Slaves are having a bad couple of days

Ah, Slaves. You guys just keep being in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. This time round, the band is having some major beef with their label, Artery Recordings.

Slaves took some pot shots at their label, and have since had a rather embarrassing couple of days. First off, the group made their own YouTube channel and the lyric video for their song 'Winter Everywhere' (which features Dance Gavin Dance singer, Tilian Pearson) was pulled because of a copyright claim from Artery, who already have the song on their channel. The band then issued a statement about the label, stating that they apparently weren't under contract, and neither where their two albums, 'Through Art We Are All Equals' and 'Routine Breathing'. Thus, the music is solely theirs.

Read the group's statement below:

"Our new lyric video has been taken off of both YouTube and Facebook by Artery Recordings - they're under the impression this song and this video apparently belong to them. Let me make this clear. Slaves is not under contract, neither album we have is under contract, Slaves wrote this song, Slaves spent months preparing and recording this song, We poured our hearts out into this song, We had the lyric video made ourselves. And NO ONE will take that from us. Our music belongs to us, and it belongs to our fans. Not some dude in a suit collecting every cent we generate. We have worked HARD for everything we have and it's time to take a stand against CORRUPT bullshit labels like Artery and so many alike. It's fucked up we live in a world where art we can all relate to, and that makes us all come together and feel at home can be taken by complete fucking greed. We make nearly no money creating what we love, we do it cause it's our passion not a business. It's time to take stand against the fucking mess we call a music scene. fuck your label, fuck you and fuck your money, we don't need it to play music."

Since that hit the digital world, the label’s owner, Shan Dan, released this statement the other day addressing the band’s claims with a little bit more tact and less irrational comments.

"To fans that really wanted to hear "Winter Everywhere" that Slaves uploaded to a youtube channel they created (without giving us a heads up). Please listen to that track and the entire album we uploaded last year (for free) here: http://smarturl.it/my7aj4

It's a great song, and has been one of our favorites for a while. The lyric video on their facebook looks great as well, and we would love to upload it to our 161,000 youtube subscribers to make sure as many people as possible can enjoy it as much as we did. 

We just wish we were told about it so it didn't get flagged on their personal channel (which is what happens when you upload previously released audio to a new channel). 

This isn't a grandiose story of an evil label trying to smash a band, just a story about a band that didn't email their label so they could take care of their request through the proper channels."

Jesus.

Well, despite all of that, check out the lyric video for 'Winter Everywhere' below and decide whether it was worth all of this.