Eagles, Pearl Jam, Guns N’ Roses Among Groups Receiving PPP Loans for Postponed Tours

JimmyV · July 2020

Bands are seen as people rather than as the small companies they are in this context.

Long Red · July 2020

cwja said:

Not cool. There was a finite amount of money available. They literally took money from a business that needed it. It’s a disease and they’re all green.

Dude. They are a business. How do you think they pay their employees? They tour (work) and make money (get paid) to give their employees money (a salary). Touring musicians are precisely one of the sectors this money is meant to assist.

nycrats · July 2020

It is a bit of a bad look, even if it’s allowed. Perhaps the issue is with the system.

There’s a lot of restaurants that thanks to this we’re able to keep people employed for a bit. However in 6 months they’re still going to be out of business, and those workers out of jobs. Bands like PJ and gnr could easily survive (and still thrive) if they paid their employees. For that reason I think the system that allows this is messed up. It should go to different businesses rather than major rock touring acts, even if some of those businesses get paid 3 times before Pearl Jam gets paid once.

I wouldn’t say it’s greed, it’s just following the system. But they probably sold more dollars in merch during the pandemic than these loans. Also if they did have employees working they didn’t have them release any weekly live streams for fans as a lot of artists did.

davidos · July 2020

no problem whatsoever... does PJ the org pay a ton of taxes... yup (unlike amazon, Apple, etc). The PPP program was meant to help small business. The tour was cancelled... those folks lost that income. Done.

now, the Catholic Church and that 1.6B in PPP loans.... hmmm

ConorKavanagh · July 2020

Seems to me there's a lot of idealistic reasoning going on from people here. Do people expect Pearl Jam the band to pay out of their own savings that they have amassed? Seems they can't do the right thing either way in this situation. I've got no problem whatsoever if they avail of whatever is being offered. It's a business and they have tried to look after the people who have lost out on earnings that were due to be working.

bb4packers · July 2020

I have no problem with the band taking a PPP loan. There's a long list of hedge funds, law firms and religious institutions ahead of rock bands on the list of questionable recipients. I have been surprised at the lack of imagination in making/raising money for the band, crew or other charities during this pandemic. Unlike most loan recipients, PJ could spend a weekend signing posters or records or baseballs and raise thousands of dollars without breaking a sweat. A special vault release, merch from canceled tour dates, pandemic related posters or t-shirts, a special livestream, mystery boxes, Lost Dogs 2, etc would all generate revenue. Jeff's EP was a welcome surprise but it seems as though there's a lot of things the band/10 club could be doing to augment the PPP loans.

on2legs · July 2020

davidos said:

no problem whatsoever... does PJ the org pay a ton of taxes... yup (unlike amazon, Apple, etc). The PPP program was meant to help small business. The tour was cancelled... those folks lost that income. Done.

now, the Catholic Church and that 1.6B in PPP loans.... hmmm

How do we know anything about the taxes paid by Pearl Jam?

I have no issue with the band taking part in the program but I do see people’s point if you look at this through some 1992 goggles.

pearljammr78 · July 2020

Does anybody here look back at themselves from 92-96 and go, hey that’s the person I strived my whole life to be, I need to be that person again. Or was that a different stage of life and everyday I’m evolving. So big picture, I need to help those who support the Pearl Jam juggernaut, and this is best case for the times right now. Why do some people hold on to the past? 95 Ed would hate 2020 Ed. I’m sure 2020 Ed hates lots of 95 Ed. People need to eat. Roadie Dave didn’t write Alive, Roadie Dave still has bills. Move on people. And the merch idea. Sounds great till you break down logistics. You need people in places making the merch. Records don’t press themselves. Covid sucks. Good on Pearl Jam the business supporting their employees.

on2legs · July 2020

pearljammr78 said:

Does anybody here look back at themselves from 92-96 and go, hey that’s the person I strived my whole life to be, I need to be that person again. Or was that a different stage of life and everyday I’m evolving. So big picture, I need to help those who support the Pearl Jam juggernaut, and this is best case for the times right now. Why do some people hold on to the past? 95 Ed would hate 2020 Ed. I’m sure 2020 Ed hates lots of 95 Ed. People need to eat. Roadie Dave didn’t write Alive, Roadie Dave still has bills. Move on people. And the merch idea. Sounds great till you break down logistics. You need people in places making the merch. Records don’t press themselves. Covid sucks. Good on Pearl Jam the business supporting their employees.

I think people making that argument base it on the bands early sentiments about not compromising your principles. They see some of the bands choices as being in conflict with that philosophy. I think it’s unfair to hold a rock band to that standard but it is a criticism that could be made.

ConorKavanagh · July 2020

Creating merch you're spending money to make money. Obviously people are going to be talking about how great of an idea that is on here, because we're the hardcores. But that would have taken a lot of planning to put together, and wasn't it better to keep everyone at home given what was going on?

