– Our riffs are better than yours!

Den undervurderte duoen Early Man skal crowdfunde sitt kommende album. Pyro snakker med Early Mike for en leksjon om platebransjens fremtid. Og at de har tatt livet av alle medlemmene i Turboneger og har bedre riff enn alle i hele verden. (NB: INTERVIEW IN ENGLISH BELOW)

Her i Pyro har vi det siste året hatt spalten Undervurdert, hvor vi drar frem album som har fått for lite hyllest og oppmerksomhet. Om vi skulle lage spalten om kun ett band gjennom hele metalhistorien, er Early Man en god kandidat. Den amerikanske duoen lager rett-i-ansiktet heavy fucking metal, slik Judas Priest gjorde i sin storhetstid på 80-tallet, og kombinerer det med gode doser stonerrock à la Karma To Burn, Fu Manchu og Kyuss. Aldeles fantastisk undergrunnsband, sjekk for eksempel eposet Death Is The Answer To My Prayers fra 2004 eller Sinking The Blade fra 2008.

Nå går bandet i fotsporene til Protest The Hero, som samlet inn over 340.000 dollar til ny plate (intervju med dem hos Metal Sucks her), og forsøker seg på crowdfunding. Det vil si at vi som fans/kunder forhåndsbetaler for albumet via nettsiden IndieGoGo (sjekk prosjektet her), og dersom Early Man når 20.000 dollar innen 20. mars, setter de i gang med innspilling av det nye materialet.

Selv har jeg cashet ut 30 dollar for CD og T-skjorte (man kan velge allslags varianter: vinyl, egen gitarsolo på platen, lanseringsfest osv), og sendte noen spørsmål til Mike fra Early Man for å høre hvorfor de går for dette nymotens finansineringsopplegget. Som du kan støtte her, om du liker musikken. Kjør intervju!

Mike! Hope all is well in the Early Man camp. Been a couple of years since your last album, what have you been up to?
– Hello and thank you. All is well yes. I work as a composer for television and I spent a year composing for a TV show here in the U.S. in Los Angeles in most of 2011 into 2012. Early Man did a European tour in 2012 in May and June which was great. I also released a record for another band of mine called Spirit Seed.

The first time we heard about you guys were when you played with Turbonegro on a US tour, can you share some highlights from life on the road with the Norwegian deathpunk band?
– We actually killed all the members of Turbonegro on that tour and replaced them with high powered robotic human like droids, or Turbodroids as we call them. That tour was in 2005 I believe, so our robots are still going strong and making great records. Isn’t technology amazing? Honestly, I don’t remember much. I was beyond hammered 24/7 on that one. Very blurry!

How is the album crowdfunding going?
– It’s going well, especially when you consider the fact that I pretty much do everything for the band at this point. I don’t want to deal with a label ever again, or a manager, or a booking agent, or any of the other leeches in the music business. I’ve removed all of them from my life and from having any involvement with Early Man. Best thing I’ve ever done. The point though is we don’t have the clout within the industry to get tons of press or buy out bloggers or magazines to write about our every move like bigger labels do. So the crowd funding comes directly from our small fan base. That’s how I want it but it means that the number of people aware of what we’re doing is inherently smaller. To be where we are at with our Indiegogo campaign is pretty damn good given all of that.

We just contributed 30 bucks for a CD and a T-shirt, what is the most common contribution?
– I believe that is the most common, the vinyl bundle is common too. We have a perk to play a solo on our record on a song written specifically for the purpose of having our fans display their guitar prowess. A few people have jumped in the fire, we’re expecting many more as the campaign deadline comes closer in a few weeks. That’s going to be really cool if it happens.

Why did you chose to fund a new album this way?
– I have another band which, very similar to Early Man, is essentially a one man project. It’s called Spirit Seed (free download of the record here: www.spiritseedmusic.com). I released the first full length for that project in November of 2012. I had seen bands having some success using Kickstarter to fund the pressing of their vinyl. So with that project I tested the crowd funding market and ran what ended up being a very successful Kickstarter campaign that was used to bring a beautiful vinyl record into the world. I liked the way that model worked so well that I decided to attempt to use it for an entire Early Man record. In the case of our campaign, it’s essentially a pre-order that is transparent to the public. Anyone can see who is pre-ordering and how many people are backing the project. Pretty simple. I like it because it engages the fans. Let me repeat that, IT ENGAGES THE FANS. The model that 99% of people are used to of how a band works, what most people have seen over the years since the 60’s let’s say, it’s dead and LONG gone and it has been for over a decade. Adapt or die. “Getting signed” doesn’t mean shit. “Doing tons of touring” doesn’t mean shit. There are no more Beatles, no more Black Sabbath’s, Metallica’s or Nirvana worldwide mega-success stories for good honest music. It’s over. The world has changed and technology is changing it rapidly, more so than any of us can imagine. What it means to be a musician has a completely new definition in our time. Those are just the facts. I’d rather do it the way I’m doing it and keep 100% control so I can keep making music.

What are the most obvious advantages and disadvanteges with doing it this way?
– To me the advantage is fan involvement. Immediately fans become part of the process which reveals to them how things really work. A lot of things are exposed to the general public when you do one of these things. I think that’s great. People see things for what they really are. There are kids out there that think I’m a millionaire from Early Man. Ha. When you run a crowd funding campaign everyone gets to see what the actual interest is in the band and ultimately how difficult it is to make a band work smoothly outside of the standard music industry. I love that. The disadvantage is that the record might not get made. That is certainly a possibility with this very campaign. The product (vinyl/CD’s/shirts/hoodies/etc.) alone would cost somewhere between $5,000-$10,000 to make for this campaign. JUST THE MAKING OF THE PRODUCT! That does not include any part of the writing or recording of the album. Pretty crazy. And you still have dipshits out there saying we’re asking for too much money. We should be getting 100 times more than we’re asking for. We deserve to make an honest living like everyone else. But the standard has dropped so low that people think I should work for free for 6 months writing and recording a record and then get product shipped to their doorstep for $5000 all in. Think about how ridiculous that is. Welcome to 2013.

And finally: when you hopefully get this album funded and recorded, what can we expect from it?
– One thing I like about Early Man is that it is very straight forward as far as what it’s all about: RIFFS. This record will be no different. Our riffs are better than yours. Get ready.

Tags: crowdfunding, Early Man, Mike, Sinking The Blade