Red Mosquito

given2trade wrote:Was an article years ago that said the band didn't even make money off of touring in the first few years. The 1995 tour was huge but ticket prices were low and they tried to bypass TM, etc, etc. I'm sure they made money those shows but they make a fuckload of money now w/ each show, especially the arena shows in South America, Europe.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of those shows makes them as much as an entire tour in 1993, 1994 did.

I got banned from the pit once and broke trust in a really cool friendship I had with someone in the pj camp. But i was told that they basically broke even on most tours up until about 2000.

Strat wrote:

given2trade wrote:Was an article years ago that said the band didn't even make money off of touring in the first few years. The 1995 tour was huge but ticket prices were low and they tried to bypass TM, etc, etc. I'm sure they made money those shows but they make a fuckload of money now w/ each show, especially the arena shows in South America, Europe.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of those shows makes them as much as an entire tour in 1993, 1994 did.

I got banned from the pit once and broke trust in a really cool friendship I had with someone in the pj camp. But i was told that they basically broke even on most tours up until about 2000.

And the math backs it up. Tickets were what, $25, $30 for the 98 tour?

edit: 30
http://www.stubgrinder.com/media-stubs/ ... -large.jpg

I don't think PJ members got much off of their first few albums...would be surprised if the 5 of them split $1 each.

given2trade wrote:I don't think PJ members got much off of their first few albums...would be surprised if the 5 of them split $1 each.

It was almost certainly like that for the first million copies, but as the label recoups its various "owed" moneys from the band the amount would have changed drastically.

However, even if it were 100% right that figure would still have them earning more than $120,000 apiece just in the week Vs came out, and wouldn't count any royalties earned via radio play, sales of singles, merch, global sales, etc.

I'm not sure why downplaying the band's finances in the 90's is such a recurring subject (it's boring and irrelevant, whereas at least making fun of where they are now is funny...), but I always think of a line I read in a David Lee Roth interview once (quoting from memory, so...).

DLR: Here we'd sold a million records, and yet they were telling us we didn't have any money!
Interviewer: What did you do about it?
DLR: Well, we went ahead and sold another million (Probably jumps and hits a high note).

The whole process of growing up is basically a journey of liking David Lee Roth, deciding you're too cool to like David Lee Roth, and then realizing you'll be happier living in a world where liking Davi Lee Roth is okay.

stip wrote:The whole process of growing up is basically a journey of liking David Lee Roth, deciding you're too cool to like David Lee Roth, and then realizing you'll be happier living in a world where liking Davi Lee Roth is okay.

He's great. My all time favorite cartoon.

Where does Gary Cherone fit into this equation?

given2trade wrote:

spike wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:

Tuolumne wrote:I'm pretty sure I read almost all of these above messages, verbatim, between 96-99 on old PJ message boards from Ten/Vs fans who were mad about how the mid-94-98 PJ were going. "They don't even move around on stage anymore" .... "they don't care like they used to" .... "they're phoning it in" .... "what the hell is Who You Are" ... blah blah blah. They hated it. This shit is nothing new, it's just what happens with bands that last this long. Oh, and Backspacer is the shiznit.

That doesn't really mean anything. People always have opinions, usually based on jack shit. But I think there is a strong case based on interviews and actions that they aren't as invested. I mean, they are millionaires with side projects, families, causes, etc; of course they're not as invested! Why would they be!? Saying people were wrong before isn't a good argument.

That said, why be angry about it? They don't owe anybody shit. If they want to play a few shows a year or shit out a few songs every now and then, more power to them I guess. Someone will like it.

they were millionaires with side projects and causes back then too

Actually, I don't think they were that rich in 93, 94, 95.

The biz model changed dramatically in the 00's with ticket prices going up huge and churning out posters, fan club memberships, and dog collars - not to mention bootlegs.

they were rich enough for a bunch of dudes who wanted to live like hobos anyway

Nirvana signed to a major after they were established yet were about to break. That is a major point of difference between them and other bands. Nirvana had the momentum and control to choose who they signed with. Pearl Jam had the MLB momentum and would have been on a better contract than AIC etc.

Does anyone know when they resigned their publishing contract? Or was that tied in with the EPIC/Sony deal that ran out after Riot Act?

Here's an article I've posted before from Steve Albini about indie bands and their contracts. It's quite revealing.
http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17

LetMeSleep wrote:Here's an article I've posted before from Steve Albini about indie bands and their contracts. It's quite revealing.
http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17

Here's a response I've posted before: Albini's example is crucial and revealing when talking about bands that sell 250,000 copies, and not at all reflective of the world of a band like Pearl Jam.

True but they were in that cycle. Have you seen any information regarding a band in a similar scenario to PJ? There aren't too many bands that sold 10mil copies of their debut.

I wouldn't be surprised if the money trickle didn't hit the band members until 94 onwards.

