'You Pay Someone What They're Worth' - Archspire Transparent in Addressing Kickstarter Album Budget Backlash

Archspire's Dean Lamb is speaking out after seeing some backlash from fans over their decision to use Kickstarter crowdfunding to finish their next album. In the process of being as transparent as possible, the band listed the costs of where the money is going in putting together the album and Lamb has addressed some of the complaints of the budget.

Why Is Archspire Using a Kickstarter Campaign?

First of all, it should be noted that the band already has four albums under their belt. Why was now the time to involve fans to help finance a record? As Lamb reveals, the group had reached a point in their career in which they decided to go independent as an artist rather than continue releasing albums under the label structure.

"All that we want to do as a band is continue to make the stuff that we love to make and reaching out to fans seems like the best way to do it independently," says the guitarist. "Before this we had a label that would give us an advance for the record and that would be great, but in the end you're selling the rights to the music you created."

He adds, "I'm 37 years old now, I've been doing it long enough now. Selling the rights to the music that I spent so many years creating, I don't want to do that anymore. I want to own it. We all want to own it, each one of us."

Why Were Fans Pushing Back on the Kickstarter Campaign?

Lamb revealed their two primary reasons - one was the budget detailed by the group in finalizing the record. The group had already put in just shy of $50,000 in expenses in making the record. They estimated that there was still $125,000 left to fundraise and that was broken down into expenses and transactions within their Kickstarter campaign page that they shared with fans.

The other significant pushback came from the public perception of Kickstarter campaigns, with some feeling that they were used to scam fans.

Why Is the Budget So High?

Within the discussion, Lamb shared the band's philosophy toward recording.

"We quickly realized the difference between a local band and a professional band," says Lamb. "Nothing against local bands, but we just wanted to make our band bigger and to go on tour across the world and bill ourselves as a headliner. We wanted to do all these things and we quickly realized the best way to do that was to look at ourselves as a professional band."

That meant never seeking free work, not asking people for favors and paying proper rates to professionals for the work that they do.

"Anybody who is in the field who is any good, they have a rate. And I think that most of the time they are worth what they are charging," he explained.

For the new record, the band used photographer Alex Morgan and producer Dave Otero. For those who pushed back on the idea of spending so much on Morgan for photography, Lamb quickly dispelled the notion that you could get someone as good for $200. "I get like kind of mad when people say that," shared the guitarist, who praised Morgan's work. He went on to explain that Morgan's rate wasn't just for photography as travel, lodging equipment, location scouting and additional staffing help were figured in as well.

Morgan's rate for the photos was listed as $2,500.

READ MORE: How Archspire's Oli Aleron Learned to Scream

Likewise for Otero, Lamb shared that his years of expertise in his field and being able to discern what was and wasn't working could make all the difference in the world.

"From the first few years of our band, we realized that things like that make a difference. You find somebody that you want to work with because they give you great results and you don't rely on people for freebies. You pay somebody what they're worth," he shared.

Is Crowdfunding a Scam?

Crowdfunding has been around long enough to get a reputation. As Lamb admits, some of the perception comes from well known campaigns that failed in a very public manner. But, as he also shared, there's enough of a case history that there are also campaigns that were very successful in providing fans exactly what they wanted while also yielding the return the band needed and Archspire diligently studied what has worked in putting their campaign together.

"This is something that we are dead set on doing properly," he shared, while revealing the importance of making sure all the finances are figured out and knowing exactly what is needed before the campaign goes live.

In the case of Archspire, they were seeking a goal of $126K. They've already surpassed that with $207K and 23 days still left in the campaign. As for the rewards, the band has served up 11 tiers of benefits for fans ranging from recognition in a studio documentary, merch items, autographed material and instruments and, of course, getting the album itself in your preferred format.

"As a younger band you just simply wouldn't be able to afford this stuff and that's what this Kickstarter thing is all about. We want to go get the best people at what they do to help us make the best album we can possibly make so that our fans are really really stoked. It seems pretty simple to me," says Lamb.

The Archspire Kickstarter campaign is currently underway and you can check out more through the campaign page.