THE A.K.A.s reden über Trennung von Fueled By Ramen

25.12.2006
 

 

THE A.K.A.s haben sich in ihrem Myspace Blog zur Trennung von Fueled By Ramen geäußert und damit die Gerüchte bestätigt. Aber lest selbst:

"Hello and happy holiday wishes to our dear friends, foes, and rock comrades.

As we near the end of 2006 (sicks), it is always nice to break out the wetwipes for a cleansing of the slate and officially bust out fresh for the new year. We've been planning our personal top 10 events, records, movies, books, phenomenons, etc for an end of the year post which is coming soon. It is times like these when events out of your control deem it necessary to rearrange plans to do some reality checks for the ill-informed.

For those of you cyber news aficionados, you may have heard the ever so slightly skewed news that The A.K.A.s, along with Kane Hodder and Days Away have been "Dropped" from Fueled by Ramen. For truth seekers and fantasy fellons alike, I am here to give you the "official" scoop.

The A.K.A.s as a young band were ripely plucked from the Punk Rock bush with a unique opportunity to do our debut album on a label called Fueled By Ramen. At the time, the majority of our lineup had never put out a record at all, and really, all we knew about FBR was it was "the guy from Less Than Jake's Label" so it sounded pretty amazing to us. Fall Out Boy had recently played in Philly in front of 11 or so people (including Chris Bazan) and were old friends of ours from playing in hardcore bands for years. Nobody knew who Pete Wentz was, Panic at the Disco didn't exist, and the wave of what was to come over the next couple years was uncertain. We just knew that we wanted to make a record that felt very urgent to us at the time, and with that same sense of urgency, we rolled into the studio and busted out a record with a furious storm in our hearts and heads.

In the coming months, we released a radical punk rock and roll album to an unsuspecting public. At the time of the release, we didn't have a booking agent, and continued to tour on our own steam, playing with local bands in VFW halls, church basements, and crappy clubs. We sold about 240 record in stores the first week and we were fucking stoked. The goal for our record was to sell 10,000... which we thought seemed insane. That was twice as many as me and Chris' old band had sold in 8 years, but we were all hopeful, excited, and intent on making it happen no matter what.

This was a goal that we would go on to surpass.

It would be over 6 months before we would get a booking agent, and we continued to take any and every opportunity to stay on the road. Very dear friends of ours in other bands gave us the chance to do so, strictly becuase they liked us, liked our band, and wanted to give us the chance they believed we deserved because we worked so hard. These decisions had nothing to do with Record labels, Managers, Booking Agents, Tour or marketing budgets, etc. It was out of friendship, love of music, and necessity.

We would go on to play over 400 shows around the world.

The point I am slowly getting at is, it was a different climate for music and Fueled By Ramen as a label at the time and a different set of expectations. As things began to take off for Fall Out Boy at a mindblowing pace, we continued to be stoked for them and the label, and they were (and continue to be) our friends and everyone involved was working their asses off. I can't speak for everyone, but I never really thought I would be on TRL, and I haven't been. (YET) -Hi fives!

Skipping ahead, the news about FBR "dropping bands" is the talk of cyber-town, a place I seldom visit as it is normally a major downer. A lot of talk about what sucks and what rules without much consideration for an understanding of this being a completely subjective set of circumstances. In terms of the case at hand, it is more of an example of common naivete. I will sum the situation up with the following:

It isn't the normal music lovers job to know the ins and outs and specifics of how record deals work, who is in cahoots with who, and how the music industry works in general. If it was, believe me when I say that no one would actually like music anymore. However, it is interesting to see people squabbling over things they have little or no concept of. Every band on Fueled By Ramen (and most labels) has a unique "record deal" in many ways. Some are start up deals for majors, some are licensing deals, some are just straight up deals to put out records. Not every band or label has the expectation of a long term relationship with each other anymore. The days of 5-7 album record deals is long over.

Our deal was for the first record. There were different options involved for continuing, and we mutually decided as band and label [over a year ago] that this wasn't the best thing for everyone involved. The label had evolved into a home for a specific sound that we didn't fit with whatsoever, and we were intent on doing our sophomore album with a label that was excited about our band and passionate about our music.

For those with their panties in a proverbial bunch, in the past few years, has there REALLY been any second record from a band on FBR besides the latest Punchline record? Techinically speaking... no.

We have always had, and continued to have, a fun and friendly relationship with the hardworking family at Fueled by Ramen. Over the course of their success, we've seen them grow from a tiny little office in Gainesville with 3 people to 2 giant spaces in Tampa with a huge staff. Some have come and gone and we continue to be dear freinds with those both current and past.

This entire "news" phenomenon was merely the result of a WWW end of the year slate cleaning at FBR. We're happy to clear the air on our end. We're excited to be working on what we feel is going to be an AWESOME new album, and already have exciting news to announce coming very soon! We'll have announcements in the new year and soon after, plans for the release of the new album!

We continue to support our friends in some of the bands on FBR, and are also excited to no longer be associated with some of the others. Wink.

Happy holidays and thanks to all our friends at FBR, the bands, the fans, our friends and families, and best wishes for an exciting new year! We hope to see you all a hundred times in 2007 and sweat, dance, sing, and fucking rock together. AMEN!

X's and Ohhh's, Mike Ski and The A.K.A.s

"Can you see it in the headlines, suckers line up to believe the lie.""