Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker has finally addressed reports a million dollars in royalties had been taken from his band. As Tone Deaf previously reported, the allegations surfaced after German publishing giant BMG took legal action against stakeholders related to Modular Recordings, the band’s former label.
“When it actually hit the surface, and everyone knew about it, I was as surprised. I didn’t know they were going to sue anyone, I didn’t know there was going to be any suing going on, so I was as surprised and interested as anyone,” Parker recently told The Music.
“I knew there was some stuff going on, obviously, and we knew it was going to happen, we knew something was on the horizon… We just didn’t know what was going to happen with it. As far as I was concerned I’d written off that side of things, I’d heard that some money had gone missing, blah blah blah, that’s all I really thought about it.”
As Tone Deaf reported, in their lawsuit, BMG claim Modular was given a “mechanical license” to Tame Impala’s songs in March last year, on the condition the label would pay royalties within 45 days of the end of each quarter.
However, BMG allege this never happened. Furthermore, the publishing giant have accused Modular founder Stephen “Pav” Pavlovic, Modular, and Modular co-founder Universal Music of ignoring a cease and desist order instructing them to refrain from selling any more of Tame Impala’s material.
According to an initial report by The Australian, BMG is suing Pavlovic, along with the label he founded and its co-owner, in a New York court for unpaid royalties related to Tame Impala’s overseas sales totalling $US450,000 (AUD$588,150).
However, as a more recent report in The Australian detailed, another USD$350,000 to USD$400,000 is also in dispute, bringing the maximum amount of unaccounted for royalties to around AUD$1.1 million. It’s just the latest in a long series of allegations made against the label founder.
The revelations about Pavlovic followed comments made by Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker back in May. During a Reddit AMA, Parker, who pens almost all of Tame Impala’s material, told fans that he had received “zero dollars” from all of Tame Impala’s record sales “outside of Australia”.
“Up until recently, from all of Tame Impala’s record sales outside of Australia I had received… zero dollars,” he said. “Someone high up spent the money before it got to me. I may never get that money.”
When asked why he decided to bring the issue up during the session, Parker told The Music he wanted to stress the importance of recognising that artists deserve to be paid for their output.
“Different people have different opinions on whether it should be owned, physically owned, whether you paid for it, [and] if you got it for free it’s not as valuable as if you paid for it,” said the frontman.
“I guess all I’m saying is the idea that paying for music is important because the artist deserves money for their work. It made me realise my situation is like – in terms of money, I haven’t made any album money, I haven’t made any money from album sales.”
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However, Parker says he’s resigned himself to the reality of the situation surrounding the missing royalties. “It’s not frustrating, that’s not the word, it’s just… that’s the way it is. It’s one of those things that I accept,” he said.
He also admitted that it’s difficult to understand the logistics of the case, which is just one of a tangled web of cases involving Pavlovic. “To begin with, it’s complicated, it’s so complicated,” said Parker.
“Put it this way, I’ve had it explained to me a number of times, how the money went missing and where it went and why it went missing, but about 30 seconds into the explanation I’m just lost because there’s a difference between mechanical loyalties and songwriting loyalties.”
“It gets extremely technical extremely quickly, and that’s why I’m not that interested in it. I’ve been okay, I’m doing fine, you know, I’m getting by, I can pay for my dinner. In the end, I’m lucky enough to travel the world and make albums, and not have to worry about not having a job.
“Whilst it is naive that I don’t give a shit about that much money that’s gone missing, I just find it counter-productive to get worked up over it. They’re just gonna battle it out and do their thing, I’m a spectator at this point.”
