QUEENSRYCHE

It makes sense for them to ask for the money, but no sense for someone to invest in something as crazy as this. If people in the industry (labels) don't want to invest, that should be a clue.

This borders on exploitation of the naivete of their fanbase.

Temple of Blood wrote:

It makes sense for them to ask for the money, but no sense for someone to invest in something as crazy as this.  If people in the industry (labels) don't want to invest, that should be a clue.

This borders on exploitation of the naivete of their fanbase.

This is not crazy at all. What would be crazy is someone investing without feeling as if they will get a return on their investment. This is not geared toward their everyday fan; it's targeting investors, people who should know what they're doing.

It's crazy to "invest" in something with such a small possibility of turning a profit.

Why not call it what it is ... a donation?

Temple of Blood wrote:

It's crazy to "invest" in something with such a small possibility of turning a profit.

Why not call it what it is ... a donation?

I'm sorry. Didn't know you had inside knowledge of how much money Queensryche brings in.

I hope all these "investors" keep post on Blabbermouth and let us know how it's all turning out.

Investing in the music industry overall is a losing bet. Even more so for artists decades past their prime. Doesn't require a lot of inside knowledge. Has nothing to do with whether I like their music or not.

This is MUCH, MUCH worse than anything Tate did. This just gives credence to the idea that he (and probably DeGarmo too)'s always been a better business man than them. And it's light years worse than any of these pledge campaigns that other artists have ... at least there you're assured to get something if they meet their goal!

Temple of Blood wrote:

I hope all these "investors" keep post on Blabbermouth and let us know how it's all turning out.

Investing in the music industry overall is a losing bet.  Even more so for artists decades past their prime.  Doesn't require a lot of inside knowledge.  Has nothing to do with whether I like their music or not.

This is MUCH, MUCH worse than anything Tate did.  This just gives credence to the idea that he (and probably DeGarmo too)'s always been a better business man than them.  And it's light years worse than any of these pledge campaigns that other artists have ...  at least there you're assured to get something if they meet their goal!

You are aware that the investment opportunity is not part of the pledge campaign, right? They're piggybacking off of it for exposure, but the actual pledge campaign is no different than anything every other band out there does.

And I'm not sure how trying something new is telling of their business prowess. It's a new world out there in the music industry. People shit all over crowdfunding at first, and now look at it—crowdfunding is quickly becoming the standard!

As for investing in the band, clearly there is reason for them to believe a $50,000 investment is worthwhile to investors, else I highly doubt they'd be doing it. Will investors feel that way? Who knows, but neither you nor I know what's at stake here. It's pretty easy to assume there is no money to be made, but you'll recall when Tate was flooding the market last year, booking his hack band at every venue, multiple times in the same month even, he was doing so at $10,000 a gig, $10,000 less than what the other guys were getting.

So if the band does, say, 200 dates in 2015, at $20,000 a gig (they'll get much more for festival shows, even some fairs pay more), that's $4 million, right? Minimum. Whatever the case, these guys are making a lot of money.

I just don't see it happening. A minimum of $50,000? Come on, none of us here and 99% of their fans don't have this kind of money and if I did I wouldn't spend it like this.

I think that the idea of any band apart from maybe the 20 biggest selling ones getting $2 million up front from anyone, is over. I'm a bit hard pressed to think what they would need that kind of dough for? I know that it's expensive to make a record, put on a show etc but they have to be realistic!

mikeinfla wrote:

I just don't see it happening. A minimum of $50,000? Come on, none of us here and 99% of their fans don't have this kind of money and if I did I wouldn't spend it like this.

I bet there are more people than you think who, like me, were Queensryche fans in high school and are now in their 40s who, unlike me, went on to have great careers and make a lot of money in their lives. They may be willing to do it. Rich people spend money on crazy stuff.

I've heard of people investing in big acts like David Bowie and his back catalog, but the potential for profit in a band that's past it's prime like Queensryche seems like a real long shot at best. Especially with the current state of the music biz, and rock in general.

S.D. wrote:

Come join in the minimal profits generated by a band whose mainstream commercial potential peaked over 20 years ago and who no longer have the original vocalist or songwriter responsible for their biggest successes.  A deal of a lifetime!!!!

