Don ' t let your dreams be dreams , if you wanna be sonic the hedgehog then you go be sonic the hedgehog <| sep |> It ' s only really a difference of degree . no it really isn ' t . Let me guess . you ' ve never hit the 40 % or 45 % rate personally . <| sep |> Your name tells me , that I don ' t need to answer you . Edit Whow . 3 comments in total . 2 dating back to one year ago . <| sep |> About 20 years ago I was in a hardcore band that was approached by Victory . Obviously haven ' t read ADTR ' s contract but it seems like it was the same five record deal that was boilerplateplus you ' re signed individually , not just the band . Victory was pretty much unwilling to negotiate anything because , There are a hundred other bands that would kill for this deal . I mean , they weren ' t wrong , but still . From what I remember his model at the time was to go out and find four or five bands and sign them all at the same time , then turn them out in the world . Your first album would get pretty equal support then if you weren ' t the top one or two , your support would go to pretty much zero and it was near impossible to get anyone from Victory on the phone . It would be fine if that were the end of it . unfortunately at that point you ' re already into Victory for your advance which you ' d most likely already spent on a van , merch , studio time , etc and a five record deal that each member was responsible for individually as a musician . This was the midlate 90 s so everything also had to go through the distros and if the record company wasn ' t putting any money into promotion then . well . you ' d just languish in debt , grinding away on the road while trying to write to fill your contract . Unsustainable to say the least . Our main issue is that we weren ' t really a touring band at the time . A couple of us were in college , a couple working full time , etc . That means we didn ' t have a van , or much savings to buy merch . Some of us didn ' t even have professional gear some of the guys would borrow amps or whatever from other bands we were playing with . We also got heavily warned from a couple really big punk and HC bands we were friends with that Victory was generally a very bad deal . Anyway , it was exactly like you said . Basically we looked at what our advance would be and all the stuff we ' d have to buy with it studio time , van , insurance , merch blah blah , and how long we ' d have to be on the road per year and what we ' d have to give updropping out of college or quitting union jobs . We didn ' t end up going for it and broke up within a year . I ' ll see some of the guys every couple years and it always comes up , nobody seems to regret it at all and we always have a good laugh about what a dick Tony was . Happy for ADTR after hearing numerous firsthand horror stories from people all over the country I was friends with who had to deal with Victory . edit forgot some words .