Now we all know that is a very bitter pill for a small independent band to swallow so they've made the decision to appeal to their fans for any help that they can get....whether that's a blind donation or buying something from their store to help them in their hour of need every penny will make a difference!
As you'd expect Smiley has appeared on multiple releases and if you aren't familiar with them then you can listen via the bands Bandcamp page by clicking HERE! If you take in all your music through a streaming subscription service then why not tip a couple of quid into the hat as a thank you?
Now, we all have different financial circumstances so there is no pressure or guilt trips....many bands got burnt but Birdpen have a connection to The Alarm family so I've chosen to highlight there plight, I've also got 3 of their albums which are fantastic so yes I need to get up to date and follow my own advice too!
Their statement reads.....
"It pains us to have a write a statement like this but we feel we have to so we can let you, our fans, know what has happened regarding our latest album There’s Something Wrong With Everything.
As you all know we crowd-funded this album through you, our amazing fans, and it was to date our most successful album. The response was fantastic and the tour, which even saw us go and play two shows in China, was quite mind blowing for us!
With the money we raised through Pledge Music we were able to manufacture the album ourselves. Luckily, you the fans managed to get the album, and thanks again for anyone that did so. This obviously cost money. Almost half of the money we raised went into the physical side of the album, and the other half was used for promotion, as it’s always been our goal to try and make BirdPen bigger and to reach as many people as possible. This only happens through promotion of some sort so we partnered up with various promotion companies to try and build the band. The promotion companies did a fantastic job for us and we are very thankful for everyone’s hard work promoting the album in France, Belgium, Germany and the UK & Ireland.
So this brings us to our situation with Pledge Music. To sum it up, somehow Pledge Music have gone bust! It’s made the international news, both financial and music related, and it’s left artist’s and fans unpaid and without products they have paid for. It’s a complete disaster.
At the beginning of our Pledge campaign we managed to get some of our funds from them so you, our fans, got the physical album, and we expected to receive all the remaining money once the campaign was finished.
Pledge had promised all of the rest of the money so many times we’ve lost count, and we desperately tried and tried to get what we were owed and what you pledged towards the campaign. We’ve had the Musician’s Union and their lawyers involved trying to get us our owed money, and even they’ve been fobbed off, avoided and plain lied to along with many other artists in the same situation as us. It’s criminal what has happened and we hope somebody or somebody’s are held accountable for this disastrous neglect to what should be a safe and great way to fund good music and musical artists.
Being a self-funded band, all our expenses were paid for on our personal credit cards, expecting that the funds would soon be coming in, and with all sales shipped, we simply have no comeback. Mike and Dave now both owe money to our PR companies, we have no publishers, no label and no management so we solely carry this financial burden. This situation has left us with no money to pay the PR debts and fund our next album, which was what the remaining owed funds would have done.
Non of the funds have gone to paying ourselves anything, we don’t make much money from music in this day and age and we live hand to mouth and have the same issues with money as most of us do, mortgages, bills to pay and mouths to feed.
Pledge currently owe us over £12,500. Your money, which you paid in good faith and trust, never reached us. It truly sucks for us to be in this position but we have to carry on so we’ve decided to set up a campaign to try and get some of the funds back.
If anyone is able to support us through this crisis then please do get in touch.
You can send us a donation via PayPal here www.paypal.me/birdpen
You can buy our records and merchandise from www.birdpen.com/shop and birdpen.bandcamp.com
Our album title is so fitting to what is really going on in today’s world.
Here is the latest news on the Pledge situation https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/…/03/pledgemusic-fire-sale/
We’ll keep the faith and continue to bring the noise.
Love and Fuzz.
Dave & Mike, aka BirdPen."
Dave & Mike, aka BirdPen."
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