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Post by dee on Dec 19, 2015 14:02:06 GMT -5
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patty
Second Class Scout
Posts: 37 
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Post by patty on Dec 20, 2015 4:51:14 GMT -5
THANK YOU!
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Post by jimmyrock on Dec 20, 2015 8:11:01 GMT -5
very cool interview.
i guess i dont recall chris getting fired but he mentioned it specifically.....any background on that?
always wanted to knoe how does one get fired from a band?
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Jer
Beagle Scout
Posts: 1,182
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Post by Jer on Dec 20, 2015 11:41:05 GMT -5
very cool interview. i guess i dont recall chris getting fired but he mentioned it specifically.....any background on that? Yeah, I thought he quit after Paul's Musician interview. always wanted to knoe how does one get fired from a band? You mean what kinds of things would lead up to someone getting fired? Or how would the actual firing go down, logistically? |
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Post by curmudgeonman on Dec 20, 2015 15:00:42 GMT -5
Through the years, from interviews and snippets from Mars, Westerberg, and Stinson, it would seem that he was fired from the band, even though his termination flip flopped from fired to quitting. It's clear post DTAS that Mars was not into being a Replacement anymore, coinciding with Westerberg's dissatisfaction with the drumming in the Replacements, and his dictatorial style of leading the band. Ironic since Mars was the only kid Westerberg knew prior when he joined up with the band.
Here's another video that talks a little about the 'Mats, and also about his painting career:
Having been a painter in a younger phase of my life, IMO, Mars is an extremely gifted painter. Of all of the Mats, I have the most respect for him because of his talents, and his persistence in living his life, his way, without compromise, hence his refusal to reunite with the band. The Slim EP was one thing, but to commercially get back with the band after all of these years, I'm sure he did not hesitate one second in saying "no".
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creep66
First Class Scout
Posts: 119
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Post by creep66 on Dec 20, 2015 19:29:56 GMT -5
There's an MTV interview with Paul and Tommy from '90 or '91, and they ask what happened to Chris. Tommy says, "He quit, and we helped him" with a snicker.
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Post by anarkissed on Dec 21, 2015 0:18:58 GMT -5
very cool interview. i guess i dont recall chris getting fired but he mentioned it specifically.....any background on that? I always wanted to knoe how does one get fired from a band? I always wondered about that, too...Wasn't this, essentially, maybe even literally, a "garage" band that just happened to stumble into something bigger? Even during the all-important Twin/Tone years, wasn't there this whole indie thing about them "never signing a contract"? Wasn't that the entire basis of the whole brouhaha over who actually owned the rights to the Twin/Tone albums? I can't imagine that Paul and Tommy ever had any actual "legal" basis for "firing" Chris...Did that mean he was cut out of any "royalties" on the sale of future recordings that he played on? Or that he never had a say on how that back catalogue of recordings was packaged again? I don't think so...To his credit, I think Chris just pretty much said" "Fuck you"..."And you can take whatever measly check you thought owed me, and shove it up your ass!" By the way, he was a kickass drummer, and if he hadn't been there holding down the bottom end from the beginning until "Tim", Paul and Tommy would have just looked like drunken, coked-out assholes (albeit, quite charismatic, drunken coked-out assholes)...You can't be a great band without great original songs...(Thanks, Paul)...But you know know those songs sound like shit if you don't have a decent drummer...I saw them play live: Paul was a rock god, Tommy was the punkest thing since Sid Vicious, but Chris was pretty much the only one who kept them from degenarating into total chaos... One time, I went round and round on an old message board with some fuck who tried to tell me that Bob was "the heart and soul of the Replacements"...Yeah...Actually, it was Chris... |
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Jer
Beagle Scout
Posts: 1,182
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Post by Jer on Dec 21, 2015 8:31:33 GMT -5
You don't really need any legal basis to fire someone from a band. The leader or a majority vote or whatever the logistics are in that band, and see ya. You can't make someone play with someone else. It's not like you have to go to court to kick someone out of a band. I'm sure there are times where someone was fired and took the band to court to stay in the band, but usually by this time they don't really even want to play together anymore.
