Tame Impala‘s new album, Currents, is due out next month, but while the band are kicking all kinds of goals musically, they have found themselves dragged into an ugly royalties dispute.
BMG Rights Management, who own the rights to Tame Impala’s songs, have filed a lawsuit against the Modular Recordings label and its partner Universal Music over unpaid royalties from the band’s early albums and EPs.
The filing, which also named Modular founder Steve “Pav” Pavlovic, claims that the band are owed $575,000 in unpaid royalties, with a further $400,000 also possibly in dispute, according to a report in The Australian.
This means that the band could be out nearly $1 million dollars in royalties, although based on a recent Reddit AMA by front man Kevin Parker, they don’t have high hopes that they’ll see this money any time soon.
In a nutshell, he reckons that tequila commercials have been more lucrative for Tame Impala than album sales ever were:
You want to know a story? Up until recently, from all of tame impala’s record sales outside of australia I had received…. zero dollars. Someone high up spent the money before it got to me. I may never get that money. Then Blackberry and some tequila brand or something put my song in an ad. Then I bought a house and set up a studio. I know what you’re thinking… “wait so…when I bought an album I was helping some businessman pay for his mansion on an island somewhere, and when some dude bought a mobile phone he was helping to pay an artist? WHHHYY?”
Universal has denied the allegations, saying that they are “baseless”, and claims that Pavlovic, who is “no longer employed by Modular Recordings”, is solely responsible, after failing to pay them royalties for albums sold overseas.
Pavlovic has responed via his lawyers, saying that a company he owned was responsible for distributing Tame Impala’s recordings in America until January last year, but that after this, Universal began distributing them.
“It is not clear at this stage whether BMG is claiming any unpaid royalties relating to the period in which Mr Pavlovic’s company was distributing Tame Impala records,” his statement continued.
The matter is ongoing.
via News Limited
Photo: Ian Gavan via Getty Images
Photo: Ian Gavan via Getty Images
