EverForthright-Label Scandal/TourSupport
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Everything we are offering will be done to the highest standard we can. Any prints and video will be done in high quality, and anything that can be signed will be. Please feel free to have fun with what we are offering and help us make the best out of this terrible situation. This is one of the biggest opportunities offered to us and we don't want to let our "label" ruin it. You're support is invaluable, and even with this we will continue to show you how much you mean to us and our careers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FULL STORY
"...a lot of the money YOU spent on our music, merchandise, and live shows has been stolen."
We'd like to inform you all that we have decided to leave Myriad Records. We urge you not to support this label, but please do support the fine artists who are with them.
As we have publicly uncovered the scandal with Invictus a while ago to ensure you don't get caught up in something like that, we wish to do the same about our experience with the DIY label Myriad Records (mainly referring to the owner, Jaime). As a growing artist, it is very important that you protect yourself from the many pitfalls of the music industry. Please learn from our mistake, here:
Before we released our debut cd in December 2011, we were approached by a few major record labels such as Earache Records, Nuclear Blast, etc. We decided that none of the deals were right for us since we were still a small band and we didn't want to be locked into any serious money situations. We decided to work with Myriad records because it was a free deal that could only help us. For the record - We did not sign any contracts.
Here are a few things in our Myriad Records proposal that were supposed to be done for us:
- Getting us The Agency Group as management
- Sell hard copies of our cd in the UK via Myriad store
- Myriad would incorporate their own management
- Possible distribution via Warner ADA (For global), Red Distribution (USA), Shellshock (Europe) & Stop Distribution (Australia/Asia)
- Music reviews in major magazines
None of the things mentioned above have happened.
Ever Forthright is a DIY band, and always has been. Myriad Records have never provided us with much at all. All CD's, merchandise, advertising, gear, web hosting, transportation, tour expenses, anything you can think of, was all paid for out of our pockets or by merchandise sales. Myriad Records did not contribute financially to anything. Side note: Thank you to anyone who has purchased a cd, shirt, or anything from us. Your money does directly help us by putting gas in our van, putting food in our mouths (on tour), and coming to your town. none of us take a profit from sales. We are beyond grateful for your support. seriously.
Myriad mentioned we could give them any money we wanted so they can hold it for our tour support, PR, and emergencies when we needed it. We figured this was a good idea since someday we'd need to come to europe and we'd be more likely to spend the money if we had it available. This was never a problem. The money was stored in a high interest account which Jaime (Owner of Myriad Records) reported he was making money off of. In the past we needed some money and it was sent right back from Myriad. No problem. We had spoken to him many times and talked about our money for tour use/PR/emergency... Always referred to as our [Ever Forthright's] money.
Around May/June 2013 we confirmed Euroblast, a tour with Last Chance to Reason, and a tour with Auras. We asked Jaime to send back our tour support money that we had given to him so far, just in case we had any unexpected expenses on tour (and we did have some big ones) and to get ready to pay for flights for Euroblast. He was fine with it and had no objections to it (obviously because it was our money). He did however mention he had to send the money back August 1st since there were "bank rules", we figured due to the high interest account that the money was held in.
Now let us tell you, on our tour with Last Chance to Reason and Evan Brewer we had to replace the axle and bearings on our trailer because it broke in Chicago. We also had to replace broken glass on our van while on our Canadian run with Auras. These expenses costed around $1,200 which came out of the money that we had earned while we were out on tour. While one can never expect to have a perfect run while out on the road, we had anticipated using the money earned as our "Euroblast fare" to cover our travel costs to Europe. We tried reaching out to Jaime on multiple occasions to inform him of our situation, however we couldn't get in contact with him at all. This was bad because we could hardly afford gas or to feed ourselves. In many ways, this was the beginning of the end of our working relationship.
It was now August 1st, at the end of one tour going onto the next. We called, messaged, and emailed Myriad because we were in desperate need of money. After many tries, we had no luck in reaching Jaime. We had to cut our per diems (food money from guarantees) and any motel reservations to pay for the costs we had incurred. Now most of our members did not even have money to buy food for themselves.
