Bands signed to Collect Records, a Brooklyn-based independent record label owned by Geoff Rickly, frontman of post-hardcore band Thursday, are in uproar after it became known that Martin Shkreli was the primary financier behind the label.

Shkreli, a 32-year-old former hedge fund manager and founder of Turing Pharmaceuticals, made headlines earlier this week for hiking the price of Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug used for treating parasitic infections, from $13.50 to $750 a tablet.

As Yahoo News notes, Daraprim is commonly used to treat people with compromised immune systems, such as AIDS and cancer patients. Shkreli’s price gouging has seen him come under fire from social media, the medical community, and even Hilary Clinton.

When queried by CBS This Morning about the ethical dilemma of hiking the medication by 5,500 percent overnight, Shkreli said the increase provided “a reasonable profit, not excessive at all” and that he would not consider lowering the price.

Having become the world’s most hated person overnight, more details about Shkreli’s past have emerged, including his involvement with Rickly, whom Shkreli contacted in 2014 to purchase a guitar and offer money to finance a label.

According to Yahoo News, Shkreli reportedly claimed that Thursday’s emotional lyrics and cathartic music helped him when he was younger. After going over the proposal written by Shkreli’s lawyers, Rickly signed the deal.

The revelation that Shkreli is the financier behind Collect Records has shocked the bands on the label, some of whom now want out of their contracts, like post-rock/shoegaze quartet Nothing, who are contracted to release two albums with Collect.

“The whole situation makes me feel sick to my stomach,” Palermo tells Yahoo Music. “I put so much time and effort into the band, and now I really don’t know what to do. The only thing I’m sure of is I’m never going to put any of my music out with someone like this.”

“I would rather not make music than let this person profit off of it.” Palermo indicated that he left Relapse Records to seek a more profitable deal for his band, but that he refuses to make money at the expense of sick individuals.

“This is essentially the kind of person that’s almost like the Antichrist,” Palermo says. “He’s a border sociopath. It’s unheard of that someone could do this and be so unapologetic about it. He looks at human lives like they’re dollar bills.”

“It’s disturbing and sickening and I feel like shit that I was even that close to someone like that in the first place. I know he has us in a really rough position where he could really make things difficult, but I don’t care.”

“As long as I’m not contributing anything to his empire, that’s good enough for me for now.” After reading about the controversy surrounding Shkreli, Palermo reported texted Rickly, who is currently on tour in Germany with his new band, No Devotion.

“Geoff was like, ‘Yeah, man. I don’t really know what’s going on right now. We’re trying to sort this out and figure out what’s going on,’” Palermo recounts. Nothing is not the only Collect band who now want off the label.

In an email to The Fader, New York hardcore outfit Sick Feeling wrote, “We have been dismayed as details continue to trickle in about the business life of Collect Records silent investor Martin Shkreli. One thing is clear; as long as he has a part in the label, we, Sick Feeling, cannot.”

“Our experience with Geoff, Norm, and Shaun has been nothing but positive, however, we cannot continue to work with Collect as long as Martin Shkreli has any part in it.” However, not every band on the label feels the same way.

Taking to Facebook, Wax Idols’ Hether Fortune insisted that Shkreli is a “‘patron’ rather than ‘investor'” in the label, “because as far as I know, Martin does NOT recoop a dime from Collect Records. He essentially donates money to the label”.

“Therefore by supporting Wax Idols and buying our record, you are NOT contributing to this asshole’s bank account,” Fortune adds. “With that being said… we are horrified. Collect is working on how to address this situation RIGHT NOW – no one is taking this lightly.”

Speaking to Noisey, Geoff Rickly said he was stunned by the reports of Shkreli’s acts. “If you know me, you know that I am definitely two things: naive and loyal,” Rickly said. “I want to believe that Martin wants to do the right thing overall.”

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“I’ve seen the guy give away money to schools, charities, and frankly, our bands, who if anyone really knows the industry, is a hard sell. I am struggling to find how this is OK. My head is still spinning, and though I want to believe that there is some reason that he would do this that is some remotely positive way…”

“I can’t see my future at all in the label,” Ricky claimed. “I have to see what the bands want first, and see if there is any meaning or any mission following all of this. More than anything, I want the bands to see that I hold art as the guiding force in my life.”

“Ultimately I see this going in the same way it always does, where all the artists get blamed for everything and capitalism is never held accountable. I really think that if Collect is going to be scrutinized as being capitalism, but that is how music survives.”

“I’m not making excuses for what has happened, but there is no corner of the music industry that doesn’t live and breathe from subsidies from business. It’s reductive and hypocritical to hold us and only us accountable though, we are all at fault in some greater way.”

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