Kevin Shirley says

[BenMech]

Producer KEVIN SHIRLEY vs The Music Industry * [Hot Flashes - 04.08.26 10:30:02]

Kevin Shirley, known for his work behind the board with IRON MAIDEN, DREAM THEATER and SLAYER has posted the following anti-music industry rant at his official website:



"I'm definitely commiting professional suicide on a huge scale these days. I just get so pissed at these record companies and band managers that treat us engineers and producers like shit, and we are supposed to take it, because there is apparently a dearth of work out there and we should be scraping and groveling. Because the labels spend so much on A&R 'expense' accounts, and bitch so publicly about downloading, budgets are cut so much that the quality of product up for offer is often short of nothing but peurile. The music is not the problem, so why spend less on the music than they did thirty years ago. I was listening to old SABBATH the other day, and the care that has been taken to make a quality record then, far exceeds what we have now, by and large! Obviously I'm not stupid enough to name these people (well I am, actually), but certainly by my work schedule, it's not hard to guess who I'm talking about. Everything needs to be done for near-free now, and then it takes forever to get paid! Put it this way, since I got back from London in early June, I've not seen a penny, but plenty of fucking attitude from CEO's, A&R people and managers who have very tight deadlines and want us to fix these cheaply and badly recorded records. One label asked me to mix an entire album for $5k — studio, me, materials included. At best, it could take a week, and studio rates are $2k/day — not to mention all the equipment I own and have loans on! What do they expect me to tell the phone/mortgage/etc companies? 'Sorry, surround sound doesn't pay thirty days'?"


Whaddya thunk.,Neil?

 

[NK]

Producer KEVIN SHIRLEY vs The Music Industry * [Hot Flashes - 04.08.26 10:30:02]

Kevin Shirley, known for his work behind the board with IRON MAIDEN, DREAM THEATER and SLAYER has posted the following anti-music industry rant at his official website:



"I'm definitely commiting professional suicide on a huge scale these days. I just get so pissed at these record companies and band managers that treat us engineers and producers like shit, and we are supposed to take it, because there is apparently a dearth of work out there and we should be scraping and groveling. Because the labels spend so much on A&R 'expense' accounts, and bitch so publicly about downloading, budgets are cut so much that the quality of product up for offer is often short of nothing but peurile. The music is not the problem, so why spend less on the music than they did thirty years ago. I was listening to old SABBATH the other day, and the care that has been taken to make a quality record then, far exceeds what we have now, by and large! Obviously I'm not stupid enough to name these people (well I am, actually), but certainly by my work schedule, it's not hard to guess who I'm talking about. Everything needs to be done for near-free now, and then it takes forever to get paid! Put it this way, since I got back from London in early June, I've not seen a penny, but plenty of fucking attitude from CEO's, A&R people and managers who have very tight deadlines and want us to fix these cheaply and badly recorded records. One label asked me to mix an entire album for $5k — studio, me, materials included. At best, it could take a week, and studio rates are $2k/day — not to mention all the equipment I own and have loans on! What do they expect me to tell the phone/mortgage/etc companies? 'Sorry, surround sound doesn't pay thirty days'?"


Whaddya thunk.,Neil?

Well, all projects are different. Some of them come with a budget that's somewhat limited. Basically, you can only do what you can with limited resources in those situations. Sadly, these days not everything comes with a nice fat fee attached. I have a lot of my own equipment at my house so that I am able to do some parts of my projects off the clock at vastly reduced rates, if the budget calls for that. All in all though, I'm keeping nice and busy and loving it, so I can't complain.

Neil K.

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

I think he does and doesn't have a point at the same time there.

With the advent of hard disc recording and processing stuff it is a lot cheaper to do some things... other will always cost a lot more tho.

And Yes, 99% of people that "work in the industry" are money leeching shitheads.

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Oh and there are so many more bands actively recording today than there were in say, Sabbaths day. So yeah. There should be plenty of work if you're good enough to get it.

 

[LynchpiN]

With this high demand, music production is less 'glamourous' than, say, in the 60's/70's. There's more work out there, but with audio tecnology being more popular, producers are not that much respected or admired. Or even 'necessary'.
There's more money coming into the music industry, so the managers and A&R's are even more bloodsuckers today, disrespecting the artists and producers. Specially in the mainstream - even tough they appear to like being disrespected, packed and sold, if it's for money.
Rock n' Roll is dead, baby. It's all about profit now.
But let's keep it on!
Cheerz

 

[Andy Sneap]

Ok, Im jumping in on this one. I have to 100% agree with Kevin Shirley on this one, and it's something I've really noticed over the last 12 months.

I think the whole industry is suffering with cash flow, and producers,(I know Neil is the same as me because we get offered the same jobs) are expected to cut costs, the same as studios etc.

The current exchange rate is pretty awful for me if dealing with american labels, so with that combined, I'm getting alot more work tracked in the US and sent to me to be mixed.

It doesn't seem to be affecting the amount of work, though I'm now not releasing anything to labels until I've been paid in full. I use to, as I considered it to be a gesture of good will, knowing I was dealing with professional labels, but when it takes upto 5 months, or over a year in one case to get paid, I feel thats just down right rude.

 

[NK]

Ok, Im jumping in on this one. I have to 100% agree with Kevin Shirley on this one, and it's something I've really noticed over the last 12 months.

I think the whole industry is suffering with cash flow, and producers,(I know Neil is the same as me because we get offered the same jobs) are expected to cut costs, the same as studios etc.

The current exchange rate is pretty awful for me if dealing with american labels, so with that combined, I'm getting alot more work tracked in the US and sent to me to be mixed.

It doesn't seem to be affecting the amount of work, though I'm now not releasing anything to labels until I've been paid in full. I use to, as I considered it to be a gesture of good will, knowing I was dealing with professional labels, but when it takes upto 5 months, or over a year in one case to get paid, I feel thats just down right rude.

Yeah Andy, I agree with you. I can remember about 15 years ago an A&R guy saying that he was really enjoying the fact that with budgets being slashed (as they were drastically being at that time, sometimes by up to 75%) he could get really good producers to work on his albums for dirt cheap. I'm not sure if I commented at the time, but I never forgot his comment. This trend has of course continued, and the various factors contributing to smaller budgets, lower sales, piracy blah blah etc, that are given has just made everything even more tight. I'm in exactly the same boat as you, as you say, but I'm keeping busy and for the most part I'm able to make things work by juggling stuff around a lot.

So far I haven't had bad luck with labels not paying me once they've got the album, but I don't get my cheques fedexed to me vey often either. :Spin:

Neil K.