Quite a few record labels think it’s okay to rob artists of their money. It takes a sick, twisted mind for someone to take advantage of an artist who is constantly working their ass off to thrive. Musicians are by far some of the most creative, passionate, self-sacrificing people in the world. They’re always taking risks by venturing out into a work environment full of empty promises, struggles, financial instability, and corrupt record labels.

Musicians have tough lives as it is. They sacrifice money, family, stability, and safety for the sake of their career. They live in constant risk of competition, dying out, becoming broke, being defamed, and receiving hate, ALL for their undying passion to make music and share it with the world. Yet, they still get mistreated by the people who are supposed to help them make it big time: record labels.

On August 11, 2016, a rocker who goes by the name Davey Suicide posted a video on Facebook calling out his record label, Standby Records, for screwing him over and stealing his money. The video gained enough traction to cause a social media stir in the rock community. What happened to him was unfair and people were upset about it.

Suicide’s video is no longer online. It disappeared a couple days after it was posted, but not before over a million people saw it and acted out. Long story short: the owner of Standby Records, Neil Sheehan, signed a contract with Davey Suicide when he first started out his career about five years ago. With each of his album releases, Sheehan never paid Suicide for any of the album deliveries DESPITE proof that he owed him his money.

It was also discovered that Sheehan was charging bands double, triple, even quadruple the amount of money for magazine advertisements in creative ways. For example, if a one-page ad in an Alternative Press magazine costs $2,300, Sheehan would advertise four bands on that page and charge EACH band the full $2,300 instead of splitting the cost ($575). The rest of the money from stunts like these would go directly to Sheehan. He currently owes Suicide more than $58,000.

When he discovered that he’d be exposed, he actually SUED Davey Suicide for $50,000 for a small situation that had been settled years ago with proof. The lawsuit between Suicide and Sheehan will be brought to court in February 2017 after being postponed from August 2016.

However, his story is only one of many. Ramsey Dean was a former Victory Records employee. He shared his horror story with the world and let me tell you: Being a behind-the-scenes employee at a corrupt label is just as bad being a musician under a corrupt label. Dean decided to spill all after bands like Hawthorne Heights, Taking Back Sunday, and A Day To Remember had had enough with Victory.

More specifically, they had had enough with the owner, Tony Brummel. As Dean explains, he despised his bands so much that he never let them get any royalties. Brummel would take the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the bands earned, dump it on Dean, and tell him to invest it into meaningless marketing because, as Brummel stated himself, “Fuck those guys, they’re not entitled to that money.”

That’s only one of the horrors. More stories include Brummel seriously verbally and mentally harassing all his employees, threatening them, and doing even worse things to the bands he worked with.

American post-hardcore band Glassjaw was apparently royally screwed over by Roadrunner Records and even openly advised their fans to refrain from buying their first full-length album so Roadrunner wouldn’t receive any money. Vocalist Daryl Palumbo stated, “They are a miserable fuckin' corporation that does not bend for their bands, does not give their bands anything and they're just terrible businessmen. They are a giant joke of a label.”

Aside from people in the rock scene, other artists like Ke$ha were also legally screwed when their bosses decided to take advantage of them. For those who don’t know this story, Ke$ha was sexually assaulted by her producer and forced to continue working with him, her rapist, because of her contract.

After hearing stories like these, it’s easy to conclude that there are corrupt people in this business. However, other musicians have a different take on things. Rohan Keenoy from Yearlong Hours admits,

“My belief towards the bigger labels people deal with is a little different. Many people go by the whole, ‘So-and-so recorded label sucks because [insert big band] lost royalties or exposed them for being shit in a post on social media,’ which is very fair and you shouldn't support because of that. However, I know of a bigger band in my scene that has quite the opposite belief. I don't want them to get shit for it because of the internet, but they have had a really good relationship with one of the ‘bad’ bigger record labels. The band said they had a really good overall experience. To me personally, it depends who you ask. If you've been around for 20 years I know not every band is going to have a good experience with a record label that is THAT old and it's just part of business. I also know a band shouldn't stick around if royalties aren't made and if they are bullied on said different labels. So usually if a band leaves a label and doesn't like it, I support their music in a way that won't give the label any money. If another band is on the same label and has a positive relationship with the label, I will support both band and label. This is why bands should be open if they have a bad relationship with a label (if they can).”

These stories are only the tip of the iceberg. There are countless artists who haven’t shared their stories. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

What are your thoughts on the relationships between bands and record labels? Do some bands only have good relationships with labels because they’re famous and have fans to make money off of? Is that why smaller acts like Davey Suicide and Glassjaw were mistreated? Is there another side to the story?

Or does it not matter? Think of what happened to Ke$ha despite her fame. Think of what former Victory Records employee Ramsey Dean had to go through.