THE PENDRAGON FORUM

[Nick]

There has been a helluva lot of debate in the last few weeks on downloading, some very heartwarming, some utterly hopeless,
I thought as some insight into the effect of downloading you might be interested in the following:

What I can tell you is we are hurtin' because of the overall effect of
downloads. In 2004/05 we made a financial loss as we were busy writing, recording, resurrecting the record label, organising the tour/merchandise etc and generally getting into a lot of debt just 'living'.
Our end of year profit for year ended
2006 [Believe release financial year] was £30,000. 2007 also looks set to make a loss after high touring costs. So that's £30,000 total that Pendragon grossed, over 4 years which is £7,500 a year before tax, royalties to the rest of the band, council tax and I have 3 children and a mortgage......4 years that have see-sawed through terrible
debt for me personally and the band in the vague hope that "when
the next album comes out we'll be able to clear what we owe"....this is the only income I have. To run Pendragon is a full time job.

Just as a small sample, on Komodo alone , over 200 people potentially [we cannot be sure because they don't all "thank" the "releaser"...which is a joke in itself, like these guys wrote and recorded the frikkin album!] downloaded the soundtrack last weekend of our
new DVD Past And Presence as opposed to the 10 people who bought it from our
site, this weekend from our site we sold 2.
300 people have downloaded a sort of "10 album Pendragon package" from Pirate Bay which is a loss for us of between £15,000 and £25,000![depending on whether they would have been retail sales or from a wholesaler] And this is from this one site alone!

We are in a transitional period for this new epoch of downloading, and can
only hope that over time people will realise the damage being done to the
musicians. We accept that it's slow, but we are utterly at the mercy of
the goodwill of YOU the individual, if we are seen to antagonise this we
have heard of people who, in their indignance have gone and downloaded even
more just out of spite.......this, put simply is just bad behaviour, probably a throw back to childhood.."I want my toys, and I want your toys, I want I want....my rights.." utterly selfish f***ing behaviour!

On another forum there was one
guy who said he had downloaded one album and then gone out to buy 80 items
related to that artist.......GREAT, I wish we had 20,000 fans like that, I
am not gonna split hairs over downloading one album, today, tomorrow , 5
years ago or whatever, all we can do is hope that YOU will be responsible and respectful with something we have put our hearts and souls into....and got into shed loads of debt to make!

I hear a lot of psychobable about we need to change our 'business
model', we need to do this, we need to do that...everyone's an expert when it comes to other people's problems, [but usually total imbeciles with their own!]
Let's not forget Pendragon have survived
for 30 years [as a non household name!], if there is any way we can keep
surviving you can bet we've already thought of it!


It is very hard to keep going through this neverending cycle of yo-yoing debt, and play the 'will they, won't they get out of debt with the next album' game.

There is also a creeping new way of thinking, which goes along the lines of, "I download it, if it doesn't instantly entertain me/thrill me, I don't buy it". With this new "MacDonalds" mentality that people are starting to adopt, I am now wondering if I am part of a business I don't want to be involved with.
Some people are saying if a meal was not cooked in restaurant to their satisfaction they wouldn't have to pay for it, well actually they would if there was nothing "wrong" with it...particularly if you'd already eaten it!
This is just git mentality.
Music is not a commodity like buying a grey stark insurance policy, it is supposed to bring some colour into our lives, it raises questions/debate and inspires us, it just so happens that it costs us something to make for which we ask for some reasonable recompense.

Well, The Lamb Lies Down, Tony Banks Curious Feeling and Tears For Fears Seeds Of Love were all albums I loathed when I first heard them, but they were a challenge and I worked with them, listening to them often and carefully over the weeks, I remember where I bought them, when I bought them and they slowly became like precious stones , brilliant and bringing a quality to my life that I will never forget. To see the real value of something you must look much much deeper than you think, trouble is we are lazy.....and we're getting lazier, more selfish and want to make as little effort , sacrifice and cost to ourselves as possible with everything....the world cannot sustain that!

The trouble is, I might get lazy. Will the next Pendragon album be the last one? It's up to you.

Nick B xx