, did less than 2000 worldwide.
As far as the sales statements go, they went to the manager if I'm not mistaken , since the band were published via his company and the mechanical royalties had to go directly to him. Rich may remember that I paid him his publishing royalties directly after he told me that the manager said it would be okay. Needless to say the manager had said nothing of the sort and we ended up having to pay twice....
I'd also like to point out that I've forgotten more about metal than Rich even knows. I'm assuming that the "moneygrubbing businessmen with no interest in metal" was aimed at the other partners in the company and not to me... Metal is possibly the most important thing in my life, and I'm not a businessman by any stretch of the imagination!
ahem. Agent Steel are not has-beens. heh. That new album was definitely not a letdown from the old stuff... but they were all excited at the beginning when it was released, and then got all pissed when nothing on the back end was done so I was wondering if their signing happened before you left and then everything went to hell after you left...
I hated the old stuff too, so... I have a bit of a problem with all these bands reforming, doing their level best to muscle in on a scene that bears no relevance to them anymore. It's a pathetic form of nostalgia, and I wouldn't condone it in any way, shape or form. The only band I've heard who managed to pull it off so far has been Artillery, but even then I'd have been happier if they'd have changed the band name or just not bothered. Too many bands that held good memories for me back in the day have sullied their reputations with sub-standard cash-ins.
At the end of the day all bands think their labels could have done more, especially if no bugger bought the record.. I heard that the Agent Steel album did about 10,000 copies (unconfirmed of course. It could have been label bravado). No mean feat in todays market.
Lee
