'Growing up in punk and hardcore, we have this thing called punk rock guilt,' says McIlrath.

But money has always been a particularly sensitive topic for punk bands at any level. 'There's people not looking out for your best interests on either side of it,' he says.Įvery art form deals with some variation of this question - what concessions are you willing to make for more eyeballs, more opportunity and more money. And there are, of course, shady actors coming from the indie labels, too. He interviews various people from the corporate entities who came from punk scenes and really, truly wanted what was best for the bands. But also, why change now? Being who they were got them their success.īut the picture Ozzi paints in the book isn't as binary as the virtuous independent label vs. Which was a problem because they couldn't dance. What we're going to have you do is drop the instruments so you can sing and dance,'' says Ozzi. 'They had an A&R guy tell them 'yeah, you guys are great. Some, like the all-female band The Donnas, had label reps trying to micromanage and change their image. 'Maybe it was a combination of people were either embarrassed to talk about it, or still processing how they felt about it.'Īnd every band had a slightly different experience.

He found reading and participating in Ozzi's book illuminating because bands going through this weren't talking with each other about this stuff. 'I wanted to know, what happens to the real people,' says Ozzi. The book uses the major label debuts of 11 bands to examine a music industry in flux, fans feeling betrayed, and bands just trying to navigate the machine. That's the question at the center of the new book Sellout: The Major Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore 1994 - 2007 from music writer Dan Ozzi. But if you were the kind of band that earned its cred giving the finger to corporate suits, how were you supposed to navigate shaking their hand for your shot at rock stardom?

Immediately following the massive boom that was Nirvana, major labels began scouring local indie punk scenes looking for the next big thing. Not long after, Jawbreaker would sign a nearly million-dollar record deal with the label Geffen.Īnd they weren't the only ones. 'The smart money stays on an independent, and actually gets richer. This, he said on stage, isn't an empty play to the crowd, but rather good business advice. 'It's actually scientifically proven you'll make more money on an independent label if you're a not-so-great punk band like us' Jawbreaker singer and guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach once told an audience in 1993.

Sellout by dan ozzi