Five Finger Death Punch have found themselves in a similar situation as Taylor Swift was in before she recently acquired her master recordings. The metal band is taking inspiration from the pop star by re-recording its earlier material.
As Billboard reports, early on in their career, Five Finger Death Punch entered into a record deal with Prospect Park. That label’s owner, Jeff Kwatinetz, recently sold the band’s masters without the band’s knowledge, leading FFDP to start re-recording select songs from their catalog.
Swift famously re-recorded a number of her albums after her old record label Big Machine sold her masters to Scooter Braun. Last month, she paid roughly $360 million to gain ownership of all her masters.
Related Video
FFDP guitarist Zoltan Bathory remarked, “[Taylor Swift] could have gone into a costly lawsuit, or she could have felt sorry for herself. [Instead] she just sprung into action and did what she had to do. That’s the way of life, and we will do what is necessary and legally can be done.”
The band’s manager, Allen Kovac of 10th Street Entertainment, added, “She got them to think a little bit about what their rights were. They want to be able to determine how these songs are promoted, marketed, licensed, visualized.”
Kovac went on to say that Kwatinetz and Prospect Park signed Five Finger Death Punch to “the worst deal I’ve ever seen,” explaining that the label took 50-percent of the band’s touring, publishing, and merchandising revenues, and adding that the band “never had ownership and they thought they did.”
While Kwatinetz didn’t identify who purchased the masters, Kovac has named the company as Spirit Music Group. Kovac insisted, “Kwatinetz never contacted the band to tell them he was selling. He didn’t even give them the opportunity to go to the bank, get a down payment and pay him with assets from their side.”
When reached for comment Kwatinetz responded, “Allen’s allegations, as usual, are utterly false. We took a band no one else wanted to sign [and] made them the most-played band at active rock for over a decade. The band made millions and millions of dollars, had nine or 10 gold or platinum records. Allen’s intent was always to try to break the contract so he could put it out on his own label.”
Thus far, Five Finger Death Punch have put out re-recorded versions of “I Refuse” (featuring In This Moment’s Maria Brink), “Jeckyll and Hide,” and their hit cover of Bad Company’s “Bad Company.” The songs are included on the upcoming compilation 20 Years of Five Finger Death Punch – Best of Volume 1, set for release on July 18th. The collection includes 14 re-recorded songs and three live tracks.
The YouTube description for “I Refuse” reads, “The first single from our upcoming 20 Years of Five Finger Death Punch – Best Of Volume 1 — In response to the recent sale of our original master recordings by our former label, an action made without our knowledge or the opportunity to reclaim our work. The idea of remixes or remastered editions wasn’t enough, so we completely re-recorded our songs to honor the fans who have made them matter by being with Five Finger Death Punch every step of the way.”
As far as re-recording the songs, Bathory told Billboard, “This process is pretty quick. Some of these songs we’ve played 1 million times.”
Five Finger Death Punch are playing a handful of US rock festivals this summer. Pick up tickets here.
Content shared from consequence.net.