There's a better financial plan than Freedom 55, and that's Freedom 54*40.
What it entails is that, if you're a veteran Canadian rock band, you leave the major label way of life and take your career back into your own hands.
Easy, huh?
And the possible rewards are great and many.
"My pat answer is, talk to me in a year," says 54*40 bassist Brad Merritt about his band's decision to go the indie route. "But it's incredibly exciting and it's an incredible opportunity."
During the course of the West Coast rock act's two decades of making post-punk music, they've had their shot with two major label deals.
When their last one with Sony wrapped up, they weighed their options -- which, according to Merritt, included carte blanche offers from every label they contacted -- and decided it was in their best financial interests to opt for freedom.
"My school principal used to say, 'Freedom, yes, but freedom with responsibility,' " Merritt says with a laugh.
That responsibility now includes the marketing and promotion of the band's new album, Goodbye Flatland, which sees its release on June 17.
The disc, which some lucky Calgarians will get a preview of tonight at the Palace thanks to a CJAY 92- and Molson-sponsored event, pushes away the memory of the band's recent, more polished albums with a fitting dose of raw.
Merritt says it was part of 54*40's need to get back to making "great rock sounds and playing rock music.
"These things, they always go in circles," he says.
"That's where we've been at and what we wanted to do."
And where the album will take them shouldn't be too far off the respectable path they've been on for most of their career.
As Merritt says, with Goodbye Flatland, the quartet is hoping to maintain their audience while maybe slightly increasing the profit they see from that.
"When we set out to do what it is we've done and we're still doing, we never had this desire to be the biggest or the number one," he says.
"Basically making music was the reward in itself and that's always been our approach."
