The Starting Line on Hiatus

Confirming the fears and suspicions of most of their fans, The Starting Line have announced a hiatus following their spring tours. This is from their AbsolutePunk.net press conference thread, in case their servers can't handle the traffic:

From all the east coast to west coast states, I want to feel the warmth from the buzz that I create. But I'm really not too sure, if it's ever gonna happen, but I know that I'm not too concerned.



Imagine getting your first job when you were 15 years old and doing that exact same job for the rest of your life. Even if it’s the dream job that most people would kill for, eventually you need to stop for a minute and see what else is out there.

This is one of the most difficult decisions we’ve had to make but after eight years of nonstop touring and recording The Starting Line will be taking a break after their headline tour with Bayside, Four Year Strong and Steel Train (March 18 – April 20) and the college shows following the tour. This break does NOT mean the band is breaking up or going on hiatus it just means were going to stop for a little while and focus on other things in our lives besides The Starting Line. This break may last a year, two years or a few months, as of right now we don’t know. We’re talking to some friends about doing a quick tour to South America as well as options to tour Europe, Japan and Australia again and we're not ruling them out. We just aren’t going to be doing any full time touring or recording as The Starting Line for a while.

We’ve had our ups and downs with countless record labels (We The People, Drive-Thru, MCA, Geffen, Virgin and finally The Capitol Music Group) over the years and every time we thought we had the right team a label president would be fired, or our label would be taken over by a new company. At each of these places there were people who loved us and would do anything for us and others (usually the ones making the financial decisions) that just didn’t give a shit about our band and after going through this for such a long time we need to take a step back and figure out what’s next for The Starting Line.

Before we go we have one last tour to say goodbye to everyone and we’re working with our friends at pickRset to make this best tour ever. Head over to here and pick the songs you want to hear on this tour and we will do our best to play as many of them each night on the tour.

This is not an end but a new beginning, to celebrate this new beginning we have a some exciting news to share with everyone. Sometime this summer or early fall we plan to finally release the unreleased record that we recorded for We The People Records. We are also talking about putting together a DVD to go with the record that will chronicle the Drive Thru years. We have tons of tapes to find and dig through and interviews to do with everyone to properly document that part of our lives but we think we can have it ready by the summer.

Everyone in the band will still be busy so you won’t be able to get rid of us that easily.

Kenny just finished recording the debut record for his band Person L, expect to see a release plan and tour announced soon, rumor has it he may even make an appearance at this year’s Bonnaroo. You will also get to see the most recent addition to the Starting Line, Brian Schmutz in Person L’s touring band. If you want to check out some tunes from the L peep check them out here.

Matt and Tom have been working on a new project with some friends, called The Seventy Six, and just happened to put up a myspace page today with some songs and videos. The sound of the band may come as a shock to some of you, in the best possible way. Please show your love and support and check it out. They have some big plans in the works and plan on announcing them as soon as they can.

Mike and one of his close friends will be starting a company that we will tell you all about once all the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed. Of course he has a band he’s going to be jamming with as well and when we have more to report on that we’ll let you know. Most importantly Mike will be making up some lost time with his beautiful daughters. He's missed many a milestone and is looking forward to some much needed bonding time with his little girls.

Announcements like this are so hard for everyone, especially the band, and we want to make sure we didn’t leave out any information, so we’re going to stick around for the next hour or so and answer as many questions as possible.

We’ve invited many of our friends who have worked with us over the years to post in this conversation too because after many years working together some of them are just as much a part of The Starting Line as we are.

Here is a list of some of the people we invited to join us here today:
Randy Nichols (manager), Steve Tamburello (tour manager), Shawn Corrigan (guitar tech), Matt Geyer (merch guy and assistant to manager), Matt Gray (drum tech), Melissa Sabo (old school fan, ex MCA and managers assistant), Richard, Stefanie, Kristine, Josh, John and Kim (Drive Thru past and present), Dave Stein (lawyer), Paul Orescan, (Geffen Records), Evan Peters (Geffen) Lexi Ben-Meir (Geffen), Christine Wolf (Geffen), Mike Mc Koy (lawyer), Tim’Oheir, Howard Benson, David Wolter (Virgin), Bill Carroll (Virgin), Howard Petruziello (Virgin), Heidi (Virgin), Jon Nelson (Sony/ATV) Charlie Adams (We The People), Ron O (booking agent), Geoff Meall (UK agent) Jason Tate (AP.net).

We’ve invited others too and hopefully they will all join us to talk about TSL, past, present and future.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last eight years and see you all this spring and don’t forget to go to pickrset.com/bands/thestartingline/ to pick what you would like to hear and buy tickets to the tour.


Matt, Tom, Mike, Kenny and Brian

This is no attempt
To abandon anyone
It is the influence of the music we love

*By Jess, who just drowned her sorrows in a giant box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

About the root of all evil.

An enormous reason the record industry is struggling and bands are breaking up is because they simply can't afford to continue making music. This is becoming startlingly and increasingly clear as the impending recession looms over the United States.

Let's look at this from an economic (and logical) perspective. I have gratuitously simplified this as best as I could:

Soaring gas prices make it difficult for smaller bands to tour. Without record label stipends that major label acts usually have, up and coming and indie bands have to fend for themselves. If you're wondering why so many musicians are so skinny, it's usually because they have to choose between playing the next town's show or eating dinner.

On the flip side, skyrocketing fuel costs also mean that less fans may be willing or able to see their favorite band a state or two over. If that band doesn't come to their immediate area, they might have to sit the shows out. Poor turnout rates mean the band may not come to that area again for a while. It's a truly vicious cycle.

In addition, during recessions, people generally have less spending money--not to mention less jobs. As a result, ticket sales for smaller tours can suffer, especially with the gross inflation not only of the American dollar, but of ticket prices from brokers.

Touring, licensing, and merch sales are where bands make most of the money that they can keep. An enormous chunk of merch sales are made at shows while a band is touring. If a band can't tour, they can't do much else to promote their albums (most things outside of shows are controlled by their publicists--Joelle and I know all about this!). If their CD doesn't sell, the band's label makes no money and the band gets dropped. The band is back at square one, with big dreams and small funds... And no gas money to tour. It's a truly vicious cycle.

With no bands touring, venues have no bands to showcase and no revenue to take in. Venues close. Bands have nowhere to play when they do tour. It's a truly vicious cycle.


What are some possible remedies for this?

For fans: Do whatever you need to do. Babysit. Shovel snow. Mow grass. Hell, if you're in Vegas where it's legal, turn tricks (kidding, mostly). Take a break from taking pictures of yourselves in your skivvies for attention and do whatever work you can to earn whatever cash you can. Save your dough and see your bands. Buy their albums, whether on iTunes or at Best Buy or, preferably, at your local independent ("Mom and Pop") music outlet.

For venues: Sell tickets independently, without outside brokers. "Brokers" leave fans just that: broke. The more expensive a ticket is, the fewer bottles of five dollar water the kids will be able to afford once they're inside. And really, convenience charges? For what?

For labels: Give bands more time to develop fan bases before dropping them like they're hot. Market to niches, not demographics. Have more faith in your artists. And for the love of Elvis, pick better singles.

For artists: Read the fine print. Keep on keeping on.

For everyone: Break the fucking cycle.


*By Jess, who isn't usually this good with numbers.