PledgeMusic Bankruptcy Puts Country & Roots Artists in Peril
It’s official. After months of trying to locate buyers and investors for the failing music crowdfunding service and pleading with both performers and the public for patience, PledgeMusic co-founder Benji Rogers announced on Wednesday (5-8) that the company is officially heading for bankruptcy. That means many consumers who used the service to support their favorite artists in their efforts to self-fund releases will only receive their promised merchandise if the musicians themselves can fulfill the orders without receiving the money their fans raised for them through the platform. It also means musicians themselves are no longer PledgeMusic customers, they’re PledgeMusic creditors, who will have to wait in line through bankruptcy litigation with the company’s other unpaid partners to likely receive pennies on the dollar for the money pledged to them.
Launching in 2009 as a crowdfunding source similar to Kickstarter, PledgeMusic paid out over $100 million in artist payments and distributed some 50,000 projects over its tenure. However starting in the summer of 2018, artists began to complain about slow payments from the company amid a management overhaul. By mid February 2019, payments to artists and bands were completely suspended amid financial woes, and all campaigns on the site were frozen with little information coming from the company. Co-founder Benji Rogers returned to the company in January on a short-term basis to help with the crisis and spearhead acquisition talks. “I am sorry to say that the sale process that I have been speaking to you about over these last weeks and months for PledgeMusic was unsuccessful and that the buyers have withdrawn,” Rogers said in a statement on Wednesday, dashing all hope for a happy ending to the crisis.
The failure of PledgeMusic has put not just music projects in peril, it has put cash-strapped musicians in peril as they’re having to fulfill obligations to fans often at the expense of their own financial well being. In February, Saving Country Music reported how the Minnesota-based roots rock band The Plott Hounds were forced to scrap their PledgeMusic campaign, tell fans to cancel their orders through credit card companies, and plead with the public for understanding in the situation. They were one of many bands in the country and roots world who’ve had to beg and borrow to fulfill obligations to fans.
“Pledge Music has not sent me one penny of the money that you gave me to make this project, and I’ve been working very hard to fulfill my orders,” Nashville-based songwriter Tim Easton posted in a recent PledgeMusic update. “In fact things have gotten quite serious for me as I’ve had to move out of my house in Whites Creek, TN and am looking for a much cheaper place to live while I sort all of this out.”
Like many musicians, Tim Easton had used PledgeMusic to fund multiple projects over the years, with fans pledging their support in return for albums, merchandise, and other rewards for funding records ahead of their release. Some artists were lucky and were able to get their records out before the issues began with PledgeMusic in earnest, including Jamie Line Wilson’s October 2018 release, Jumping Over Rocks, which went out with few hiccups. But others like Kristina Murray’s September 2018 release Southern Ambrosia got caught up in the PledgeMusic problems.
“I hope you are still enjoying spinning the album and sharing with friends! I have some rather upsetting news to report, however,” Kristina Murray said to fans on May 6th. “After closing my successful and fully funded campaign at the end of September 2018, I was never paid out the earnings by PledgeMusic. In January of this year, all affected artists were told that any outstanding balances would be paid out within 90 days. I now see that I will not ever be receiving my campaign funding via PledgeMusic. As an independent artist with 100% of the financial burden, this is quite a devastating blow, as a I counted my campaign funding as part of my budget to press and promote my album (around $18k for pressing and promotion.) My campaign raised $4600.”
Like many other musicians, Kristina Murray is now asking for fans who pledged to their campaigns to reach out to their credit card companies and dispute the PledgeMusic charges, and then pay them directly. “Please contact your bank or credit card company and file a chargeback against Pledgemusic, citing FRAUD as the reason. If you need help locating your transaction, I am happy to help with that! Once you’re refunded from your bank, please consider paying that money directly to me.”
Another band affected by the implosion of PledgeMusic was The Cole Trains based out of Arizona. Their April 19th release Lucky Stars featured Cody Canada guesting on a track, but almost didn’t happen after the crowdfunding company did not fulfill their pledges. “We’ve emptied savings and maxed credit cards and borrowed whatever we could so that we could fulfill every Pledge order,” Shane Britt of The Cole Trains told Saving Country Music. “We couldn’t let Pledge win. We made all of our timelines except the vinyl. It will be slightly delayed.”
In most cases, the artists and bands still fullfilled their end of the bargain, despite PledgeMusic not delivering them a cent of the money their fans sent to them for support. They took care of their fans before taking care of themselves. But it has been at great financial and emotional heartache, and a huge distraction among music’s most vulnerable population—unsigned artists. The release of a new album is supposed to be a joyous time for a musician and their fans, and a critical moment in their careers as album releases are often the make or break moments for them. Unfortunately, PledgeMusic made the experience into a nightmare, and one that we now know will never be fully made right.
May 8, 2019 @ 7:03 pm
Gill Landry recently posted about this on Facebook. Such a shitty position for the artists to be in. Hopefully they find a way to rebound
May 8, 2019 @ 7:38 pm
There are a ton of other bands and artists I’m hearing about as well. Ray Scott, The Black Lillies, Caleb and the Homegrown Tomatoes. This really is a catastrophe on a grand scale for independent music, and I’m not sure why more attention isn’t being paid to it by the media. A lot of these bands don’t have publicists or big managers to help get the word out when this happens to them.
May 9, 2019 @ 9:56 pm
Sure makes me glad I scrape up money from the road and set aside budget for my albums. I do crowd funding directly through stripe or Paypal if any at all to avoid the “machine.” Feel so sad for these artists…
May 8, 2019 @ 9:34 pm
Kind of thought something was up when all you would see was Pledgemusic pre orders and then all of a sudden, Pledgemusic disappeared..
