Gilbert Gottfried Says If You Go To Mcdonald's and Ask Them For a Free Meal They'll Tell You To Go Fuck Yourself (Burger King Agrees)

Man, is Victory Records turning up the shitty in terms of random shittyness. The label released a public service announcement featuring comedian Gilbert Gottfried, where he talks about how anti-piracy is bad for the artists that You! love.

Gottfried is a great comedian, who many are familiar with, from Disney's classic animation, Aladdin, where he voiced Iago The Parrot.

Apart from his many roles in television and film, Gilbert has been a great regular on Comedy Central's Roast, so I totally don't mind him banking some dough from Victory's pockets.


But, the fact that this is coming from a label that it's president (Tony Brummel) is notorious for holding back royalty checks from the label's own talent roster, pulling illegal marketing stunts, among other conniving acts, is ridiculous.

Former Victory Records Vice-President
Ramsey Dean, once posted about the evil that Brummel do, to many bands that left the label and ended up suing him, such as pop-punk band Hawthorne Heights. Ramsey wrote about their split with the label, quoting and stating:

“Due to recent events we have decided to leave Victory Records. Our departure is anything but amicable. We have decided to leave Victory in part due to the actions of the man who sits at the head of the label, Tony Brummel. Tony Brummel is a man that cares more about his ego and bank account than the bands themselves…”

It was the beginning of a two-page statement from the band Hawthorne Heights, the independent success story of 2005. They were seen as a pleasant group, playing unpretentious pop-punk and the idols of 14-year-old girls everywhere. But that was just appearances. Behind the glare of stardom lurked the torture that anyone who’d been out to Chicago knew all too well.
The statement continued:

“Why did they (Hawthorne Heights) sound so happy in that interview??? Like being in an abusive relationship we let certain things slide as we were afraid, as many of the bands on Victory are, to stick our neck out for fear of being “beaten,” in this case represented by the threat of not being promoted as has been the case with certain bands on the roster. We’re done being abused.”

Ramsey
goes on to talk about post-hardcore band Taking Back Sunday, and the whopping amount that he (Brummel), held back from the band's royalties.

"Royalties were payable quarterly and, before each quarter ended, I’d get the amounts, totaling into millions of dollars, that were to be dumped into bogus marketing programs to prevent the band from getting a royalty. It was nothing short of malicious. “Fuck those guys, they’re not entitled to that money,” was his quarterly lament. The royalties, which ranged into hundreds of thousands of dollars, would be calculated and I’d get the amounts I’d need to spend. The last quarter I was there he laid $360,000 of Taking Back Sunday’s money on me.

I couldn’t even find enough places to dump it: television advertising, print ads, sale pricing, endcaps, and then we’d play around with dating to try and make it stick, but sometimes even that didn’t purge it all."

You can read the entire post on this chick's blog (all original links have been taken down by Victory Records' legal team)

[ Clip Via: METAL INJECTION ]

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