A Melbourne metal band have recorded their latest album, ready to unleash it on the music world, but apparently they don’t want you to hear it.
Blood Duster are a 5-piece grindcore band formed in 1991 by their bass player and frontman Jason ‘PC’ Fuller, the metal group have gone through various lineup changes over their 20 year career of making metal music and upon the release of their newest album and EP, comes a unique form of protest, which the band’s press release insists proves their dislike of the modern marketing and sales process.
The band’s previous releases, such as 2005’s Fisting The Dead… Again, imply they have never been a group who compromise due to public opinion, but as they complain over their new release: “Do people go to the record store to buy their music anymore? No, everyone just rips it off from the internet.”
This has been the major point of discussion when Blood Duster set out to record their latest record.
The band’s solution in relation to said problem was one given by self indulgent bands since the dawn of rock and roll – that instead they make music for themselves, and with KVLT, their latest album, they’ve done exactly that – by rendering it unlistenable. As the band put it:
The typical process of making, marketing and selling a record simply does not work in the digital age, and with downloads both legal and illegal becoming the norm, there really is no way for a band to recoup the costs of selling that record to their fans. So why bother? Sure, the guys have never been in it for the money and in fact loathe the whole marketing and sales process, but to put all that effort into an album only to have people take it for free is a bit of a depressing situation to be in.
The band plan to establish their new found point of protest by releasing their brand new album on limited edition vinyl, yet rendering it unplayable, by having the album title, KVLT, scratched into the grooves – rendering it useless.
Not only that, the self described ‘Grinding Death Rock’ band have taken the extreme step of destroying the masters so there’s no chance of it ever turning up on the internet, therefore the album literally no longer exists.
It’s all part of “taking the DIY punk ethos one step further,” as the group put it, and “they have created their own ethos called, Do It Yourself, For Yourself or DIYFY.”“Do people go to the record store to buy Blood Duster’s music anymore? No, everyone just rips it off from the internet.”
In support of the album’s release the band are simultaneously releasing a 5 track EP entitled SVCK through your usual various channels including iTunes and Facebook, alongside the scratched, unlistenable vinyl release.
Given the band’s apparent destruction of the album and its masters, their odd form of protest will – literally – go unheard, yet this is seemingly what the band wanted in the first place, with lead singer Jason ‘Bastard’ P.C stating in their press release that they “are a band taking total control of what is theirs.”
Adding that “the band have heard the LP, enjoyed making it and are now keeping that enjoyment for themselves because that, after all, is exactly who they write for!”
Although their protest towards music piracy through the creation and destruction of their own art is an honest and respectable pursuit, it’s questionable whether or not Blood Duster’s actions are in vain, and simply a publicity stunt in marketing their new EP, a complicated and experimental stunt rather than a proper form of protest.
Blood Duster’s SVCK EP and KVLT, their “unlistenable” album, will debut on the first of November followed by a national tour this month, as well as playing Bastard Fest nationally. To cap it all off, a dodgy video of bassist Jason PC has also been released showing the frontman destroying the vinyl masters.