Merkin Baller · July 2020

on2legs said:

davidos said:

no problem whatsoever... does PJ the org pay a ton of taxes... yup (unlike amazon, Apple, etc). The PPP program was meant to help small business. The tour was cancelled... those folks lost that income. Done.

now, the Catholic Church and that 1.6B in PPP loans.... hmmm

How do we know anything about the taxes paid by Pearl Jam?

I have no issue with the band taking part in the program but I do see people’s point if you look at this through some 1992 goggles.

IMO if the point being made depends on ignoring the last 28 years, it’s a pretty weak point.

Gern Blansten · July 2020

nycrats said:

It is a bit of a bad look, even if it’s allowed. Perhaps the issue is with the system.

There’s a lot of restaurants that thanks to this we’re able to keep people employed for a bit. However in 6 months they’re still going to be out of business, and those workers out of jobs. Bands like PJ and gnr could easily survive (and still thrive) if they paid their employees. For that reason I think the system that allows this is messed up. It should go to different businesses rather than major rock touring acts, even if some of those businesses get paid 3 times before Pearl Jam gets paid once.

I wouldn’t say it’s greed, it’s just following the system. But they probably sold more dollars in merch during the pandemic than these loans. Also if they did have employees working they didn’t have them release any weekly live streams for fans as a lot of artists did.

That is the same argument for a lot of businesses. I had a client that just received a $600K PPP loan and their business was not affected in the least. At least not yet. So that $600K just supplemented the owners because the cash flow from the business was already covering payroll, etc.

Kevinman · July 2020

Looks bad to me, especially since I have money tied up in tickets. Just my opinion when I read the headline.

Long Red · July 2020

Kevinman said:

Looks bad to me, especially since I have money tied up in tickets. Just my opinion when I read the headline.

Your "opinion when you read the headline." There ya go, the problem with America in general distilled to a single line. Read deeper than the headline. In fact, research beyond one article.

Kevinman · July 2020

Long Red said:

Kevinman said:

Looks bad to me, especially since I have money tied up in tickets. Just my opinion when I read the headline.

Your "opinion when you read the headline." There ya go, the problem with America in general distilled to a single line. Read deeper than the headline. In fact, research beyond one article.

I’m not interested enough, if it’s something important to me I do. This isn’t to me, but looks like you’re pretty passionate about it. How’d your research turn out, summarize for me please.

JimmyV · July 2020

Kevinman said:

Looks bad to me, especially since I have money tied up in tickets. Just my opinion when I read the headline.

You have money tied up in tickets for shows that will be played next year or refunded. If the shows are played, their people will get paid for working them. This loan got those same people paid this year when there were no shows for them to work.

Kevinman · July 2020

JimmyV said:

Kevinman said:

Looks bad to me, especially since I have money tied up in tickets. Just my opinion when I read the headline.

You have money tied up in tickets for shows that will be played next year or refunded. If the shows are played, their people will get paid for working them. This loan got those same people paid this year when there were no shows for them to work.

Don’t know enough about it...I thought that(PPP) was to keep employees from losing their jobs. If there is no job, when does unemployment come into play?

Gern Blansten · July 2020

Kevinman said:

JimmyV said:

Kevinman said:

Looks bad to me, especially since I have money tied up in tickets. Just my opinion when I read the headline.

You have money tied up in tickets for shows that will be played next year or refunded. If the shows are played, their people will get paid for working them. This loan got those same people paid this year when there were no shows for them to work.

Don’t know enough about it...I thought that(PPP) was to keep employees from losing their jobs. If there is no job, when does unemployment come into play?

The PPP loans were based on payroll for 2 1/2 months. There will likely be a lot of layoffs once the funds run out....mainly with restaurants and travel industry businesses.

Some businesses have likely already laid off employees (or the employee decided to not return and collect unemployment since that, in some cases, might have been more money than what they were making at their jobs) and will opt to repay the PPP loan portion that they elected to not use for payroll/rent/util, etc.

RoleModelsinBlood31 · July 2020

It was there for the taking for most of the businesses out there. Many were shamed (la lakers, many huge universities come to mind) because they’re so huge they really weren’t impacted the same by Covid as the small mom and pop.

Any way you cut it though, they were allowed to take their share and they did. I did as well, and although I only have about 75 employees, I wasn’t going to miss the chance to help float this out.

RoleModelsinBlood31 · July 2020

JimmyV said:

Kevinman said:

Looks bad to me, especially since I have money tied up in tickets. Just my opinion when I read the headline.

You have money tied up in tickets for shows that will be played next year or refunded. If the shows are played, their people will get paid for working them. This loan got those same people paid this year when there were no shows for them to work.

This is absolutely correct. Like I said, they were allowed to take, and they did. Has nothing at all to do with their employees and their status. It’s as simple as they were allowed as a business so they took it.

Eagles, Pearl Jam, Guns N’ Roses Among Groups Receiving PPP Loans for Postponed Tours

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