Why don’t we tour? And some other crap.

Sigh… this is getting boring. But since The TPH Donation Experiment was brought up at a site called That Devil Music, and the owner of the site, Rob Liz, completely bashed us for starting this experiment, pretty much putting the blame on us for low record sales since we don’t tour, it’s time you guys get to hear it from me, and perhaps I will never fucken ever again have to answer this question. I believe the 5 million times I have done so in the past should be enough, but for the last time you’ll get the low-down of it all. First off you’ll have to read what Rob had to say. Do so by clicking this link. When you have read that crap you can scroll down to the comments and find out once and for all about the rest. In case you just wanna do it the easy way, skip his initial post (which would be stupid) and just read my comments, here you go:

(Update: If you did read the comments that happened afterwards you already know all is good and the semi-apology is accepted. Also, since he deleted most of his rant, you missed out on the worst shit, but reading thru my reply will make it clear to ya anyways, I think. In his newly added intro to the text he also ends it with “So if you are a fan of The Project Hate MCMXCIX then shoot them some cash if you want a new album to come out in the future. They really do put out some great music. Just don’t ever let Lord K know if you don’t like it. He doesn’t handle adversity or criticism well.”. Let me just say that I can handle that shit all fucken fine. What I can’t handle is people stating a lot of bullshit about the band when they obviously have no fucken idea of how the band works.)

And now, my response:

“It looks like you think TPH is something that I live off? Are you fucken kidding me? And yes, I work full-time, 40 hours a week, 2 shifts. So, this is obviously something I do in my free time becoz I love it. And when you actually imply that it’d be easy for us to tour, but we don’t do it becoz “You just don’t want to deal with the hassle and expense of doing a tour cycle” I wanna punch you in the face until I fall asleep. You have no idea how TPH works, obviously. I have stated this a thousand fucken times – why we don’t play live anymore. But just for you I’ll do it again.

After our last gig in 2003 we decided we wanted to make TPH very complex, bringing in tons of guests to add their magic to our formula. We decided to put layers and layers of guitars playing different things on top of each other, meaning being able to recreate it live would take an army of guitarists here and there in certain sections. We’d also have to bring in people like Martin van Drunen for his parts, Christian Älvestam for his parts, Jo Bench for her parts, Mike Wead for his solos, Deadlock’s Sebastian Reichl for his stuff, Emperor Magus Caligula’s got his share to do, and so on and so on. Not to mention the lesser known people who’ve done stuff with us over the albums since we’d wanna reproduce it as we recorded it. That’s EXACTLY why we decided to do this – to make it everything we wanted it to be and not being able to bring it to the stage since we made the decision not to. I don’t know, but it might sound like a walk in the park to you to arrange this. Oh, and don’t forget that the schedules would have to work. FOR EVERYONE. And we all have these little things called full time jobs, but hey – maybe you can sort that too while you’re at it, I don’t know.

That you actually imply we sell 1/10 of the records today compared to 10 years ago BECOZ WE DON’T TOUR is fucken ridiculous. We didn’t tour back then either. Go figure. Illegal downloading has nothing to do with the decrease in sales then, huh? I didn’t fucken know that. Thanx for explaining everything to me. You also do not seem to understand that it’s not like the labels piss down money on you to go touring at this level. It shouldn’t be too hard arranging this now when I think about it. Any label would gladly also pay for all these people to be able to join us on the stage, the people we would need to do to be able to recreate TPH of today (or hey, the TPH of the last 8 years or so) on stage. The little fact that we made the decision. Oh, and rehearsing wouldn’t be too complicated either considering we all live in the same town and country. Or lemme see, no – we don’t. But hey, maybe we can illegally download instructions as for how to work this so you’re satisfied.

I don’t think you actually have a fucken clue how TPH works, no matter how much you stress you like our music. And it’s ok, fuck can I do about it? You clearly believe we do not tour becoz we “don’t wanna deal with the hassle”. Wow, man… that’s rich as hell. You might have forgotten that we all play/have played in other bands too, bands that actually toured or are touring yet today. Still we decided we wanted to take TPH on another route, not any other other band, just TPH, and that is obviously something you cannot accept. We just don’t wanna “deal with the hassle”. Nice work, kid.

And lemme see here, you had some other input too (yeah, we’ll post this over at our website and forums as well so you’re not going to think we are too lazy to deal with the hassle).

Band does not tour

Exactly. We do not tour. We do not play gigs. Haven’t done so since 2003. I have also explained why and today is not the first time I have done so.

Band is extremely arrogant about their product

And now we are arrogant about our product? Becoz we let people do what they what with our eventual product that they helped creating? I think you are being arrogant to the fucken world by even saying something like that.

Band parts ways with a respectable label

Yeah, we did. And it’s not like we called them up and said “Hey, fuck you. We’re out of here, you guys suck the cocks of lamas”. If you read the statement you’ll see why we parted ways with them. It has to do with sales. And it’s all about us not touring so we get it now.

Blames illegal downloading for no album sales

Weird, huh? That sure has nothing to do with it.

Claims recording albums is too expensive and wants fans to pay for the creation process

I don’t know what the fuck you are working as, but feel free to help out paying for the recording if it’s not a problem. We don’t expect ANYONE to pay for the recording, we simply handed out the option to see if it even is doable. If it works – amazing. If not – well… I know, I am a fucken narcissistic asshole for not paying 2 months salary myself to record this album and then just give it to you. I should also set up a gig in your living room, just for you. Damn, I’m an asshole.

Does not care what happens to the final product after release

Go fuck yourself.

Band still wants the word spread about them

I don’t even know what to say about that.

So, while we all go back to our day jobs and create music in the free time I hope you are doing fantastic and that you get all the music you can ever wish for – FOR FREE. Everything should be free. I need to phone some studios now and tell’em to actually give us free studio time for the next recording. I mean, I obviously just devote myself to this becoz I don’t wanna deal with “the hassle of touring”.

Nice, sir. real nice.

I’m done with this. Either you understand it or you don’t. Whichever way, stay awesome.”

There you go. But enough about this shit now, let’s see where this experiment takes us. If anywhere.

Posted by Lord K Philipson, September 17th, 2011 | Filed in News, The Project Hate.