I guess this is what they mean when they say there’s no money in music anymore. Steve Kilbey, frontman of prolific Australian band The Church, has come out swinging at his band’s US label Second Motion Records for paying the singer/bassist the measly sum of $400 earned from last year’s record sales in The States.
Kilbey took to his Facebook page to publicly share his disgust with how much money earned from The Church’s music is syphoned by the label, leaving the creators of the music with such little financial gain. Adding to Kilbey’s outrage is that his fellow Church bandmates each only received $100 for a year’s worth of US album sales, with Kilbey reaching $400 thanks to his solo records.
Kilbey, who recently turned 58, is not taking this lack of fair financial compensation laying down. Rather, the self-described ‘disgruntled’ musician is taking matters into his own hands, announcing his departure from The Church and revealing plans to illegally upload the entire Church back catalogue onto Bandcamp and selling it direct to the public himself. In his Facebook post Kilbey also toys with the idea of publishing Second Motion Records’ spreadsheets so the public can see at what points the money is taken away from the band.
Such actions will probably be thwarted by Second Motion Records should they choose to seek legal action against Kilbey, but whatever the outcome may be, for now you can read for yourself what has Kilbey in such an uproar.
Read: Steve Kilbey – Message to Second Motion Records
totally disgruntled! i know you guys hear a lot of musicians complaining that they never get paid…..i know i know…we’re s’posed to do it for the love of it. the church got their “royalty statement” yesterday from our record company second motion. (months late as usual!)the other 3 got a hundred bucks each. i got 400 bucks. oh yeah ! a hundred bucks…? is that all we earned in over one years record sales in the US? well if you look at the spread sheets seems like plenny of money coming in. but gosh darn theres a fee for handling this a fee for handling that a fee for processing this fee a charge here a deduction there. eventually he whittles it down to a hundred bucks each(400 for me coz of my solo albums!) . and i’m s’posed to go…oh thanks…a hundred bucks i made from our 30 records or so. for one year or more in the US. here are some fees deducted to whet your appetite…distribution fee, returns processing fee, license, , “less reserves”, liquidated reserves, and then the clincher due to artist” :50%.(ie he took the other 50 after hed taken everything else!) anyway what you do(if youd like your own record company) is basically kick it all around until you lose it. it seems (tho its hard to tell) that the church might have brought in 30 or 40 grand ( i mean starfish alone brought in 6000 on itunes)…but the members of the group got 100 bucks each. i mean he couldnt give us nothing so he came up with 100 bucks each. i am insulted. i have decided to leave the church. this is not a joke. i will complete the current tour and then i’m done. i implore you all not to buy any records from second motion records. as you see none of it will come to us. same as it ever was. i have decided to leave my own band permanently as a protest to being fucking treated like this. i have decided to illegally and eventually put all church records up on my bandcamp . you can buy them from me and make sure the money is going to a member of the band. at the end of one year i can chuck the other guys a hundred bucks and i can call myself a real record company. i may even post my second emotion spread sheets on line if youd like to have a look at how the big boys (like me) whove been doing for a long time get paid off ! this is no joke. if i cant get any satisfaction any other way i will do everything i can of this nature to provoke some response from someone for this INSULT!
