This article comes to us courtesy of The Owl Mag.
Eric Victorino is mad as hell. The commercial music industry is a money making machine indifferent to necessity for creative control, and The Limousines are not gonna take it anymore. Eric and his artistic partner, Gio Giusti, have turned to their fans via the crowdfunding site Kickstarter.com to raise the money needed to mix and press their next record, Hush.
The Owl Mag: Your story of leaving your record label strikes a similar note to stories of soldiers refusing to return to duty. Do you consider yourself to be a music industry conscientious objector and refusenik?
Victorino: That's a great way to look at it. Except we're soldiers who have an awful lot of fight left in us. We're down with kicking ass, we just want to do it on our terms now.
The Owl Mag: May we categorize The Limousines with Immortal Technique, Atari Teenage Riot, Boots Riley, and other contemporary musical activists?
Victorino: I don't know if I'd call us activists -- our actions are selfishly motivated, we're trying to take control of our lives and our art for our own good. Of course we have strong political opinions we're pretty forthright about, but this album release and the way we've chosen to go about it might serve as inspiration for bands who've had bad experiences with record labels to see what they can accomplish when they turn to their fans for support.
The Owl Mag: Have you used Kickstarter before? Why did you select this crowdfunding platform and not another one, such as Indiegogo?
Victorino: Kickstarter is great; we looked into a lot of other sites too, but we think this option fits us best. The people at Kickstarter have been really helpful with advice on how to set things up right and how to make it a success.
Visit The Owl Mag to read the rest of this interview.