All is Fair in Sales and Press Releases

by Dale Nixon

“Words cannot describe how excited I am to have the opportunity to work with Thursday again. Thursday is a band that people believe in. They are innovators. They are the voice of a generation. Some bands simply make songs that people like. Other bands thrive on gimmicks. The true artists create something that changes people’s lives. Thursday are true artists. They have a very special and unique magnetism. They are a band that you can believe in at a time when there is not a surplus of bands with any real substance or meaning. ‘Full Collapse’ is an album that has influenced so many bands as well as spearheading an entire musical movement. Working with the band on that pivotal and significant album was magical. Thursday and Victory have done great things together. I am so happy and honored that tradition will continue. Some people might want to call this a sort of homecoming. I simply see it as a reunion of passionate people that have done great things in the past getting the opportunity to do them again. This is something that people can feel good about. And to me, that is the best karma for any relationship,” said Victory Owner Tony Brummel.

Last week, Victory Records and label head Tony Brummel announced a historic, albeit head-scratching, reunion between the embattled indie (most recently, platinum artist Hawthorne Heights has exchanged lawsuits with the label) and ex-patriot rockers Thursday, who had jumped ship in 2002 for the elysian fields and major-label dosh of Island Records.

At the time of the split, the Thursday divorce was acrimonious and well-documented on the band's own website and in message board postings. Victory Records and more often head honcho Brummel were portrayed as heavy-handed opportunists who wanted sustained control of the bands they “built”. The pattern would be repeated as subsequent bands achieved a modicum of success with the Chicago-based label. Brummel's creative control would often be extended to other areas usually reserved for band management including touring and merchandising decisions.

Thursday explained the split in this press release from 2002.

“One label, Island Def Jam, had been coming to our shows since we started touring full time. They had seen us at our worst, they knew at the time that we were not concerned with radio or huge record sales, and they understood that we just wanted to tour and play music. Throughout the entire year various members of the Island staff would come out to shows to tell us that we played well and to show their support for us. Later, they would express interest in working with us. After hearing from several major labels over the past year, and after learning of Tony's dealings with MCA, we decided that it was in our best interest to sign a deal with Island. While our deal with Island is subject to our getting released from Victory Records (which Victory is obligated to do according to the contract), we are confident that we will soon be a part of the Island family.

Victory Records helped us very much. They helped us to make a record and to get it out to people. However, we have realized that we are not and never will be creatively aligned with Tony and his vision for our band and his company. The idea of family is very important to us, members of a family should treat each other in a forthright, honest, respectful and supportive manner. This is not the case with Victory because of the way Tony has acted towards us. We have been deceived, bullied and compromised to an unsatisfactory end. This is not to say that we don't care about members of the Victory staff. We wish them all the luck in the world. We simply want to continue autonomous from Victory. Regarding MCA records, because of their deal with Tony they have now begun to promote "Full Collapse" as if it was their own. However we have had no communication with them and we do not consider ourselves an MCA band. We are looking forward to building a relationship with Island. They have illustrated over the past year that they understand the basis of our band, and they have no intentions of changing the music that we naturally write, record and perform. Neither do we.”


Former label mates Hawthorne Heights called Brummel "a man whose greed knows no bounds."

"Our departure is anything but amicable," the band wrote on their website. "Tony Brummel is a man that cares more about his ego and bank account than the bands themselves."

Now comes word that Thursday is scheduled to release a CD/DVD retrospective through Victory October 30, according to the press release it will contain three “new” tracks along with a number of demos and rarities.

On the surface, it appears as if Brummel and Victory are looking to mend fences (acrimonious splits also occurred with label-jumping heavies Taking Back Sunday, Atreyu, and the aforementioned Hawthorne Heights) and indie credibility; re-signing (note the hyphen) the universally-respected Thursday would seem to fit both agendas.

“Friends!!! We have some exciting news!!! We know that everyone is wondering what is next for us (New Label? New Record? Touring? Breaking up?). We're proud to announce that we will be releasing a DVD/CD on our former label, Victory Records. Surprise! A lot of the footage from this DVD was taken during the time we spent on Victory and we thought it was appropriate to release it with them. On a more personal note, many of you know that our parting with Victory was bitter on both sides and we're taking this chance to put that behind us. That label really helped us get to where we are and we helped them to establish themselves as well... "coming full circle" and "making amends" are some of the phrases that we could throw around here but we think you get the picture already. Tony's passion for this project and his continued support of the band after all these years has helped to make this an easy decision.
We're really looking forward to this release. The DVD will be a retrospective of our band’s career so far(footage from the last nine years) with a ton of live stuff. Everyone always says we're much better live than on record-- now you can decide. The CD will have several new tracks(!) and some alternate versions and demos of older songs.” said “Thursday” in the press release.

Now, from those words, one might assume that this historic “reunion” (let's face it; not news on the scale of Pink Floyd or even the Cro-Mags burying the hatchet) might contain the foppish band and shaven-headed Brummel releasing a single of Kumbaya with an accompanying DVD video.

But one problem remains – Brummel is still speaking for everyone concerned. He wrote the press release himself, according to a label source, and engineered the “quotes” for all concerned in conjunction with the band's manager. Brummel did not even allow his own PR people to craft the release, he submitted it for distribution to them once he had completed it! Thus the band's manager manages to get his percentage for an album that would likely have been released with or without the band's consent.

The “new” Thursday album does not contain three “new songs” as implied, but rather three older unissued tracks, along with the usual assortment of odds-and-sods and demo versions. The advantages for the band are two-fold; re-reap some indie cred lost from jumping to a major (if anyone still cares about such a thing), and move enough units on the Soundscan charts to get back on the major-label radar. Atreyu's post-coital “Best of Atreyu” CD/DVD package released by Victory in January had moved a respectable 48,000 units through the end of April and made a respectable bow on the Soundscan Indie label chart.

Did the band even “re-sign” with Victory?

Probably not.

Brummel's standard artist contracts reserve the right for the label to reissue, repackage and compile anything recorded and submitted to the label. As such, the repackaging was already a foregone conclusion, especially given the fact that Victory has hit a cold snap in breaking bands in the last year or so (Aiden and Silverstein being the latest examples of large advertising campaign dollars being unmatched by CD sales) and that Brummel has reportedly and repeatedly put the label on the market for an extravagant sum.

And, even for the music industry, Brummel's megalomania is unmatched. As owner of the self-proclaimed "#1 Independent Label in the United States" he has had famous email exchanges with "peers" such as Lyor Cohen, Tom Whalley and even Apple's Steven Jobs, all of which were punctuated by "mysterious" leaks of the private conversations.

Label workers get to witness the full gamut of controlling (berating employees in marketing meetings for wearing apparel of non-Victory bands), bizarre (concocting a car-crash story, complete with simulated limp to explain an Ozzfest absence) and downright abusive (a female ex-employee filed a labor complaint after being called a "bitch" in front of the promotions staff) side of Brummel's personality.

So in other words, don't believe everything you read in a press release.

Even if, and especially when, it comes from the mouth of Tony Brummel.