Anarchy Club

The following was written shortly after we released “The Art of War”, when I responded to a fan’s request on a torrent site for someone to upload the album so he could bit torrent it:

Hi, (believe it or not) I’m Keith from Anarchy Club. The physical cd should be made available to buy at the cdbaby online store later today. Please buy one, and tell your friends.

As far as downloading our stuff from torrents is concerned, here’s some things you should know (and please spread the word!)…

Firstly, as honored as we are that we have fans all over the world that go to great lengths to get their hands on our music, the truth of the matter is simple. Anarchy Club is composed of just two guys, Adam and I. We write, record and publish EVERYTHING ourselves, out of Adam’s living room. We both have day jobs and spend out of our own pockets to release our music. There’s no big label, no expensive sports cars, no room full of drunk, eager supermodels (well… sometimes, but I digress). The bottom line is that we are NOT Metallica, and we don’t make millions of dollars a year. In fact (largely due to illegal downloads) we have a hard time putting our music out and promoting the band. If people bought our stuff and spread the world, we’d have the money to play more shows and tour. And if they sold WELL (read as well enough to pay our modest rents) we could spend more time in Adam’s living room making more music to put out more often.

We had some research done and found out that if only 25% of the people that downloaded our stuff illegally actually bought it legitimately instead, we’d have made around $800,000 a year for the last five years. This means we’d have had more than enough to quit our jobs, pay our rent, and hire a touring band, as well as be able to record constantly. It also means we’d be able to afford to LEGALLY give away songs for free (as we did with “Riddle Me This” a while back). In this ideal scenario we’d be making enough from merchandising and shows to be able to release free downloadable music all the time. And to be honest, if we were there, I wouldn’t really mind the torrenting so much because I realize that a lot of the people not buying the music would be supporting us by getting merch and going to shows (because we’d be touring).

So, to all of our fans who wonder why we never play their town, or why we aren’t “more famous”, or why we don’t have cds available at your local store, there’s your answer. We love our fans dearly, and we know you love us, too. So here’s hoping this sheds a little light on how the game really plays out from a working band’s perspective.

At the end of the day you’ll do what you will. All I ask is that when you are listening to our music, you take a second to think about the guys that made it for you to enjoy…

Yours in Rock,

Keith