We had no luck getting in contact. By this point, we were beginning to freak out, trying to find ways to now raise money to pay for our plane tickets to europe. We reduced our shirts to At-Cost (NO PROFITS) prices just to get money in our pockets. We still continued to do everything we could think of to get in contact with him and eventually we started to reach out to other Myriad artists as well. Someone eventually got in touch with our guitar player Billy and were told that he (Jaime) would contact us soon.
Finally, on September 13, Jamie appeared. When we finally spoke, these were the reasons he cited as to why he was not around: "He moved, he had been working a lot, has no internet at his house or on his cellphone, gets out of work at 1am and nothing is open where he can get wifi..."
Over a month and you don't go on the internet? We find this very hard to believe. You have a responsibility to run a "label" and you know that a band is waiting you to send tour support on August 1st (all of which is their own money, and not the labels mind you):.. so you just ignore it for well over a month? Never go on the internet once to send any sort of message to tell anyone what is happening? Never make a phone call to have someone reach out to us? None of what he told us is an acceptable excuse. Welcome to the year 2013 where wifi is available nearly everywhere, for free.
So finally he tells us he'll be going to an internet cafe to talk the next afternoon. What happens? He doesn't show up and, as it turns out, we find out that he overslept through the meeting. By his own admission no less. Now that's real dedication to "your" band.
He continues: "You don't even have visas, no one has sent me dates, itinerary or anything - the label pot money was to go out on tours that are worthwhile, not ones where you are either doing it illegally without visas etc or will not break even. I fail to see how you haven't made anything since January since that was the last 20% sent. The label always decides what their investment (given that it was an 80/20 split it is still an investment given that the money changed hands) that would be spent on, never the band, same goes for anywhere to be fair."
Now here's what's wrong with what he said:
1. There is no "label pot money" our money is for us, held by Myriad so we don't spend it on anything. There was never mention of any pot money ever.
2. "you don't even have visas, no one has sent me dates, itinerary or anything - the label pot money was to go out on tours that are worthwhile, not ones where you are either doing it illegally without visas etc or will not break even".
Jaime never said we'd only get our money back on a tour where we would make our money back or if we had visa's or not. This is completely new and made up. And yes, we did have dates and an itinerary.
3. "I fail to see how you haven't made anything since January since that was the last 20%sent."
If he was around to hear what happened on our tours, he'd know why we didn't make any money. There is also NO 20% of anything. As mentioned before, we only sent money to Myriad at our free will to hold onto for our tour support,PR, or emergencies; not for any other reason.
4."The label always decides what their investment that would be spent on, never the band, same goes for anywhere to be fair."
Myriad didn't invest a thing in us. In fact, most of the time his email and website was down. To say that Myriad did 20% of the work is absurd. If our money no longer exists, the label has made zero progress, AND nothing has been done for us in return, we just don't see how this is a fair relationship. And it's certainly the furthest thing from an investment. We believe we were the only band on Myriad Records to send any money for Jaime to hold onto. Why would we be the only ones? If you say this money was for the label, then why would we be the only ones sending money to contribute? It was in fact, always our money. Jaime admitted it and already agreed to send it back.
For the record:
At one point, Myriad had agreed to send us our money on August 1st. Where the money went instead, we don't know.
Jaime has approximately $2947 USD of ours according to our records, not including the money he's taken from us from interest, YouTube ad's, and digital downloads. You are reading this because he will not send the money back to us. Our only guess as to why this happened is that our money was spent wrongfully.
We are currently unable to get our entire band to Germany this October, and a lot of the money YOU spent on our merchandise, music, and live shows has been stolen.
To this point, we've still only heard very little directly from Jaime. He continues to avoid us and the problem at hand.
Please learn from our mistakes and do not support this label. If you are an artist, be careful of who you work with and ask questions.
