Artifact Page #3

to buy a piece of the Beatles.

EMI is going private next month.

The British music publisher is being acquired

for nearly 5 Billion Dollars.

Terra Firma is an UK based private equity company.

They tent to buy companies

that are distressed,

not necessarily companies

that are in distressed industries,

which is important point

when you come back around EMI.

If you are in England,

I imagine you look at EMI:

it's the home of the Beatles,

it's is one of the most iconic

British companies ever.

And you say to yourself:

"Wow! I can fix that too.

Those dummies, I'm sure

that they don't know

what they're doing either.

So, let me buy that and turn it around."

The real principal of Terra Firma

is Guy Hands,

he's essentially the guy

who runs Terra Firma.

Guy Hands, he is a self-made billionaire.

He's been incredibly successful.

One of the victories he had was

he bought all the gas stations

on a highway in northern Europe.

And he cleaned the bathrooms.

Once they cleaned them all of sudden

business went up at the gas stations,

at the convenience stores attached to them.

And he made a ton of money.

They spent billions of

dollars on a company

and I really think

that they believed

they could transform it.

When Terra Firma came in and purchased EMI

they became that benefactor regime

that sued us for 30 Million bucks.

Terra Firma took

the negotiation away from us.

I think they looked

at it and they said:

I think they didn't like the fact

that it was a friendly renegotiation.

They came with a perspective

of we've got to be hard nose.

Take one...

I'm in a bad beginning... And again...

Woo... It's getting warmed up, dude,

one more.

Perfect

Let's just do a couple of more

and then we'll listen

One more...

One last one... One Maaaas...

Give me one second to loosen my hand up

One more... Just for fun.

Dude, you're still under a hundred takes.

You're at ninety seven.

Ninety seven? Okay. F*** that!

We're gonna do three more.

Yes! Come on!

Hold on... Let me get ready...

I never met anyone as driven

who will work this hard

who will go to the, you know,

end of the earth and back,

just on a one and a million chance,

that something is gonna help the music.

There is nobody, that I know personally,

that can say that they do for their art

and their work what he does.

You ask me what Jared's role is

in the making of This is War?

It's too small of a question

to encompass what he does in the world of

Thirty Seconds to Mars

He is the Mastermind.

Success on the level

that we even have right now

we never dreamed. You couldn't...

How could you dream of this?

My brother and I were born in Louisiana.

We climbed out

of the muddy banks of the Mississippi

with our instruments in one hand

and... A fist full of food stamps in the other.

We had a very young mother.

I think she was pregnant with me and

had my brother by the time she was 18.

I was a child that had children.

I never considered that any of it was difficult.

Going to school with two babies and

being on welfare

and having food stamps

and Medicaid cards.

When you are a kid and you're poor,

I don't think you realize it.

It wasn't until I got much older

I realized we didn't have money to go out

buy a bunch of presents

Every Christmas was really about making

presents for each other.

We moved around quite a bit as kids.

When we lived together

it was always this thing,

there was always

something going on,

we were making art,

making music.

There was always things around,

anybody could pick up

and draw a paint with,

and dress up and dance around and sing.

I mean there was always that energy,

that creative energy.

They were indoctrinated into music quite

really early.

It was like music, music, music, music.

My mother used to sing in the car.

I remember she would harmonize with songs.

I remember thinking

that she always had a great voice.

She was always listening to music

and exposed us to a lot of great music.

And I never really thought

that you could be a musician in a band.

I never thought about fame,

I never thought about any of that stuff.

That early childhood,

that creative exposure

really helped shape my brother and I

in an important way.

Yeah, I like that, it sounds great.

It's definitely a tough place

to play something different I think.

What do the vocals say?

Right away, when they go off?

Wait, I don't even know the chorus.

It's also no rush.

We should just take the time it needs

to get it right.

And if we have to do it over 3 days,

we'll do over 3 days.

I'm just in it. I just... You know...

And then, it's gone... Oh my god, okay.

No, I got that.

That's the way it is, that's all.

Let's encourage each other to enjoy it as well.

This discovery.

Because it's awesome stuff,

the feel that you came out with the snare,

totally cool and you never done it before.

Let have a bit of joy while we do it.

That's all good... Different processes man.

I am enjoying it.

I got him all fooled.

We getting there,

but there's still lots to do.

I never heard of a label

that doesn't screw an artist.

You talk to anybody

who audits their label

they're always own money.

And if nothing else,

usually the label holds back enough money

that your cost of auditing is such

that you won't do it, so...

That's the business model

is screwing the artist.

The financial practices have been shady

since the beginning of time.

It's been grandfathered in since the 50's

and 60's when rock and roll really started.

In the 50's,

they were screwing the artist then,

but there was much

much less money involved.

Then as you start to go into the 60's

and the 70's, the hit to sh*t ratio is

so bad that they're saying:

"Hey! You know, we can't pay the hit artist

cause he is paying for all the bad artists."

It goes back to how the

music industry was set up

in the very early stages

of the recording industry,

taking advantage of

uneducated, easily swayed

artists who don't really

care about the money.

Unfortunately

there's a lot of fall out with,

still with bands getting

paid, you know.

We had to sue our label to get paid.

They've created

this strange convoluted system

that you have to be a lawyer

to really understand... Or mathematician.

A typical record deal is structured

something like this:

The record label gives an advance say:

250.000$ to the artist to record an album.

The artist then records the album.

Suppose that the album

sales 500.000 copies

at 10$ each yielding 5 Million Dollars.

The record label then takes their cut out

of the 5 Million,

typically 85% of the total sales.

Leaving the artist with 750.000 dollars.

But before the artist receives

any payments,

the label first deducts the advance.

In addition the record label

recoups other costs

such as:
recording costs,

half the promotion costs,

half the video costs, and tour support.

This leaves the artist 425.000 Dollars

in debt to the record label.

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