Hootie & the Blowfish: Yet Another Worship Temple

back to the tape traders forum

The following thoughts were taken directly, word for word, from the band's official web site. It is composed of completely unadulterated statements that appear on the February 14, 1997 post written by Soni on the band's tour diary.

Cruising through some misc. chat rooms lately I've noticed some talk regarding our stance on the evergrowing music bootlegging issue. It's a broad and tricky subject that has many different sides, and I could probably write a book on it...but I'll try to brief.

Ah...where to begin...I guess there are a couple different types of bootlegged music:

1) Harmless, low-quality tapes traded between friends for the fun and enjoyment of hearing different performances, alternate tracks and between song banter among bandmates.

2) Uncontrolled, illegal, low-quality recordings on CD, with unauthorized artwork and photos, produced and sold solely for profit. As you can guess by my slightly angled prose, we're not so opposed to Type #1, but have some serious problems with Type #2.

It's tough because as a fan, I too desire fresher, updated live performances of the bands I love. I would hope that if someone (without profit) passed me a tape of, say, Dave Matthews, live in Raleigh, NC, that Dave would not be offended by me having that recording.

However, seeing an unauthorized Hootie CD at a store listed for $29.95, and knowing it's a very low-quality and that someone else is profiting from it, kinda sucks as an artist. Mind you, it doesn't hurt our record sales when people purchase bootlegs, cause chances are they've already got our authorized CD. Anyway, so it's not really an issue of them hurting our CD sales or our $ profit, it's an issue of...why should someone else make a buck (or many) off of something I've worked very hard for. As songwriters and performers, it's very important for us to have some control over our music and its quality (hopefully high) and cost (hopefully low). If someone doesn't really care about inferior sound quality that's fine, but they shouldn't have to pay a third party $29.95 for it!

Wow, I'm rambling now!...Like I said, this is an arguable and lengthy subject and believe me we've had many long discussions on this over the years. I'll write more on this later, but now I'm off to Atlanta to see if the Bulls can snap the Hawks home winning streak at the Omni.

Hootie & the Blowfish: Yet Another Worship Temple
http://hootie4life.tripod.com