Strat wrote:

given2trade wrote:Was an article years ago that said the band didn't even make money off of touring in the first few years. The 1995 tour was huge but ticket prices were low and they tried to bypass TM, etc, etc. I'm sure they made money those shows but they make a fuckload of money now w/ each show, especially the arena shows in South America, Europe.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of those shows makes them as much as an entire tour in 1993, 1994 did.

I got banned from the pit once and broke trust in a really cool friendship I had with someone in the pj camp. But i was told that they basically broke even on most tours up until about 2000.

This is entirely speculative, but I wonder how much of that had to do with the anti-Ticketmaster tours, and consequently how much it had to have cost to insure the shows. If I remember right, they were canceling a fair amount of shows and full tours in that time span.

Strat wrote:

given2trade wrote:Was an article years ago that said the band didn't even make money off of touring in the first few years. The 1995 tour was huge but ticket prices were low and they tried to bypass TM, etc, etc. I'm sure they made money those shows but they make a fuckload of money now w/ each show, especially the arena shows in South America, Europe.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of those shows makes them as much as an entire tour in 1993, 1994 did.

I got banned from the pit once and broke trust in a really cool friendship I had with someone in the pj camp. But i was told that they basically broke even on most tours up until about 2000.

A few thoughts:

-In fairness to Mike McM, I think the "lazy" comment was in specific reference to making an album out of ancient mad season demos. I can understand that might not be his musical interest at this point, 20 years later... but it was nice hear how excited he got about playing with Barrett and Cornell ... how bout a Cornell / McCready acoustic tour in the future ? that would be a pretty solid duet, methinks.

-Re: PJ longevity: Don't see them ever breaking up, their current formula is pretty posh: make an album once every 4 years, tour a few times for vacationing/ATM purposes, do a few benefits, throw out some pitches at baseball games, and be showered with praise most places you go in the meantime. They don't have to be a band in the meantime. They just get together and cram for an album and then go back to doing whatever they want on their own. I think even Matt Cameron, who has seemed bored with PJ material for the last 10 years, would otherwise have let them down gently at this point, except he gets access to a pretty sweet set of benefits being tied to the PJ machine, the types of consistent things that Soundgarden failed to maintain and that over time you appreciate the dependability of having if you are in that industry: quality studio space, various types of support personnel, a nice big paycheck every now and then for flying to Brazil and playing the drums for a few hours. Why give those things up when at this point there is basically no pressure to produce and or play any more times than you want in a year?

-Abbruzzese firing amnesia strikes again. The correct answer was: Ed's Monkeywrench Manopause; which is difficult to talk about now that the band has totally sold out to every corporate thing on the planet including a military technology vendor (Oracle), rendering that PJ Lord of the Flies-moment that much more embarrassing to recount all these years later.

-Ed smokes too much pot. If he smoked less, he might suck less at everything. Someone needs to show him the Towlie episode. He comes across like someone with Alzheimer's at this point.

-What happened to Strat? I thought you were Mr. Chipper new-PJ guy. I gotta say I am a little worried if you've turned to the cynic camp. If this keeps up, I might need to buy a LB T-shirt and switch back to the Mr Chipper new-PJ camp just to restore balance to the universe.

-Is it just me or did Mike mention that sometimes he shits his pants on stage?

"How I’ve dealt with it over the years, is just [finding the bathrooms] all the time on the road. Sometimes you don’t find it, and it’s a big mess, and it sucks, and sometimes those big messes [happen] on stage, and it’s super painful, but sometimes you can get through it. I just keep going."

I thought only Jeff had the diarrhea problems.

Follow up question for the next interview: Does Mike's shitty pants ever lead PJ to adjust the set? Like "Oh man, this slimy smattering of doo doo batter greasing between my buttcheeks just totally makes me wanna slow ride on Off He Goes for a while..."

96583UP wrote:-Is it just me or did Mike mention that sometimes he shits his pants on stage?

I'm pretty sure he's mentioned this before, poor guy.

96583UP wrote: -Re: PJ longevity: Don't see them ever breaking up, their current formula is pretty posh: make an album once every 4 years, tour a few times for vacationing/ATM purposes, do a few benefits, throw out some pitches at baseball games, and be showered with praise most places you go in the meantime. They don't have to be a band in the meantime. They just get together and cram for an album and then go back to doing whatever they want on their own. I think even Matt Cameron, who has seemed bored with PJ material for the last 10 years, would otherwise have let them down gently at this point, except he gets access to a pretty sweet set of benefits being tied to the PJ machine, the types of consistent things that Soundgarden failed to maintain and that over time you appreciate the dependability of having if you are in that industry: quality studio space, various types of support personnel, a nice big paycheck every now and then for flying to Brazil and playing the drums for a few hours. Why give those things up when at this point there is basically no pressure to produce and or play any more times than you want in a year?

I think if this is the way it goes, there's definitely still some potential for some great tunes in the future.