May 9, 2019 @ 6:56 am
Sorry to go off topic but just bought ‘Color Where You Are’ by Cris Jacobs. It came out April 12th. Oh my god! What a gem! Definitely album of the year material
As you were…
May 9, 2019 @ 7:27 am
That sucks. I feel for Kristina
May 9, 2019 @ 7:39 am
This is a pretty damn big deal. Much of the quality art we currently enjoy is dependent upon the artists’ ability to circumvent the label system, and PledgeMusic was a plug-n-play solution on the financial side. Even after the artists mired in the bankruptcy proceedings manage to dig themselves out, they will be faced with the difficulties of going it alone in the future.
Searching Rolling Stone’s site for “PledgeMusic” doesn’t pop anything – I guess this story lacks the sex appeal of Lil Nas X and his woes.
May 9, 2019 @ 7:44 am
This really angers me. I am trying to buy items from as many Pledge artists as I can (directly from the artists) to help make up for this crap show.
May 9, 2019 @ 8:16 am
It’s hard enough being an indipendent musician trying to make ends meet without someone screwing you up like that! Wish all the best to the involved artists.
May 9, 2019 @ 9:24 am
We are still buried by this. The margins for independent artists are already paper thin..often living gig to gas tank to gig to gas tank. We are now touring and performing to get out of debt instead of touring and performing to raise funds for much needed vehicle repairs, promotion, advertising and recording. It’s a blow that is hard to stomach but we are thankful to those who have stood by us. Music always wins.
May 9, 2019 @ 9:54 am
This sucks, but it’s not surprising. I’ve bought stuff from one band on Pledge Music before, and I didn’t like the experience. The site/service is clunky, unattractive, confusing and entirely dependent on how involved the band are with it (which, in many cases, is not much). The user experience just wasn’t great.
Maybe it’s not a popular opinion (or maybe popular considering these crowdfunding sites are actually tanking now), but I don’t really like the idea of paying for something upfront, in advance, when it doesn’t even exist yet and you don’t really know when you’ll get it. Maybe never, as was often the case with sites like Kickstarter.
In a lot of cases, bands that sell on Pledge Music end up releasing the same stuff commercially elsewhere afterward, anyway, so the original Pledge Music early-investor fans aren’t really getting anything that special. Bragging rights? A limited edition t-shirt? Some signed merch? I’m not attracted to any of that stuff. I just want the music (preferably as hi-res, CD-quality audio) and a live tour. I’ll buy a t-shirt at the gig.
There are so many ways for financially-strapped indie artists to record and get their content out there these days, in most cases entirely on their own with few barriers to entry. For example, Bandcamp is a great online indie retailer I use all the time. I’ve bought stuff from Cody Jinks, Whitey Morgan, Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, Anderson East etc. there, and in most cases those guys aren’t really “officially” signed to any label.
May 9, 2019 @ 10:34 am
Yeah, engaging in fan-based recording project financing is not the smoothest path to a merchandise transaction.
That said, the class of independent artists you mention tours rather successfully, and no doubt they generate enough cash flow to afford credible efforts in the studio. There are many less popular artists who can use a boost, though.
May 9, 2019 @ 12:35 pm
I abide by the relatively hard-lined, perhaps hard-nosed, philosophy that the cream usually rises to the top and some artists actually just aren’t special enough, or good enough to succeed.
We talk a lot about how bad the top-40 stuff is, but we don’t talk about the ocean of bad indie artists who feel equally entitled to the same kinds of fame and fortune.
For an artist hoping to make it in a genre like country, whose cornerstone is live performance, I’d say they need to play live as frequently as possible first, network as much as possible, and build a fan base organically before thinking about albums, merch, etc. even though those things aren’t actually that expensive to produce and distribute.
Worst case, record and rip an EP on CD at home on the cheap (a few hundred dollars, at most), and sell it to people at shows. Mail that to labels and managers too. Plenty of sympathetic indie labels and managers out there are looking for the next big/good thing, and even small indies have inroads to get unknown artists right into all the major streaming and retail outlets.
Even after doing all this hard, but necessary, work – and you’re still not connecting with a fan base – maybe you’re just not that good?
May 9, 2019 @ 10:11 pm
As a non-household name who’s been in this business for 23 years as a singer-songwriter with credits on a whole lotta records, I am willing to concede for myself that I might not be “that good,” but I have seen stellar artists along the way not become a household name because they never got that lucky break…you can do everything right, have loads of talent, and even have money behind you in this business and still not hit critical mass. Timing, market demand, and chance determine what level of success one can achieve as an artist. I agree that plenty expect a little too much for the quality of music they’re producing (but then, there are plenty who are making money hand over fist who can’t sing without a tuner), but the biz isn’t as cut and dry as what many make it out to be.
May 10, 2019 @ 8:25 am
Thanks for this comment, Tony. Maybe I was too cavalier with the terms “not that good” and “not good enough.”
I agree, an artist/performer/writer can in fact be very good, but not quite hit the right timing or get the right opportunities that seem to propel lesser talented artists into the spotlight. Great artists do frequently languish in obscurity. By the same token, artists with very little talent can be an overnight success (Lil Nas X). Fate is a cruel bitch.
As the cliche goes, “success is 10% talent, and 90% hard work.” In other words, talent is rarely enough without all the right pieces in place, at the right time.
May 9, 2019 @ 3:09 pm
This is terrible. I was hoping they’d turn this around, but it looks pretty hopeless. I have friends and clients affected so I hope they get what they are owed.
May 10, 2019 @ 8:35 am
How does a company like this go bankrupt?
They literally provide a platform and take a small cut of the money right? They shouldn’t even have much overhead unless they have other things they do besides providing the platform.
May 10, 2019 @ 5:55 pm
Freddie Harts lastest album was funded via PledgeMusic, apparently they didnt receive their funds either.