Five Finger Death Punch Have Completed a New Album They May Be Unable to Release
People always stereotype record labels as the bad guys, “the evil suits,” and that’s totally unfair. Sometimes, record labels do tremendously positive things, things that benefit not just lovers of good music, but the whole world in general.
Take, for example, Prospect Park Records. Right this very moment, they are preventing Five Finger Death Punch from putting out a new album. I mean, if that ain’t worth a commendation from the EPA…
The story is this: last Spring, Prospect Park filed a lawsuit against Five Finger Death Punch, claiming that “the members of FFDP have unequivocally repudiated their contractual obligations to permit Prospect Park to determine the recording elements of a new record.” They alleged that “the other members of FFDP seek to capitalize monetarily as soon as possible, at the expense of [vocalist Ivan] Moody’s health and welfare,” thereby “shamelessly attempting to cash in before the anticipated downfall of their addicted bandmate.”
In other words: it is the label’s position that they be given a say in the creative end of things because the band is just trying to rush out an album before Ivan Moody’s well-publicized struggle with addiction kills him.
The band subsequently fired back, deeming the lawsuit to be “the latest in a long line of exploitative and abusive bullying tactics used by our former manager and current [Prospect Park] label CEO Jeff Kwatinetz to extract money from and wield power against the band.” FFDP then signed with Rise Records for the release of their next album after their final record for Prospect Park.
Now guitarist Jason Hook has revealed that the band has completed what would be, in theory, their first album for Rise:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOsWCTIAlEu/
Fortunately, it may be a minute before the band can actually release the thing. As Rock Feed points out:
“The band is under contract with Prospect Park to release this album… Prospect Park does not have to release the band’s new album. Record labels have the right to refuse to release an album from a band, which would put both parties in a precarious position. For one, Five Finger Death Punch has ALREADY signed a deal with Rise Records to release future recordings. If Prospect Park holds this album, that will delay things with Rise Records.”
It’s nearly impossible for me to imagine this record never being released in some form, but Rock Feed’s point is valid: Propsect Park could potentially make it really, really hard for FFDP to get their new album to listeners.
So 2017 is off to a strong start.
