In a new interview with “The KiddChris Show”, which airs on the WEBN radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio, STAIND guitarist Mike Mushok weighed in on CHEVELLE frontman Pete Loeffler‘s 2021 revelation that the latter band hadn’t made any money from record sales despite the fact that CHEVELLE had sold six million albums for Epic Records. Mike said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Listen, I’ve sold I don’t know how many millions of records, and I’ve never once received a royalty from the record company after — whatever — 20, whatever, 25 years. We still owe them money. We haven’t been on the label since — I don’t know — 2011 was the last record we put out on Atlantic, and we still owe them money. And listen, I’m not gonna lie — they gave us large advances, and that’s why [we still owe them money]. But seriously, they have to be paid off. But anyways, I think it’s estimated, I think we’re saying, like, another three years it’ll be paid off and I’ll actually start making royalties on our records.”
Asked if the STAIND bandmembers can, at some point, can, own their music, Mike replied: “Yeah. So supposedly after 35 years, the masters are supposed to revert back to you. But I was talking to our attorney about that, and he said that no label ever lets you do that. They try to buy you out and give you money so they can continue to own the masters — unless you fight them.”
After separate stints with major labels — STAIND with Elektra and Atlantic and CHEVELLE with Epic — the two bands are now both signed to Alchemy Recordings, a record label created in partnership between Dino Paredes, former American Recordings vice president of A&R, and Danny Wimmer, the founder of Danny Wimmer Presents, the premier production company for rock music festivals in the United States.
Back in October 2023, STAIND‘s first studio album in more than a decade, “Confessions Of The Fallen”, debuted at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart. The set sold 11,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending September 28, 2024, according to Luminate.
Of “Confessions Of The Fallen”‘s first-week sales, physical sales comprised 7,000 (5,000 on CD and 2,000 on vinyl) and digital downloads comprised a little over 4,000.
“Confessions Of The Fallen”, which was produced by Erik Ron (GODSMACK, PANIC! AT THE DISCO, BLACK VEIL BRIDES),marked the first studio release for STAIND on Alchemy Recordings/BMG, after the band’s six studio albums from 1999 through 2011 were all released through either Elektra or Atlantic.
In August 2024, STAIND released a deluxe edition of “Confessions Of The Fallen”, featuring a brand-new track, “Full Of Emptiness”. Along with the brand-new song, the digital-only deluxe album also included the alternate version of the “Better Days” single, featuring singer and namesake of Los Angeles rock band DOROTHY.
In a 2024 interview with Germany’s Riot Vision, Mushok spoke about the “electronic element” which was incorporated into “Confessions Of The Fallen”. Mike said: “Well, that was something that [singer] Aaron [Lewis] really wanted to explore. We had talked about it before, but we’d never really done it. So he really wanted to make that a part of what we were doing. And it was funny, ’cause I do remember saying to him, like, ‘I play guitar. I don’t know how to do that.’ So that’s where I feel like Erik played a really big part in helping make that a part of what this album sounds like. Some of those verses where you hear [and] it’s like more electronic[-sounding], that’s a guitar part I wrote just played on a synthesizer, [using] some crazy sound. So he was able to take some of those things that I wrote and adapt it to kind of bring in some of those elements into the music. And I think he did a great job. I like it. I’m pretty happy with it.”
Asked what new musical elements he would like to explore on future STAIND albums, Mike said: “I don’t know. To me, it’s just really about trying to write great songs. It’s really just kind of trying to take what we do and make it better. And I don’t really have any kind of guidelines. If it calls for more electronics or — I don’t know — a guitar solo or whatever the case may be, whatever really the song calls for, I think that that’s what the best thing to explore is. But I was very happy with the process of making this record and how it came out. Some records have been really difficult to make. This one wasn’t one of those. The way we did it, it took us a while, but we got there. And by the end of the day, once we got there, I was really happy with the end results.”
When “Confessions Of The Fallen” was announced in April 2023, Lewis stated about the LP’s musical direction: “I did want to modernize the sound and bring us up to date. You can certainly recognize the band but at the same time you can hear that we’ve been paying attention and understand what kind of sounds and approaches we can use that maybe weren’t around the last time we did this.”
STAIND has released eight albums since 1995, including 2011’s self-titled effort. The band has had a number of hit songs during its first two decades, including the Top 10 smash “It’s Been Awhile” from the No. 1 album “Break The Cycle”. Follow-up LPs “14 Shades Of Grey” and “Chapter V” also topped the Billboard chart.
STAIND released its first album in nine years, “Live: It’s Been Awhile”, in May 2021 via Yap’em/Alchemy Recordings. The “Live: It’s Been Awhile” album was accompanied by “The Return Of Staind”, a two-part global streaming series in partnership with Danny Wimmer Presents.
Source: blabbermouth.net
