Audioholic Media

We had an interview with Kevin Devine a few months ago. Back then, he had wrapped up his last album and was starting to work on some new material.

Where is that new material?

Well, if you’re downloading music illegally (shame on you) and you are a fan of Devine’s, you might have heard about (or obtained) the recent leak of his latest album, Brother’s Blood. It leaked recently which means that some of you might have it two months before you’re supposed to.

How does an artist approach this matter? Well, your average musician might be completely angry. They might yell, they might curse, and they might even make a homemade voodoo doll of illegal downloaders… but, Kevin Devine has another approach—he’s actually humble to the whole experience.

In his latest blog, he had this to say:

…it is making some ripples in my little world, so in the interests of responding/addressing/smoothing it out: downloading music from someone like me IS a different enterprise than, say, downloading the new Eminem or Coldplay or Justin Timberlake disc. Last.fm says I have over 75,000 listeners, which shocked the shit out of me; I’ve never sold more than probably 8 or 10,000 records in America (and I consider that to be pretty goddamn good).

Downloading one or two Pussycat Dolls songs because you got drunk one night and made it your anthem—well, I can condone that—but when you have an artist who is literally making his entire living off the sole fact that he’s touring these shows and selling these albums—well, it kind of strikes a different chord.

So, with this being said from Devine:

I work hard at what I do, and I am blessed to be doing it and enjoy it immensely. I’m lucky people give a shit and generally speaking it is an honor to play for you and crazy that I can make a living at it in the process. But by all means, I work, and for the past three years, I have at a pretty intense pace. I’ve played about 450 shows internationally since June 2006, and I’ve officially and unofficially released a full-length record (twice), one 7″, two EPs, and more than an album’s worth of songwriting demos in that time. I’ve never placed restrictions on filming/photographing my shows and am grateful to the vibrant community that’s popped up on YouTube and beyond. I often sell my own merch, and talk to everyone who’s interested in talking. I’m not exactly what you’d call inaccessible, and I don’t have a history with being withholding or tight-fisted with my content.

Strike the right chord. If you have this album—embrace it, coddle it, tell your friends—but do the right thing and at least pay for it when it’s released.