I... really wish I didn't agree with you on this.

There's something that rubs me the wrong way reading the language of the pledge campaign (which, I support as a way to make an album) and the offer to "invest" in Queensryche. It's this idea of "Check out how strong we are as a company and have a chance to get a piece of the big money pie we're going to be baking," conflicting rather heavily with a band needing to crowdsource funding for an album in spite of the fact that they have (had?) a major label for distribution.

I mean, if they just came out and released something like, "Ok, fans of the Ryche, the legal battle over the past few years has us wiped out. We want to make new music, but we need YOUR help to make it happen!" and built the pledge campaign off of that, I would be first in line to throw some money in because I like what they do.

Unfortunately, when the message and the action don't seem to line up, I feel like I'm being duped and that pisses me off.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong though? Anyone else pick up on it this way?

S.D. wrote:

Come join in the minimal profits generated by a band whose mainstream commercial potential peaked over 20 years ago and who no longer have the original vocalist or songwriter responsible for their biggest successes.  A deal of a lifetime!!!!

Bingo!

I think the idea is not that bad. Interest rates are down. So if they make 2,5 % annually, that is 1250 Dollar for every 50000 Dollar than it is already quite good. But it depends whether or not the 50000 Dollar Investment can Keep its worth.

Runicen wrote:

S.D. wrote:

Come join in the minimal profits generated by a band whose mainstream commercial potential peaked over 20 years ago and who no longer have the original vocalist or songwriter responsible for their biggest successes.  A deal of a lifetime!!!!

I...  really wish I didn't agree with you on this.

There's something that rubs me the wrong way reading the language of the pledge campaign (which, I support as a way to make an album) and the offer to "invest" in Queensryche.  It's this idea of "Check out how strong we are as a company and have a chance to get a piece of the big money pie we're going to be baking," conflicting rather heavily with a band needing to crowdsource funding for an album in spite of the fact that they have (had?) a major label for distribution.

I mean, if they just came out and released something like, "Ok, fans of the Ryche, the legal battle over the past few years has us wiped out.  We want to make new music, but we need YOUR help to make it happen!" and built the pledge campaign off of that, I would be first in line to throw some money in because I like what they do.

Unfortunately, when the message and the action don't seem to line up, I feel like I'm being duped and that pisses me off.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong though?  Anyone else pick up on it this way?

Pledge campaigns these days, especially for bigger bands, are less about funding the album and more about guaranteeing sales. The money is not always for recording costs. The album will be recorded either way, and oftentimes it's already recorded. This is just a way that bands can be guaranteed sales.

As for the investing part, it seems perfectly legit to me:

https://www.earlyiq.com/partner/queensryche/one/getstarted

And again, this is not aimed at everyday fans, but real investors. For us to assume anything, without knowledge of their business, is asinine.

I think all of this highlights how crowdfunding has gone wrong for me. It started out as an alternative to going to the labels and getting screwed over, it was also a great way of band and fans to connect in a unique way. Now it just seems to be an alternative source of funding for the labels. The Flotsam & Jetsam record which was funded by fans and put out by Metal Blade, the Raven campaign which again will be 50% crowdfunded, but put out by Steamhammer, now this one from Queensryche which is nothing more than a pre order for the new record and merchandise with jacked up prices ($20 for a CD when new releases on Amazon are usually about $12. $120 for a hoodie!!!!)

I don't want anything to do with any of this kind of stuff, once I know that a band is going the record label route, I'm out and I'll buy it at the store for regular price because all of this seems like a big con. How others choose to spend their money though is none of my business, and that includes the fabulous investment opportunities that this band are offering. If they can find investors then good luck to them.

It definitely is annoying when you pay $20 for a CD that ends up at Best Buy for $7.99. Well, only if the band sucks at giving the fans updates—demos, videos, etc. For that sort of thing, paying a little extra is fine. Sadly, many bands suck at that, like Flotsam. Their videos were f*cking horrible.

Ginger, on the other hand, has done some brilliant stuff with his campaigns.

Eyesore wrote:

Ginger, on the other hand, has done some brilliant stuff with his campaigns.

