COBALT VS. GARDEN OF EXILE RECORDS
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 3:30pm by Axl Rosenberg
The fellas in Cobalt are angry at Garden of Exile records. How angry? Very, very, very angry. Here’s a posting from their MySpace page:
The swine that run Garden of Exile records have long been given the opportunity to send us the Eater of Birds LP’s that we are owed, but have failed to do so since March of this year. We had to buy copies of our own LP’s online from people lucky enough to have received their orders.
The label owner has claimed to have sent them, then later recanted saying that he would send them the following weekend. Then the swine went on ‘holiday’ to Thailand and says that he will send our LP’s when he returns. As far as I know he has also ripped off Wrath of the Weak in a similar manner and has failed to send the agreed upon amount to Profound Lore Records, from whom they licensed the music.
These goddamn pigs are selling OUR music and are blatantly disrespecting us and our fans. I encourage all our fans to email these swine at info AT gardenofexile DOT nl to let them know that their bullshit isnt to be tolerated.
And believe me if there is an opportunity to ‘visit’ this man, it will be done.
I have absolutely no experience in dealing with Garden of Exile, and I can’t even really say it’s a label I’m familiar with. But assuming Cobalt’s accusations are true, this is, indeed, a shitty, shitty situation (shituation?). Feel free to hit up the “swine” at that the above e-mail address and stand up for the artists’ rights.
-AR
I was chatting it up with the dudes from Darkest Hour when they toured through a week or so ago, and they said Victory Records did the same thing. Guess there’s another band to add to my list of “make sure I don’t ever get signed to”
Victory Records are VERY notorious for screwing their artists over. I seem to remember there even being posts on this very blog about the subject, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re gone now because Victory is also very notorious for threatening to sue anybody who dares speak ill of them or their president, Tony Brummel.
Almost every big band that has left Victory has said how happy they were to be gone because when they were on Victory they never got paid. Hatebreed, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, Hawthorne Heights have all issued statements saying how much they hated being on Victory, how badly they were getting screwed, and how much of an immature, egomaniacal bastard Tony Brummel is.
All of those ads you see on MTV or in magazines shilling for the label? Bigging Victory up as “the voice of the youth” and “the biggest independent label”? Yeah, they were done out of the band’s pocket as an excuse for Brummel to not have to pay his bands (marketing expenses count as “recoupables” and come out of the money that would otherwise get paid as royalties). They may be “independent” but they screw their artists worse than the majors do.
Fuck Victory Records. Fuck Tony Brummel. Since I found out about this I stopped buying anything on that label. I sometimes feel bad about not paying for albums from DH or BTBAM because I love both of those bands, but they’re not seeing the money from those sales anyway.
The members had to buy their own albums, kinda sad.
hehe, the email adres is dot NL, thats in my country. I’ll send em a hatemail in their own language! \m/
That sounds like it was written by a 14 year old gothic kid angry at his mom.
The swine made lasagne for dinner, again. I’m gonna lock myself in my room and write a dark poem about how much I hate the world!
I lol’d considerably.
ESL
Cobalt is pretty sweet though.
That sounds really, really, really, really familiar. Almost like the exact same thing happened to my band…
Yikes. And it seems like a lot of people could easily relate to this issue.
It’s a shituation, you pigs!
Thailand on Holiday? Buying hookers with Cobalt’s cash
not just any hookers. ladyboys!
ladyboys ahahahahahaha
or just straight up little boys
Sounds like Richard Campos from Wild Rags has a clone!
So Cobalt had a deal with this label, and they’ve never met the guy running it? Did these seem like a good idea?
These dudes are stellar cats and seeing shit like this sucks. Hope revenge is sweet for these Colorado comrads.
They straight up threatened to kick that guy’s ass. My kind of band.
Email sent. Proudly.
Is the singer from Cobalt not a U.S. Marine? I’d go to ground in Thailand too.
Yeah, and I believe I read in an interview that he’s a Marine because he feels his true place in life is IN THE DESERT KILLING OTHER PEOPLE.
Haha, Cobalt’s Myspace URL is /stinktown666. That’s pretty cute, no?
Am I the only one that hears the tune to David Bowie’s “Changes” when they see the F-F-F-Feudin tag? Was that the original intent?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jACrmwTsi08
Oh.
I prefer Bowie, think I’ll stick with that.
actually, you’re not. Happens to me every time too
I think of that and, sadly, Def Leppard’s “Foolin’.” “Ah, F-F-F-Foolin’.”
i can’t stop listening to these guys. Shitty to hear fo such things!!
Jeebus, the more and more I read about indie labels the more and more I wanna just hang up my guitar and call it a day. Used to be every young musicians’ dream to get signed to a label, any label, but between this, the Victory Records bullshit, that Anatomy of a record Contract thread, and hearing some of that dude from Daath’s stories, I’m just gonna sell copies of my band’s album from our house. Fuck a label.
Garden Of Exile pretty much licensed two albums from Profound Lore; Cobalt “Eater Of Birds” and Wrath Of The Weak “Alogon”. Initially I wanted to do a handshake deal, no contracts (like I’m sure Relapse and Metal Blade gave GoE when GoE licensed some of their titles for vinyl), they were gonna press 500 or each title on vinyl and they were going to give 15% product in exchange in which the label and the band would split evenly for each title. Also it was in agreement that the label and the bands would each get a test pressing as well too and that Profound Lore, Cobalt, and Wrath Of The Weak were going to get their copies mailed to them (air mail, NOT surface mail) around the time the vinyl for each title was released.
Well months pass, understandable since it usually takes a while for an indie vinyl only label to get vinyl projects going, no rush, and finally production is the works (if I can remember this was sometime late last year or something, not exactly sure admittedly). Nonetheless apparently each title became available early this year, I guess around March because I remember it was around the time “Gin” came out, pre-orders were set through GoE and then following the titles were put up for sale finally.
Nonetheless, after some back and forth with GoE and excuses blah, blah, blah, and being dicked around when Profound Lore and the bands were going to get their copies, finally after five/six months Profound Lore gets their share of the Lps (we were still short mind you on what was owed to us and no test pressing of course), I believe just when the owner of GoE was going to leave for Thailand on vacation (must be nice!). I personally inquired about the band’s copies and he said when he returned (this would have been already two/three weeks ago or whatever) he would send the band their share of the copies and the rest of what was owed to Profound Lore (honestly, they could just give what was owed to us to the bands). The owner, from what I recall, made some sort of excuse that he was going to New York or I dunno what the fuck (and even suggested giving them to Erik Wunder of Cobalt in person, LOL!), and after several emails (one of them to give them Wrath Of The Weak’s new mailing address and to make sure he had Erik’s new address in NY now because that’s where Erik is now living) Profound Lore hasn’t heard back from him whatsoever. And the bands have still not gotten their copies owed to them. Phil even made an order through Profound Lore for some swag, and in that order, he actually ordered two copies of the Eater Of Birds LPs! Of course I refunded him and just gave them to him for free, and I plan on sending Wrath Of The Weak some LPs as well too just to at least have the vinyl in their own hands.
But yeah, it’s pretty much a fiasco, I know for a fact that if Garden Of Exile pulled this shit on a label like Relapse, Hydra Head, or Metal Blade they wouldn’t get away with it. I guess Profound Lore is not cool like those bigger labels, lol!