We had some truly stellar photos come out of our photographers this week, as they attended shows from Vance Joy, Ball Park Music, Matt Corby and Groovin The Moo sideshows, with the common theme being some amazing light shows.
As Forbes notes, in the missive, Sixx and bandmates James Michael and DJ Ashba implore YouTube to work harder to protect the rights of artists whose work frequently appears on the platform without proper payment, clearance or copyright, noting their own positions of privilege as successful musicians — and wanting to use that advantage for the benefit of smaller acts, in keeping with their history of artist advocacy.
“We recently completed our fourth album called Prayers For The Damned, in our singer/producer James Michael’s recording studio,” the band began. “We are a lucky band, grateful to have all had success prior to the creation of Sixx:A.M.
Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.
“Nikki came from Mötley Crüe, DJ played guitar in Guns N’ Roses for the past six years and James has had a successful career as a writer and producer. Releasing an album and being part of a tour going on sale allows us to use the promoters’ marketing money to create a larger platform to get our message out, and having a record company that generates publicity gives us an opportunity to speak up about issues we think are important — specifically the crisis with the music business and YouTube.”
The band go on to recall the occasion on which they backed Taylor Swift “when she spoke up about the absence of royalty payments to artists by Apple Music”, as well as explaining that the band has “long been an advocate for new artists”, as evidenced by Sixx’s predilection for featuring emerging acts on his radio show, before taking aim at Google (and its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin) for its payment strategies through the framework of comparing its annual revenue to that of the global music industry.