Ginger gets the spirit of crowdfunding, that's why he does it well, that's why he's successful at it.

That's definitely another aspect of the whole thing that doesn't agree with me about this crowdfunding effort - aside from the "in progress" updates, there's really no incentive to pay the inflated price now over just buying the album via Amazon or some brick and mortar retailer. Now, if there was extra music being promised or a CD of demos, we'd be talking. Instead, it just feels like squeezing a little more water out of the cloth for the hell of it.

Which, again, I'd have no problem with if they came forward and were saying, "We're financially on the back foot and need your help as fans of our music." That would be totally reasonable and I'd be on board. Instead, this looks either disingenuous or greedy depending on how you want to read in to it.

Runicen wrote:

That's definitely another aspect of the whole thing that doesn't agree with me about this crowdfunding effort - aside from the "in progress" updates, there's really no incentive to pay the inflated price now over just buying the album via Amazon or some brick and mortar retailer.  Now, if there was extra music being promised or a CD of demos, we'd be talking.  Instead, it just feels like squeezing a little more water out of the cloth for the hell of it.

Which, again, I'd have no problem with if they came forward and were saying, "We're financially on the back foot and need your help as fans of our music."  That would be totally reasonable and I'd be on board.  Instead, this looks either disingenuous or greedy depending on how you want to read in to it.

How in the world does it become disingenuous or greedy because they're not laying their current financial status out on the table? That makes no sense.

Either way, Ginger did release exclusive stuff the campaign pledgers. Albion had more tracks than the commercial release. 555% was mostly exclusive; pledgers got a 3CD versions while the commercial release got one, and was called 100%. Hey! Hello! got only an exclusive single with two non-LP tracks, but that was after Ginger asked if it'd be okay to release a commercial version (it was originally meant to be exclusive to pledgers) and got a resounding YES.

So yeah, his pledge campaigns have been great, well worth the extra money.

I just see them asking the fans to replace the record company, covering the recording costs. The investment part is more for the business aspect of running the band. Some enterprises cannot be a corporation in the normal sense nor a LLC. Plus this proposed way eliminates the middle man, thus more money to be shared. (Be it large or small amounts of profit.) As far as speculating about the monies Queensryche generates ? It was worth Tate and the others going to court to gain control of it.
Something to ponder ?

Eyesore wrote:

Runicen wrote:

That's definitely another aspect of the whole thing that doesn't agree with me about this crowdfunding effort - aside from the "in progress" updates, there's really no incentive to pay the inflated price now over just buying the album via Amazon or some brick and mortar retailer.  Now, if there was extra music being promised or a CD of demos, we'd be talking.  Instead, it just feels like squeezing a little more water out of the cloth for the hell of it.

Which, again, I'd have no problem with if they came forward and were saying, "We're financially on the back foot and need your help as fans of our music."  That would be totally reasonable and I'd be on board.  Instead, this looks either disingenuous or greedy depending on how you want to read in to it.

How in the world does it become disingenuous or greedy because they're not laying their current financial status out on the table? That makes no sense.

This kind of bleeds into my reasoning behind not seeing downloading as the great white whale that ripped off the recording industry's leg... Wow, that was a weird metaphor. Roll with it...

Here's the deal - we had a recording industry that was selling *STARS* and they were larger than life, their lifestyles were larger than life and it seemed like they all had more money than God. We know this now to be false, but they were pushing this pretty hard and even the grunge bands had huge budgets, huge tours, etc. once that storm came in. So, duh... Of course people aren't going to see a problem with downloading, even if it is acknowledged to be stealing. These dudes are so rich they use $20 bills instead of toilet paper when they crap!

So, doing an outreach for cash as a major label "big deal" band without also copping to, "Hey, we need your support." Does seem a bit screwy to me. You can't talk about how great your business is doing and then ask for money prior to product release or ask inflated money for the finished product that we all know standard retail customers won't have to pay unless you are going to offer fans something more for the money and I don't feel that they've done it here.

It's basically down to - which is it? Are you broke and in need of an influx of liquid assets or is this just a poorly managed Kickstarter style campaign?