There are a lot of other things to consider - like how the business of the band is run, for example. A lot of bands run as a company, and might have the members as business partners as well, and that can get sticky. So they fire a guy and he's not playing with them anymore, but legally he still owns 1/4 of the business, and he's not about to give that up without a fight because it's a paycheck (and he may have had a significant hand in building the brand, etc). This is sort of what happened with Cheap Trick, where Bun E quit and hasn't played with them for years, but he's still a stake-holder and officially a member of the band. It's weird - he's a member of the band, but he doesn't tour, play live or record with them. A lot of times these things are cool for a bit, till the working band members get tired of paying the non-working ones, then the checks stop, then there's a lawsuit. I'm sure The Replacements weren't a business early on, but by the time they got signed to Sire they had to have a company behind them.
And the GNR thing was interesting too, where Axl basically told Slash and Duff to sign over the name to him or he wouldn't go on one night, so they did, and from that point on it was Axl's band. Those other dudes were out, and probably happy to be away from that debacle, but also really bummed that they signed their names off of a mega-money-business that they were integral to creating.
Legally Chris would be entitled to performance royalties for everything he played on and publishing for everything he co-wrote whether he's in the band or not. For the Sire records I'm sure he's still getting paid. Indie labels aren't always as diligent about that stuff, so it's hard to say who's getting paid what from TwinTone, but they could be equally on top of it. I've heard some labels are awesome about it and others are terrible.
So, replacing a guy on stage is only as dirty as the actual firing gets, usually. The bigger the band, the more money is involved, and the stickier the legal end gets. No matter what, though, unless you sign over your publishing, or it expires and someone else buys it, you are entitled to get paid performance and publishing royalties for the stuff you played on and wrote (respectively).
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Post by FreeRider on Dec 21, 2015 10:20:01 GMT -5
I remember finding out how the Eagles kicked Don Felder to the curb....it was basically Henley and Frey that conspired to get rid of him because Felder was asking about the band financials. When he joined, everyone had an equal share in Eagles Ltd, or LLC. There wasn't any contract or formal documents, it was all done on a handshake back then.
Once the Eagles got big, Henley and Frey took more interest in the financials to enrich themselves and re-worked their deal to get MORE money than the other band members. They got tired of arguing with Felder and voted him out. He still retained his shareholding in the band's financials, but he may have been bought out when they all went to court.
Henley and Frey settled out of court with Felder and Felder is under a gag order. So who knows what kind of buyout he got or if he still retains a stake in the Eagles' financials. Even though Henley and Frey made claims that they wrote all the songs and were the stars in the band, and if you accept that as true, they still treated Felder like crap, if you ask me.
Felder may have been a pain in the butt to deal with, but that was because Henley and Frey weren't honest with him to begin with.
As far as the Twin Tone stuff, I was kind of under the impression that the band didn't get anything or very little. And that Paul still has heartburn about Warner's releasing stuff of theirs and not getting compensated. But that may be because the label wants to recoup some of the earlier losses they wrote off. Like how they came calling to be reimbursed once the reunion shows took off.
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Jer
Beagle Scout
Posts: 1,182
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Post by Jer on Dec 21, 2015 11:12:09 GMT -5
The Eagles have been horribly dysfunctional for many years. Whatever happened with Felder was legal in the end because he signed off on it and hasn't violated his gag order. I wouldn't be so quick to say that Henley and Frey weren't honest with Felder, though. I think there's an equal chance that Felder didn't care when times were good and a lot of that stuff was signed when people were high, raking in dough, and playing to sold out football stadiums. They may have been deceitful and immoral, but my guess is that Felder had chances to question this stuff a lot earlier than he did. Henley and Frey are certainly power-mongers in that band, and notoriously dictator-like, but that's the case in a million bands whether it's Jeff Tweedy or Axl Rose or Paul, to various degrees. In the end a single guy or 2 has to be the leader and other guys aren't, and a lot of times people get curious, jealous and pissed off. It's often justified, but sometimes you gotta take a look at your situation and really weigh what's going on vs where you might be without these guys. I am a big Eagles fan and a Felder fan, and he may have been justified to question whatever it was he did, but he blew a hell of a lot of money by it. Same with Ace and Peter in KISS. These guys all had a golden ticket if they could just accept their role. When you put it in the sheer scope of contribution, Felder had nothing on Frey and Henley. Ace and Peter had nothing on Simmons and Stanley. But these guys got curious, jealous and pissed off. Justified? Probably, but a financially devastating decision to go against the band leaders. Joe Walsh is probably in the same boat as Felder was, but he wasn't about to cash in that ticket. It's too good of a gig. Let Don and Glen be the boss, stay sober, and make piles of cash playing guitar to sold out arenas.