Everything we are offering will be done to the highest standard we can. Any prints and video will be done in high quality, and anything that can be signed will be. Please feel free to have fun with what we are offering and help us make the best out of this terrible situation. This is one of the biggest opportunities offered to us and we don't want to let our "label" ruin it. You're support is invaluable, and even with this we will continue to show you how much you mean to us and our careers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FULL STORY
"...a lot of the money YOU spent on our music, merchandise, and live shows has been stolen."
We'd like to inform you all that we have decided to leave Myriad Records. We urge you not to support this label, but please do support the fine artists who are with them.
As we have publicly uncovered the scandal with Invictus a while ago to ensure you don't get caught up in something like that, we wish to do the same about our experience with the DIY label Myriad Records (mainly referring to the owner, Jaime). As a growing artist, it is very important that you protect yourself from the many pitfalls of the music industry. Please learn from our mistake, here:
Before we released our debut cd in December 2011, we were approached by a few major record labels such as Earache Records, Nuclear Blast, etc. We decided that none of the deals were right for us since we were still a small band and we didn't want to be locked into any serious money situations. We decided to work with Myriad records because it was a free deal that could only help us. For the record - We did not sign any contracts.
Here are a few things in our Myriad Records proposal that were supposed to be done for us:
- Getting us The Agency Group as management
- Sell hard copies of our cd in the UK via Myriad store
- Myriad would incorporate their own management
- Possible distribution via Warner ADA (For global), Red Distribution (USA), Shellshock (Europe) & Stop Distribution (Australia/Asia)
- Music reviews in major magazines
None of the things mentioned above have happened.
Ever Forthright is a DIY band, and always has been. Myriad Records have never provided us with much at all. All CD's, merchandise, advertising, gear, web hosting, transportation, tour expenses, anything you can think of, was all paid for out of our pockets or by merchandise sales. Myriad Records did not contribute financially to anything. Side note: Thank you to anyone who has purchased a cd, shirt, or anything from us. Your money does directly help us by putting gas in our van, putting food in our mouths (on tour), and coming to your town. none of us take a profit from sales. We are beyond grateful for your support. seriously.
Myriad mentioned we could give them any money we wanted so they can hold it for our tour support, PR, and emergencies when we needed it. We figured this was a good idea since someday we'd need to come to europe and we'd be more likely to spend the money if we had it available. This was never a problem. The money was stored in a high interest account which Jaime (Owner of Myriad Records) reported he was making money off of. In the past we needed some money and it was sent right back from Myriad. No problem. We had spoken to him many times and talked about our money for tour use/PR/emergency... Always referred to as our [Ever Forthright's] money.
Around May/June 2013 we confirmed Euroblast, a tour with Last Chance to Reason, and a tour with Auras. We asked Jaime to send back our tour support money that we had given to him so far, just in case we had any unexpected expenses on tour (and we did have some big ones) and to get ready to pay for flights for Euroblast. He was fine with it and had no objections to it (obviously because it was our money). He did however mention he had to send the money back August 1st since there were "bank rules", we figured due to the high interest account that the money was held in.
Now let us tell you, on our tour with Last Chance to Reason and Evan Brewer we had to replace the axle and bearings on our trailer because it broke in Chicago. We also had to replace broken glass on our van while on our Canadian run with Auras. These expenses costed around $1,200 which came out of the money that we had earned while we were out on tour. While one can never expect to have a perfect run while out on the road, we had anticipated using the money earned as our "Euroblast fare" to cover our travel costs to Europe. We tried reaching out to Jaime on multiple occasions to inform him of our situation, however we couldn't get in contact with him at all. This was bad because we could hardly afford gas or to feed ourselves. In many ways, this was the beginning of the end of our working relationship.
It was now August 1st, at the end of one tour going onto the next. We called, messaged, and emailed Myriad because we were in desperate need of money. After many tries, we had no luck in reaching Jaime. We had to cut our per diems (food money from guarantees) and any motel reservations to pay for the costs we had incurred. Now most of our members did not even have money to buy food for themselves.
