Middle School Metal Band Land £1million Record Deal
Unlocking the Truth were spotted on the streets of New York
A Brooklyn based metal band whose members are aged between 12 and 13 have landed a reported £1million record deal with Sony.
Unlocking the Truth played a string of shows in Times Square and Washington Square Park in New York earlier last year to collect spare change.
When the trio – drummer Jarad Dawkins (12), guitarist Malcolm Brickhouse (13) and bassist Alec Atkins (13) - uploaded footage to YouTube, the videos went viral attracting millions of views.
Since then they’ve played Coachella, supported Guns N’ Roses in Las Vegas and even hung around backstage with Lemmy Kilmister and Slash.
A Sony executive spotted the footage and, according to the New York Post, signed the band on a $1.7million, five record deal.
The contract was submitted for approval to a Manhattan judge last week and includes a 16 to 17% royalties and a $60,000 advance on the first album – IF it sells over 250,000 copies.
The band are planning to release a studio version of their track ‘Monster’ this summer and are scheduled to release their debut album later in the autumn.
James Sammataro of the law firm Stroock criticised the “extremely high” 250k sales benchmark saying Beyonce’s latest record only sold 600,000 copies.
He said: “The question is whether Sony is committed to seeing whether these precocious rockers can change the face of rock if their YouTube success does not – as often is the case – immediately translate into paid downloads.”
Early Unlocking The Truth performances didn’t feature any vocals because, as Malcolm’s father explained, they wanted to wait until their voices broke. The boys are now sharing vocal duties.
