|
|
|
BANDS: Punk
& Ska INTERESTS: Venues ETC... About LOTD
|
BETA BLOCKER! This article appeared on NME.COM during November, 2001. THE BETA BAND have turned down $250,000 to soundtrack an advert for a US car company, NME.COM can reveal - despite the fact that the band are skint! Speaking exclusively to NME.COM, lead singer Steve Mason said that in addition to the quarter-million dollar offer from car manufacturer Oldsmobile, the group also rebuffed approaches by Gap, who made repeated attempts to try and persuade them to allow their music to be used in the clothing chain's ads. The cash-heavy overtures came on the back of their US tour with Radiohead, and subsequent sell-out headline tour. "Oldsmobile in the US offered us a quarter of a million dollars, and I can't remember how much Gap offered us, but we said no. Then they came back and offered us another #10,000 each in cash to do the advert." Describing the "constant stream" of approaches to use their music in adverts as feeling like being repeatedly tempted by the devil, Mason said: "It's not a hard decision to make. The only way I'd do something like that for Gap or whatever would be to take the money and send it off to wherever it is they have their clothes made and have it distributed among the workers. And I'm quite sure it would be really hard to arrange that." But he added: "The thing that's most difficult is the fact that we are so skint. The band ran out of money over a year ago. We're relying on the record company to pay our rents." As previously reported on NME.COM, the Beta Band - who are in the process of relocating to Scotland after seven years living in London following what Mason referred to as "a few personal things that happened" - release 'Squares' on January 28. The song, the opening track on their 'Hots Shots II' album, was originally intended to be the first single release from the album, but was shelved because it would have clashed with I Monster's 'Daydream In Blue' which used the same main sample and subsequently went into the Top 20. "It was just bad luck," said Mason. "From what I heard, their track had been kicking around for a while and it started to get airplay around the time we were about to release ours. We were told that Radio 1 wouldn't playlist two songs that both sample the same track ('Daydream' by Gunter Kallman Choir) and we had to put it back. Hopefully this will finally put it to bed." About LOTD Contact/Staff Advertise Home All content © LEFT OFF THE DIAL 2001-2005. All rights reserved. |
