Mark RobergeFounder, Artist Strategy, Make Our Music · Your A&R. Without the Gatekeepers.

Band's Fight With Label: Releasing Album Against Odds #shorts

11 Feb 2026 · 0 min

Watch on YouTube

0:06

In this short, two members of a band recount a tense episode when their record label stalled the release of a new album. After the label’s endless delays, the band’s A&R representative—who had flown in with Ken to LAX—confronted the label, declaring they possessed the rough mixes and masters and would put the record out regardless of the label’s wishes. The label’s pushback caused the A&R rep to become furious and quit on the spot. Despite the label’s resistance, the album eventually saw the light of day, largely thanks to the band’s longstanding friendship with Boston radio station WAAF, which agreed to play the record and helped push it to release.

When that album came out, well, this is really was like, in the can.
Yeah. And then.
The label just.
Dragging their feet like crazy. This is a great story, one of my favorite stories about our band. The label was dragging their feet almost to the point where they were like, we're not going to put this out. And I remember me and ken flew into LAX. Our A& R guy picked us up, and we're driving to the hotel, and Ken's like, what's going on with this record? I have the rough mixes, I have the masters. I'm going to put it out. And this RA&R guy was like, you're going to what? He's like, yeah, I'm going to put this out. Our fans want it already. Like, he's. He's telling the label that we have our own copy and we don't care about you anymore. We're going to put it out no matter what. And this dude, he was like, head, like, literally spun off his face. He went mental and he quit. He quit our band right then and there. The bottom line is, the record ended up coming out. And because we had such a great relationship, even years prior with WAAF in Boston, we'd always.
Been in studios with them. They. If they called, we would be like, yeah, you know, so we've done shows where they promote. So we became. We became friends with them and vice versa. Like, literally, like friends. So, yeah, they said, yeah, we'll play it. I was like, go ahead, play it.