News from Nick Barrett (Pendragon)

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.

Indeed- I have some 5 Pendragon albums and I have bought them all, you'd be pleased to know. I came across 'As Good As Gold' and 'Paintbox' via this site and 'The Masquerade Overture' remains one of my fave prog albums. I would buy a new album as imho, 'Believe' gave them a new lease of life.

Hope Nick decides to stick it out- I saw that Channel 4 documentary with Pendragon and he seemed like a genuine person, far removed from those cold automatons that were instructing him to change his way of doing things.

The CH4 documentry was in fact a joke, the advice (given on screen by 19 yr old "gurus" but infact dreamt up by the TV crew) was to start a different business ie a music school, also they suggested charging kids £20 per hour for this. There is a FANTASTIC music school in Swindon....... £50 a term.
They were making TV........ unforutnately they were not making sense.

Listening posts in '50's Britain are NOT the equivilent of the download gerneration and I think we are all smart enough here to know it.

I understand why polls and threads get closed and deleted, I understand that this is a volatile subject....... but it's not going away.


Decent music will go away though.

^Yes, I totally agree. One thing I do think is a good idea though is the set-up we have here- a sample track- or like on MySpace or most band's own websites these days. Like I said, this is how I discovered Pendragon but also bands like IQ and The Flower Kings too. The track can often entice fans to try out more- I've rarely been disappointed by these myself (though Spock's Beard's last album I bought after hearing samples in this way and it wasn't really what I had expected...there is always that risk).

Edited by salmacis - May 15 2007 at 08:09

I've met Nick myself and he definitely is a genuine guy.

Perhaps Pendragon should give the upcoming Peter Gabriel-backed WE7 download site a go - I'm not sure how much artists will make from this, but it has to be better than having 300 people downloading 10 albums for nothing.

I totally love Pendragon, and Nick seems like a very nice and friendly man, so everybody start buying Pendragon goodies.

Most bands output are accessible through the high street, though at times a little investigation and inquiry helps. I purchased both Knight Areas albums through Woolworths and paid what I felt was a reasonable price (£9.99), their delivery times though forecast as long were in fact prompt. I state the above in response to Gecko and his Swindon problem, it is the same here in Shrewsbury...

tuxon wrote: ... the current situation will eventually lead to music being totally free of charge, it's not good or bad, it's just the future of music

Hence CDs, live shows and studio time will be for free too? It'll be great, but it's a one-way street - the artist hires a studio, records an album, makes a tour and ... eats air - because tickets are free and album is already in the net. I wonder how indie labels survive - they have both lack of public and artists...

What's disappointing is that a very recent poll on PA, since deleted, showed that around half of the people who took part in the poll regularly download illegally.

Edited by Glueman - May 15 2007 at 15:20