The Contract

After the - at least for me - nerve-wracking label meeting last week, I didn't really expect to hear anything from them again. So it caught me slightly off guard when Ava announced last night that she now had a solid contract offer for an album. The conditions are apparently not that bad. We would get 12,000 euros right away as an advance and they would take care of distribution and promotion. In return they want 75 percent of all revenues. (That seems like a lot, but Ava says usually it's more like 80.) We'd have to commit to certain social media and promotional activities, and also be available for radio interviews and TV appearances. And they have an affiliated booking agency that would send us on tour if the album was successful enough.

How do you feel about that? To be honest, we are totally split. On the one hand, it sounds like the fulfillment of many dreams that we unspokenly pursue with our music. On the other hand, I just have a bad feeling about Mister Eye Patch. I clearly recognized him, and I don't know if he recognized me too. He has something to do with the syndicate and after we finally got rid of Till's burnmark, I don't feel like slipping back into that mess at all.

This is how the others see it:

In Leo's eyes, the offer is a unique chance to really take off with our music. We would be stupid not to take it. Apart from that, the generous advance would significantly reduce our financial worries. (Possibly even a heater for the next winter would be possible...).

Till is not comfortable with the whole thing. It's quite likely that Mister Eye Patch is somehow connected to the syndicate, according to all we know. What if the generous offer is just a trap? Any further meeting would already be too risky from his point of view.

Jin is not a big fan of record companies in general. She thinks we should rather stay independent and do our own thing.

Hans isn't so worried about the syndicate. (I guess he secretly thinks we're paranoid.) He's more worried about them talking into our music and limiting our creative freedom. If we enter into concrete contract negotiations, it would be important to him to rule that out.

Ava is a little suspicious of getting such a good offer without much negotiation. There must be a catch somewhere, she thinks. But she is definitely in favor of entering into real negotiations.

And what do you think? Should we seriously consider the whole thing or should we keep our hands off it?