Is It Wrong for Independent Bands to Take Corporate Funding?

It’s really fucking hard to make money off music in 2015, and it should come as no surprise that many big bands and artists supplement their income with brand sponsorships, endorsement deals, licensing deals, and product placements. We’ve all seen the video for “Anaconda,” which means we’ve all gotten an eyeful of Nicki Minaj’s Myx Moscato brand and her pink Beats Pill line—and that’s to say nothing of Busta Rhymes and Courvoisier, Drake and Nike, OK Go and Chevy, or Vince Staples and his beloved Sprite. Apple regularly features up and coming indie bands and hip hop artists in their commercials (as do a bizarre amount of car companies), and even the grizzled heavy metal gods in Metallica and Black Sabbath are out there getting paid. The bands make money, and the brands get to bask in their coolness like Countess Bathory bathing in her tub of virgins’ blood. Everyone wins, kind of.

The “kind of” part comes in when we’re discussing smaller, independent bands, whose image and reputation hinges upon their commitment to values like integrity, hard work, and community. When Scion started sponsoring metal tours, curating an annual metal festival, and throwing money at the American metal scene in general, plenty of people looked askance. They were suspicious of this huge, multinational company, its motives, and its efforts to win their trust, especially since it seemed to be focusing its efforts on thoroughly noncommercial, underground extreme metal. DC grindcore crew Magrudergrind were castigated for releasing a free EP under the Scion banner, even as many other bands—from Yob to Saint Vitus—followed suit. The strangest part was, though, that Scion undoubtedly did a lot of good for a lot of bands and metal fans to very little clear benefit to themselves, save for being mentioned favorably in pieces like this and through word-of-mouth. They seemed honestly genuine in their desire to get involved, and it didn’t hurt that their smart hiring choices ensured that the bands they were supporting were actually awesome. They created documentaries, hosted parties, produced zines, curated art installations, and supported dozens of bands with money, promotion, and socks.

Vans, Jagermeister, Converse, Doc Martens, and Sailor Jerry are old hands when it comes to cultivating relationships with punk and metal bands. Rock Star Energy Drink sponsors an entire touring festival, Mountain Dew and Volcom have their own record labels, and Red Bull’s been going for the gold with its multi-genre live concert onslaught. Adult Swim has done a hell of a good job courting fans of heavy metal (and other genres), most recently with their free Singles Series. Hell, even the corporate candymakers behind Sour Patch Kids are grasping at some of that precious, precious cool by renting a house in Brooklyn and trying to lure touring indie bands inside for content creation purposes. Despite the competition (and their own scaled-back operations), of all the music synergy-focused brands, Scion came closest to the Medici model; they even had some dirty laundry of their own to obscure under that hard-won cool.

The idea of a rich person giving money to a creative person in exchange for status and cool points is nothing new—it started back in ancient Rome and feudal Japan, and the most enduring image of the patron surfaced during the Renaissance. Florence’s famed Medici clan financially supported some of the most gifted artisans of the age, including Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo, as a way to launder money and burnish the family's blood-splattered reputation (they also secured immortality in the process, judging by how many music industry thinkpieces have name-dropped them over the past decade when discussing the modern concept of patronage). Sound familiar? Swap out the Sistine Chapel for a Red Bull-sponsored noise show, and the song remains the same.

Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and Indiegogo have been heralded as the democratic, interactive evolution of patronage, and in some instances, their everyone-lends-a-hand model has worked a treat. Patreon offers an interesting mix of crowdfunding and outright patronage, but is still a fairly small player. Neither digital panhandling nor well-intentioned solicitations for necessary or innovative projects are quite as sustainable as having a rich, indulgent Italian aristocrat on your pocket, so it’s understandable that most bands view crowdfunding as a last resort.

