Eskimo Joe Defend Their Controversial Crowd-Funding Campaign

Despite a heap of backlash against their controversial decision to use crowd-funding for their new album, Eskimo Joe have hit back and praised the initiative.

At a gig last night at Sydney's Paddington Uniting Church, frontman Kav Temperley defended their choice to use the crowd-funding website Pozible, where they asked fans to pledge $40,000 to help reach their goal of recording an independent album, after their split with Warner.

“Well, we just thought the time was right to do something like that,” he said. “We had a great experience with the whole record label thing, but we wanted to go out and do something really, really different.”

Temperley added that the crowd-funding phenomenon is giving artists the opportunity to connect with the fans in a new and exiting way.

“It [crowd-funding] gives you a one-on-one connection with your fans because they are investing in the album before it's even written. At the end of the day they're investing in this project so when they get this CD, hopefully they'll treasure it and feel like, 'oh, I had apart in this!'”

The singer, who along with his fellow Eskies, Stuart MacLeod and Joel Quartermain, will showcase their new musical wares around the country on a national tour, warns that all artists need to start embracing the changing shape of the music industry.

“It's just a really interesting time in the industry,” said Temperley, “it's a time for people to take risks and perhaps do something outside your comfort zone. But hopefully, this will be a really rewarding experience.”

Among those who didn't agree with the band's new means of making money was Grinspoon's Phil Jamieson. Late last year, the charismatic frontman said that Eskimo really shouldn't need to go to those kind of lengths considering their past success.