Hawthorne Heights Sue Victory Records
Posted August 8, 2006 — in Music News
Not Surpringsly, Hawthorne Heights is suing Victory Records. It was a matter of time.
Due to recent events we have decided to leave Victory Records. Our departure is anything but amicable. We have decided to leave Victory, in part due to the actions of the man who sits at the head of the label, Tony Brummel. Tony Brummel is a man that cares more about his ego and bank account than the bands themselves. Tony is a man whose greed knows no bounds. After selling more than 1.2 million copies of The Silence In Black and White and If Only You Were Lonely, we have never seen a single dollar in artist royalties from Victory Records. Tony will claim that we have not recouped, a term used by those in the music business which means the label has spent more money in advertising than has been made by CD sales.
You may be wondering, why now? Why did they wait three years before saying something? Why did they sound happy in that interview??? Like being in an abusive relationship, we let certain things slide as we were afraid, as many of the bands on Victory are, to stick our neck out for fear of being beaten, in this case represented by the threat of not being promoted as has been the case with certain bands on the roster. Were done being abused. The reasons stated above represent the final straw in a huge pile of hay that broke our backs.
- Hawthorne Heights
The complaint consist of damages including lost record sales, lost publishing revenues, lost merch revenues, lost touring revenues, and damage to Hawthorne Heights reputation. Victory also sent out an email blast to street teamers without the bands consent directing those to misplace copy of CDs of “Ne-Yo” to boost record sales of Hawthornes sophmore record. According the document, Tony Brummel referred to this as a “joke”. KOAR fell for the joke.
Courtrooms are filled with jokes. Check out the PDF of the complaint (via Velvet Rope)
Hey Dean,
This is Eron from Hawthorne Heights. I saw your blog about us today.
Just so you know, it was not us who bragged about debuting at #1 (we
would never do such a thing), nor was it us who wanted to ship 850k.
Both were Tony Brummel calls and both have hurt our reputation
severely as is further evident by your post. We as a band are
extremely grateful for every record we sell, probably more so than
most bands of our size. Nearly every night, whenever space and time
permits, we go out to meet our fans after the show…sometimes before > as well. We do not shelter ourselves from our fans as we realize that
it is because of them that we get to follow our dreams of being
professional musicians. We take nothing for granted and we’ve always
been humble. Please do not hold our labels indiscretions against us.
Thank you,
Eron
Comment by koar — August 8, 2006 @ 9:33 am
Not surprising. Look at all the other big names that packed up and left once they started selling but not making anything (Hatebreed, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, now Atreyu and Hawthorne Heights). For this to be an “indie label” and the bands not see any of the money from sales, that’s just nuts.
Comment by Gary — August 9, 2006 @ 6:36 am
Thats why we will shift our attention to Indie labels with major distribution like Cement Shoes (Universal) http://www.cementshoesrecords.com - home to Ill Nino, RA, Godhead, Medialab, Lo Mass Republic, and other names!
Comment by real mad — August 9, 2006 @ 7:57 pm
i think this is weird. but , i totally like the bands that were mentioned in this paragraph thing.. yah well , gtg
Comment by raeann — March 8, 2007 @ 9:32 am
i think this is weird. but , i totally like the bands that were mentioned in this paragraph thing.. yah well , gtg
Comment by raeann — March 8, 2007 @ 9:32 am