Scion's dirty laundry—a safety-related vehicle recall enacted by their parent company, Toyota—pales into nothing compared to the latest scandal that’s rocked certain corners of the music community. As we reported earlier this week, Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly and his label Collect Records (home to his own fiercely anti-capitalist band United Nations as well as Nothing, Wax Idols, and more) have come under fire for after reports surfaced that Turing Pharmaceuticals, the company run by Collect Records silent partner Martin Shkreli, had recently jacked up the price of Daraprim, a medication used to treat HIV and cancer patients. The medication’s price was raised from $13.50 to $750 per pill, a move that was roundly condemned as heartless and immoral. Price-gouging by hyper-privileged capitalist pigdogs who pass out death sentences to pad their overstuffed pockets is not a new concept—it’s kind of a trademark move—but this particular case seemed especially odious when backlit against the well-meaning DIY ethos of Rickly’s independent label.

Once the reports were confirmed, the internet exploded, and Collect artists like Nothing, Wax Idols, and Sick Feeling rushed to voice their disgust at Turing’s actions. Rickly released a statement earlier today that stated, “Today, Collect Records — with the support and encouragement of all of our artists — have agreed to fully sever our relationship with Martin Shkreli, effective immediately.” He also told the Times that he’s fairly certain that cutting ties with Shkreli—thereby giving up his financial support, which began with a $600,000 investment —spells the end for Collect Records. “If I were a band on the label I would be having a serious crisis of faith right now. The amount of money I have in the bank doesn’t cover my outstanding invoices. It’s devastating.”

So is there an ethical way for an independent, anti-commercial band to accept funds from a monied investor or a large corporation without compromising their core values? On the right hand, we have Scion's patronage model—largely benevolent, with few strings attached save for when the company wants to protect its own values (Scion is known to have severed ties with bands over lyrical content or purported political affiliations). On the left hand, we have toxic scum like Shkreli with his dirty money and absent morals, pouring out money like expensive champagne. Is there an achievable middle ground? A few free pairs of Converse here or a well-paid Red Bull gig there is about as innocuous as it gets, but the deeper an artist ventures into the web of corporate funding, the more potential there is for ideological conflict.

As Tankcrimes label head Scotty Heath sees it, public perception plays a huge part in bands' decision to take in outside funding. "It's not right for me but for some folks it works and I'm not here to judge—the public will do that without me," he told Noisey via email. Heath is able to live off the proceeds from his label—which focuses on punk and metal and has released albums by bands like Ghoul, Iron Reagan, Impaled, and Cannabis Corpse—but as he noted, not everyone is so fortunate. "It's important to remember that most musicians make nowhere near $15/hour playing, writing, recording and performing music. Getting a check for a couple thousand dollars or even just flown across the country and put up in a nice hotel to play a gig for most musicians is a huge opportunity. Even with a corporate sponsor most band members still work one or more jobs outside of their band."

"We're talking about this today because of this kid who was "supporting the arts" and has now been revealed as what most would agree is the worst type of capitalist scum. The visceral negative reaction most of us share is logical; we don't want people like that involved in our scene, so much in fact that the idea of a band being stuck in a contract associated with him almost overshadowed what he was doing to get our negative attention in the first place," Heath continued. "The reality is that taking money from a rich kid who is a fan can be much less compromising than taking it from an energy drink or car company—until the public finds out where his money is from, or in this case, where it's going. The fans can influence which brands are acceptable and which aren't. Peer pressure works." “Ultimately I see this going in the same way it always does, where all the artists get blamed for everything and capitalism is never held accountable,” Rickly told Noisey in an earlier interview. “I’m not making excuses for what has happened, but there is no corner of the music industry that doesn’t live and breathe from subsidies from business. It’s reductive and hypocritical to hold us and only us accountable though, we are all at fault in some greater way.” As we’ve seen, he is right about one thing. For centuries, the music business has grappled with the ideological pain of knowing that its “music” arm cannot thrive without a helping hand from “business,” and that even idealistic DIY outfits aren’t above selling off a piece of their souls in order to pay the rent. Rickly and Collect Records were dealt a shitty hand when their angel investor turned out to be veritable shit-smeared Beezlebub, but not all patrons are evil—and if it was good enough for Bach, it’s definitely good enough for a bunch of broke-ass kids with guitars and a dream. Kim Kelly is a broke-ass kid who cannot play guitar. She's on Twitter.