I head similar things about Paul and Twin Tone but I'm not really sure what's true or not. Deals made with a handshake are a lot harder to enforce, so any disputes come back to the people who didn't document it, which leaves few options. Twin Tone put out a ton of records, most of which sold a lot less than Let it Be, so I'm sure there wasn't a lot of money to go around - regardless of who was owed what.
The Sire deals were on paper, so if Warner was releasing stuff it's most likely that they legally had the right to - greatest hits, reissues, box sets, etc. Not that the big labels never violate contracts, but more often, they build in rights to do stuff like that. Reunions complicate stuff too, because some contract's future terms become void when a band breaks up. 20 years later the band gets back together, the label still exists, legally the band might still be under contract. It's new territory that isn't fully worked out yet, but if the band owed WB/Sire for costs around the making of their records, and WB wants to reissue those records to recoup some of those costs around the new interest in the band (with the reunion) then they're probably legally entitled to.
The business can be ugly, but I think a lot of the major label ugliness comes down to bad (but legal) contracts that artists sign, not the labels breaking the law. Often the contract is only bad in hindsight when the band isn't generating new money, but there is still money owed.
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Post by FreeRider on Jan 7, 2016 12:41:54 GMT -5
The Eagles have been horribly dysfunctional for many years. Whatever happened with Felder was legal in the end because he signed off on it and hasn't violated his gag order. I wouldn't be so quick to say that Henley and Frey weren't honest with Felder, though. I think there's an equal chance that Felder didn't care when times were good and a lot of that stuff was signed when people were high, raking in dough, and playing to sold out football stadiums. They may have been deceitful and immoral, but my guess is that Felder had chances to question this stuff a lot earlier than he did. Hey Jer, you're right about Felder...I always thought he came across as really naive, in that 70's hippie-ish way that they were "all in it together" and "all about the music" vibe. And make no mistake, Felder was probably handsomely paid when it was all settled out of court---and if he retained his rights to future releases, who knows, it's all sealed and he has a gag order. But the gag order makes me think that Henley and Frey didn't want their Dirty Laundry being aired. Kind of ironic given that Henley is the one going on about artists' rights and transparency, lol.... And Schmidt and Walsh can't say anything or voice any concerns in favor of or against Felder because they're hired hands, they are NOT part of Eagles, Ltd. Those guys are treading a fine line between being on good terms with Felder and incurring the wrath of the control freaks! True---maybe Felder should've just shut his mouth, but it's still kind of underhanded that those two would re-work deals with Irving Azoff, behind Felder's back. True, but I wonder if Felder's attorney's argued that if Felder was a full partner getting equal share for so long, and then the control freaks changed stuff behind Felder's back, well, isn't that an implied contract that he's an equal partner? Even though there is not a formal agreement stating as such? It's kind of like when Paul keeps saying, "I never signed anything..." , but the fact is, he took advances and still worked under the label and as such, it became an implied contract. I'm wondering what an entertainment lawyer would say now because Paul alluded before that some lawyer asked him, 'Why did you wait so long?" to try and claim money owed to him and the band from the label, and he responded with something like, we were just having fun and concerned with the next show, we weren't concerned with that, etc...but that's an implied agreement he then entered into, if you ask me. But who knows? the only ones who know what really happened are the ones who were there... No doubt! Money changes everything, as the song goes. Speaking of songs, I always loved this tune by Felder and it's a shame he didn't get more of his songs out as an Eagle: Loved the layered guitar tracks and the chord progressions....very classic rock sounding, really of it's time period |
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