I'll cop to my use of the word "greedy" as not being particularly appropriate, but I stand by my dislike for the campaign, especially because there are so many examples of people doing this crap RIGHT in the last few years. If they've been paying attention enough to know that this was an option, they also have no excuse for not understanding how to provide value for money to the fans.

Now, does this mean I won't be buying the new album when it hits stores? Of course not. I'll snap the thing up, but this has dinged my respect for the QR guys a bit - either because they're not their own best advocates here or because they're trying to pull this "band for the fans" image while not copping to needing them to help out to get the recording process rolling.

That make any more sense?

Runicen wrote:

It's basically down to - which is it?  Are you broke and in need of an influx of liquid assets or is this just a poorly managed Kickstarter style campaign?

Wow. You're very charitable. Only two options, eh? Broke or idiots. Haha.

Crowdfunding campaigns are pretty simple for the most part: You pay a little more for a little more. To say this thing is poorly managed on, basically, day one is a little much. First, you're not going to pledge, so you have no idea what's being offered behind the scenes to those who do pledge. So how in the world would know if it's poorly managed?

As for the investment thing, it's not part of the campaign. They're simply using the campaign as a means to get it out there. Literally, they're just using Pledge Music for free advertising.

And again, why in the world would the band need to tell you that they're broke? Even if this band played up their wealth for years, wearing diamond grills and shooting wads of hundred dollar bills from cannons at shows, why would they need to tell the fans how much they're worth? It doesn't make sense to me.

Maybe I'm just guilty of viewing musicians as people first, businesses second. Yeah, it's a business. I get that. At the same time, I loathe ANY company that really tries to push how much it cares about the community and crap like that when we all know it's about tax writeoffs, shaking babies and kissing hands. It's not honest, which makes it really crass manipulation.

Granted, if a band does that, it's not affecting political or commercial realities like, say, Walmart or Lowes doing it; but I still have the same basic response to it.

Bottom line: a band claims to be all about the fans and then runs what seems to be a pretty lame pledge campaign, they're either offering me NO incentive to sign on OR they're flat broke and trying to make good while saving face. This isn't a shareholders meeting. If a band comes out of a bad legal battle and admits to the fans that they need help to get the next record out, we all know that the fans will respond positively to that. Maybe a few will bitch, but the majority will go, "Hell yeah, I'd like you to make another record. I'm down!"

So, it's less about the lifestyle and more, "Be straight with me."

As for the pledge campaign, I look to the Devin Townsend campaign or even the Arthur Brown campaign. Devin offered serious musical extras AND a great price for signing on (on par with retail, arguably) and Arthur basically gave fans the opportunity to help him because he didn't have access to the financial backing he needed. On top of that, having seen what that Arthur Brown CD is retailing for, I got the better deal AND the warm fuzzies helping a guy I respect make an album.

Maybe I'm just wired wrong, but the show of confidence mixed with the hand outstretched for financial support juts rubs me the wrong way. There's a way to have both (i.e. saying "We can definitely do this with your support) and I don't feel like they're doing it. It doesn't make them horrible people. I don't wish death on them for it or anything and I don't think this makes Tate the innocent party, but it seems below the standard I'd expect from them.

Actually, it seems remarkably like something Tate would do - scads of press talking about how great he and the brand and the company were doing, AND, oh by the way, you can throw in to get the new record made. Face facts, if he ran the same campaign, most of the board would be calling bullshit.

Devin Townsend was remarkably honest about his campaign and set out his goals clearly (I wanna make a record that I really believe in but the record company don't want to get fully behind so will you help me? If there is any money left over I'm going to put it towards recording Z2 and buy a whole load of crazy shit that management will never sign off on for the tour and if there is any money left over from that I'm going to give it to a local animal shelter because animals are cool! )

Result, 546% funded!

I know that music is a business and bands are brands but I really, really don't want it shoved down my throat.

Runicen wrote:

Actually, it seems remarkably like something Tate would do - scads of press talking about how great he and the brand and the company were doing, AND, oh by the way, you can throw in to get the new record made.  Face facts, if he ran the same campaign, most of the board would be calling bullshit.

Truth bomb!