Even before it was released, Volition, Protest The Hero’s newest album, was a true success story. Thanks to the dedication and generosity of their fans, the band has almost broken all records on the crowd-funding platform Indiegogo. With their initial $125,000 goal reached in twenty hours and a grand total of $341,000 raised, Protest The Hero’s is actually the second most popular campaign on the platform. This success is a small revolution and a huge hope for all the bands who want to cast off the shackles of record labels. According to vocalist Rody Walker, whom we interviewed, “it’s been a long time of the artist getting screwed over by labels”, “so, it’s really nice to finally be able to push back and have the power”. Protest The Hero has been able to canvass record companies while having both the music and the money, which tipped the scales in their favor. A new way of thinking is slowly taking shape and establishing itself as a viable alternative – one that would reduce the number of middlemen to a bare minimum and allow the fans to play an active part in the creative process. It would no longer be up to artistic directors and marketers to decide which artist has potential and should therefore be backed, but to the fans themselves.

But the process doesn’t make everyone happy, and Walker addresses this reticence in the following interview. That being said, this is the lot of any innovative experience. In any case, for Protest The Hero, the result is a high-ranking album and the prospect of a leap forward that the old record industry just doesn’t allow anymore. In this respect, the choice of title, “Volition”, in not neutral and symbolizes the creative will – the band’s as well as the fans’ – surrounding the conception of their fourth album.

Read the interview.