Periphery’s Misha Mansoor Responds to Criticisms from Sumerian’s Ash Avildsen: “We Don’t Really Care About Being a Massive Band or Making Crazy Money”

Yesterday, MetalSucks reported that Sumerian Records founder/CEO Ash Avildsen reported that Periphery were leaving Sumerian records; furthermore, responding to guitarist Misha Mansoor’s recent admission that the band members need other sources of income to survive, Avildsen asserted that the group could be making much more money, but the group “are their own worst enemy.”

Well, look who responded on MetalSucks’ very own Facebook page… why, it’s Misha Mansoor himself! And what did Misha have to say?

“It’s pretty simple: We want Periphery to be a fun passion project and creative outlet. We don’t really care about being a massive band or making crazy money with the music, and that has been our approach since day one.

“Ash is a businessman, and wants his bands to be financially successful. Sometimes that means our interests are at odds, and contractually we had set things up to be in our favor so we couldn’t be forced to make decisions we didn’t want to. With that said, and even in Ash’s own words in the interview, when he came to us with good ideas, we definitely listened!

“Ultimately we had a good run with them, and I’m grateful for our time on the label, but we have wanted to try starting our own label for a while now, and we finally have the means to do so!”

As I said yesterday when Avildsen’s initial comments got out, barring the creation of a machine that allows us to visit alternate realities, we really have no way of knowing how taking or not taking Avildsen’s advice would have panned out for Periphery. In any case, it doesn’t really matter — Periphery and Sumerian are both doing fine. They’ll keep doing their good work, which is all fans really care about. Phew!

[via Metal Injection]