Heavy metal middle schoolers Unlocking the Truth have hit a snag in their meteoric rise, as they recently revealed that they were attempting to exit their deal with Sony after signing a five-album, $1.8 million contract. Now, the Brooklyn youngsters have spoken out about their experience in the industry and why they are so eager to get out of their deal.
"It was pretty difficult at times with these meetings — especially with this one particular lady at the label, who had a meeting with us once where she was just talking at us for six hours," 13-year-old bassist Alec Atkins told The Daily Beast. "We were pretty young at the time so we were pretty restless and wanted to get up and do something else, but she just had us in this meeting for six hours."
Drummer Jarad Dawkins, also 13, added, "There are so many different types of meetings. "Sometimes we have meetings at our lawyer's office, sometimes we have a meeting with a company. It depends on what the occasion is."
All of that doesn't sound particularly bad — some long meetings is a relatively tame horror story, by industry standards — but the really frustrating part is that the band's album is finished but remains unreleased due to label red tape.
"It's been very difficult. We're speaking to our attorneys about leaving Sony, and it's very complicated," Atkins said. "The album is ready, but because our attorneys are talking about us leaving the record label, it's going to be a whole process of getting our music back."
Dawkins noted that "when we were trying to put the album out and people were asking for it, that we couldn't put it out for no good reason."
This difficult major label journey has been chronicled with the new documentary film Breaking a Monster. Directed by Luke Meyer, it recently premiered at South by Southwest. There's no word as to when it when get a wider release, but it will also play Toronto's Hot Docs Film Festival on April 26, April 27 and May 2.
Meanwhile, Dawkins said that the band still "have a career ahead of us," so evidently they're not letting this situation with Sony stop them in their tracks.
"It was pretty difficult at times with these meetings — especially with this one particular lady at the label, who had a meeting with us once where she was just talking at us for six hours," 13-year-old bassist Alec Atkins told The Daily Beast. "We were pretty young at the time so we were pretty restless and wanted to get up and do something else, but she just had us in this meeting for six hours."
Drummer Jarad Dawkins, also 13, added, "There are so many different types of meetings. "Sometimes we have meetings at our lawyer's office, sometimes we have a meeting with a company. It depends on what the occasion is."
All of that doesn't sound particularly bad — some long meetings is a relatively tame horror story, by industry standards — but the really frustrating part is that the band's album is finished but remains unreleased due to label red tape.
"It's been very difficult. We're speaking to our attorneys about leaving Sony, and it's very complicated," Atkins said. "The album is ready, but because our attorneys are talking about us leaving the record label, it's going to be a whole process of getting our music back."
Dawkins noted that "when we were trying to put the album out and people were asking for it, that we couldn't put it out for no good reason."
This difficult major label journey has been chronicled with the new documentary film Breaking a Monster. Directed by Luke Meyer, it recently premiered at South by Southwest. There's no word as to when it when get a wider release, but it will also play Toronto's Hot Docs Film Festival on April 26, April 27 and May 2.
Meanwhile, Dawkins said that the band still "have a career ahead of us," so evidently they're not letting this situation with Sony stop them in their tracks.
