Punks don’t like being offered large sums of money when it comes to the music they make. Take Rancid, for example, they famously turned down $1.5 million from Epic to leave Epitaph in the mid 90s.
“My mom freaked out,” frontman Tim Armstrong told the Los Angeles Times. “She didn’t get it. I’m like, ‘Mom, it’s not about money. It’s about respect for the band, you know, ‘cause this is what I do. I love my band so much.’ She’s like, ‘What kind of thinking is that?’ I’m like, ‘I got this way of thinking from you!’ She’d never [cared] about money. It was always more about family and friends. She understands now.”
The same goes for Fugazi, obviously. The band was offered $10 million and their own subsidiary label to sign with Atlantic Records. You can only imagine that Ian MacKaye balked at the idea.
When Burger King were generating ideas to promote their Chicken Fries, no-one clearly told their advertising executives that real punks and money mix like oil and water.
In 2005, while The Bronx were working on their second self-titled album with former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke, word got to the band that their services would be required for a day or two by fast food royalty. They’d get a big fat cheque for their efforts – not fat like a Rancid or Fugazi offer, but enough to make anyone salivate.
“It was something ridiculous like $120,000,” vocalist Matt Caughthran told this writer. “We were supposed to write this song and they’d put masks on the band and no-one would know it was us.”
Article continues below
Hindsight is always 20-20, said a wise man. The band declined the generous renumeration package to play anonymously as the BK house band Coq Roq and resumed work on their own music.
“We didn’t feel comfortable about it,” explained Matt, “so another band did it and the commercial was out for one week.”
The reason for the truncated advertising campaign was thanks to Slipknot, who filed a lawsuit for trademark infringement on August 4, 2005. Burger King’s fictional rock band wore masks and it was a little too close to the bone for the Iowan nonet.
Burger King filed a countersuit arguing it was a parody of other masked or make-up wearing bands – citing KISS, GWAR and Mudvayne as examples – and both sides dropped their lawsuits.
It was later claimed that the band posing as Coq Roq had recorded four songs, including Bob Your Head and Cross the Road. A tour was also shelved due to their Canadian vocalist (known only as “Fowl Mouth”) having a criminal record. But for The Bronx, the decision to turn down a large sum of money and not be labelled as the ‘chicken band’ forever was its own reward.
“Or I could be talking to you right now from a Burger King castle with my fortune,” laughs Caughthran. “That’s my biggest regret.”
Watch On
