News : Ne Obliviscaris Launch Their Groundbreaking New Patreon Campaign

So in a very interesting and unexpected development, Melbourne based extreme metal maestros, Ne Obliviscaris, have announced a highly ambitious and brand new movement to the way bands and their fans can connect with the creation of a consistent and direct line of finance to said bands by their fans.

In a highly detailed and involved statement, Ne Obliviscaris discuss how the old system of financing bands through album sales (with CD sales especially on a slide downwards) and so forth have become obsolete, but that no alternative or solution has yet been found. Believing that they have found the best way around this growing problem for new and upcoming bands, if successful, this movement could pave the way for a whole host of new bands to no longer have to put their entire lives on the line at the slight chance of success.

Labelling this new campaign as ‘Join the Ne Obluminati’, the blackened proggers go into overwhelming detail explaining all of the ins and outs of how this system – which will be run via the new online platform, Patreon, on a monthly basis – and how it will affect everyone involved (fans and band alike).

For lack of space to explain it all in full here, we’ll allow the bands’ words itself to shed some light on the key details of how the Patreon funding will function;

So where to from here? Well, we want to create an interactive fan experience unlike any band that has come before us.

We want to help create a path, not just for Ne Obliviscaris, but for the countless bands across the world that are working incredibly hard, touring the world to perform for their fans and losing money every step of the way.

And we want to do it by empowering YOU, the fans, so that you get to decide who succeeds and who doesn’t. The old establishment is dying. Let’s show that we can create our own new way forward and put the power back where it should be,

with the fans who love and believe in the music that we, and so many great bands out there are creating.

How it will work for the fans contributing;

What we are asking of NeO fans is a small ongoing commitment; to become patrons of Ne Obliviscaris through a new platform called Patreon, where you can contribute as little or as much as you want on a monthly basis:

www.patreon.com/neobliviscaris 

In return, as well as the knowledge that you are directly supporting and financing the music and career of a band you like, we are also going to be creating a host of new content available exclusively to our Patreon members.
Some of this content includes exclusive and/or early access to:

·       New NeO music, interactive tour video diaries, exclusive merch ranges, pre-sale ticket options, giveaways and competitions, tour podcasts, feature band interviews,

Drum, Bass, Violin & Guitar video tutorials from NeO members, live online chats with the band, live video streaming of NeO rehearsals, access to exclusive cover song recordings & more.

·       PLUS VIP levels that include benefits such as free tickets to shows, phone calls from members upon signing up or on your birthday, personal thank you in the liner notes of our next album,
side of stage access at shows and even the ability to help choose our set list when we play in your town.

And that it isn’t about a “get rich quick” scheme, but a dream for them and other artists to actually live off of their music;

Minimum wage in Australia is $17.29AUD ($12.36USD) an hour or $656.90AUD per standard 38 hour work week. Our ultimate goal is to try and reach a monthly contribution on our Patreon of $17,079.40AUD ($12,211USD).

Divided by 6 people this works out to $34,158.80AUD ($24,422USD) each per year, the minimum amount one can earn for a full time job in Australia. We have no expectations of wealth or riches.
That is of no interest to us. For us it is much simpler, the dream of being able to do NeO full time and be able to survive financially in the process.

Should this pay off, this could prove to be the next big step in how bands work from this point forward and how they make a living from their art. Further to how fans connect with their favourite bands and how they can become an integral part to whether certain acts succeed or falter.

Because of the overwhelming content and information provided by the band, we’ll let Eye of the Enemy‘s Mitch Alexander also explain it in a way only he could do best:

Ne Obliviscaris Crowd Source Their Entire Career

After showing off to the metal community by breaking the Australian record for musical crowd sourcing, Ne Obliviscaris have launched an ambitious, confident, and somewhat fucking insane new venture; a Patreon page for the band.

For those unaware or born after ‘79, Patreon is a website where you subscribe to a person, or a group, or some other venture that is enjoyable but not at all profitable (usually things like podcasts, painters, or erotic fiction novelists). You give the money you worked hard to get to someone who doesn’t want to get a real job, and in return, they give you… something. Anything. It’s effectively a Kickstarter with no end goal, a charity for the least needy in society. And I’m all for it.

The only thing more uncommercial than Ne Obliviscariseses’ses name is their god damn music; epic 9 hour long songs that combine black metal, flamenco and classical music, with a singer, screamer, and fucking fiddler. They only way you could make them less mainstream for Australian audiences is by giving them Halal certification.

And yet despite all this, it’s working. They don’t need Parkway Drive breakdowns or Australian Idol exposure. They don’t need standard verse/chorus songs. They are sticking to their guns, creating the music that they want to create, and by Jove, it’s working. What they’ve already managed to do for the Australian heavy music scene is genuinely exciting, important, and dare I say revolutionary (I don’t, that would be silly). And now they’ve decided to try something pretty unprecedented: subscribe to the band.

I can see this going one of two ways (well, one of three; the third way is that this fails horribly and they all go get day jobs again, but forget that).

The first is that this turns into a Socialist wet dream utopia, where bands are for the people, by the people, and those big nasty middlemen record labels can go get lost! You want an album? You’ve already paid for it, here it is for as much as you would have torrented it for anyway. You want us to tour your city? A venue’s worth of you mugs have already bought tickets, so here we are. Bliss.

The second option is that this becomes the logical conclusion to art-as-business, the capitalist wank fest where bands are publicly traded entities and fans are shareholders, making demands and suing. You don’t reckon Ne Obliviscaris sound good with Emmure style breakdowns? Tough shit. Forty rich frat boys who pay their rent reckon they do.

Whatever happens, it could be the start of a whole new model of doing business in music, and I’m a little stoked it’s coming from a black prog metal band that live in Australia.

Should you wish to look into this further, you can read, watch the vlog, and find the full statement from Ne Obliviscaris about their Patreon campaign at this link HERE.

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