We had no luck getting in contact. By this point, we were beginning to freak out, trying to find ways to now raise money to pay for our plane tickets to europe. We reduced our shirts to At-Cost (NO PROFITS) prices just to get money in our pockets. We still continued to do everything we could think of to get in contact with him and eventually we started to reach out to other Myriad artists as well. Someone eventually got in touch with our guitar player Billy and were told that he (Jaime) would contact us soon.
Finally, on September 13, Jamie appeared. When we finally spoke, these were the reasons he cited as to why he was not around: "He moved, he had been working a lot, has no internet at his house or on his cellphone, gets out of work at 1am and nothing is open where he can get wifi..."
Over a month and you don't go on the internet? We find this very hard to believe. You have a responsibility to run a "label" and you know that a band is waiting you to send tour support on August 1st (all of which is their own money, and not the labels mind you):.. so you just ignore it for well over a month? Never go on the internet once to send any sort of message to tell anyone what is happening? Never make a phone call to have someone reach out to us? None of what he told us is an acceptable excuse. Welcome to the year 2013 where wifi is available nearly everywhere, for free.
So finally he tells us he'll be going to an internet cafe to talk the next afternoon. What happens? He doesn't show up and, as it turns out, we find out that he overslept through the meeting. By his own admission no less. Now that's real dedication to "your" band.
He continues: "You don't even have visas, no one has sent me dates, itinerary or anything - the label pot money was to go out on tours that are worthwhile, not ones where you are either doing it illegally without visas etc or will not break even. I fail to see how you haven't made anything since January since that was the last 20% sent. The label always decides what their investment (given that it was an 80/20 split it is still an investment given that the money changed hands) that would be spent on, never the band, same goes for anywhere to be fair."
Now here's what's wrong with what he said:
1. There is no "label pot money" our money is for us, held by Myriad so we don't spend it on anything. There was never mention of any pot money ever.
2. "you don't even have visas, no one has sent me dates, itinerary or anything - the label pot money was to go out on tours that are worthwhile, not ones where you are either doing it illegally without visas etc or will not break even".
Jaime never said we'd only get our money back on a tour where we would make our money back or if we had visa's or not. This is completely new and made up. And yes, we did have dates and an itinerary.
3. "I fail to see how you haven't made anything since January since that was the last 20%sent."
If he was around to hear what happened on our tours, he'd know why we didn't make any money. There is also NO 20% of anything. As mentioned before, we only sent money to Myriad at our free will to hold onto for our tour support,PR, or emergencies; not for any other reason.
4."The label always decides what their investment that would be spent on, never the band, same goes for anywhere to be fair."
Myriad didn't invest a thing in us. In fact, most of the time his email and website was down. To say that Myriad did 20% of the work is absurd. If our money no longer exists, the label has made zero progress, AND nothing has been done for us in return, we just don't see how this is a fair relationship. And it's certainly the furthest thing from an investment. We believe we were the only band on Myriad Records to send any money for Jaime to hold onto. Why would we be the only ones? If you say this money was for the label, then why would we be the only ones sending money to contribute? It was in fact, always our money. Jaime admitted it and already agreed to send it back.
For the record:
At one point, Myriad had agreed to send us our money on August 1st. Where the money went instead, we don't know.
Jaime has approximately $2947 USD of ours according to our records, not including the money he's taken from us from interest, YouTube ad's, and digital downloads. You are reading this because he will not send the money back to us. Our only guess as to why this happened is that our money was spent wrongfully.
We are currently unable to get our entire band to Germany this October, and a lot of the money YOU spent on our merchandise, music, and live shows has been stolen.
To this point, we've still only heard very little directly from Jaime. He continues to avoid us and the problem at hand.
Please learn from our mistakes and do not support this label. If you are an artist, be careful of who you work with and ask questions.
Organizer
Nicholas Llerandi
Organizer
Jamaica, NY