Hey everyone.
We wanted to take a second to thank everyone who backed this project for their support and also update everyone on where we're at with touring and the future. We debated on whether or not to make an official statement beyond expressing our sincere thanks but didn't want to ignore the fact that an elephant might still be in the room. Bands rarely make official statements unless they're breaking up and that's sure not happening. So this is just going to be somewhat off the cuff if that's ok.
As you guys know, we didn't meet our goal by the deadline. Clearly, we over-shot it but we're not bummed out or discouraged. Neither are we immune to the fact that we found ourselves in the cross-hairs of a Kickstarter controversy :). Guess that was something we were unaware we'd be getting into. You live and learn. We researched, looked at our situation realistically and took the risk.
You guys were overwhelmingly supportive and encouraging. We now understand that some didn't like our goal amount and some didn't like the idea that we were trying to fund touring instead of a record, some thought we were way off on what we were trying to offer in return. Apparently, a large percentage seem to be conscientious objectors about crowd funding in general. Understandable. Also, some folks felt like we were trying to use our fan's money to feed our babies. This provided great comic relief. Note: we weren't going to be writing ourselves checks. Plus our babies all nurse. haha.
We're not going to get deep into defending our motives or our decision. Our guess is – short of posting tour budgets, bank accounting statements and/or having some huge discussion about transitioning from being kids in a band to touring in a band with kids, we're not likely to change any nay-nayers minds. And that's... ok. We're not embarrassed that it didn't fund. We're too busy and thankful to be embarrassed. And anyway, reaching the 60% mark was fairly huge.
What does seem important is to address is the question as to whether our plans might be affected by any financial shortfall. We've been asked, 'if you're still going to find a way to tour, then was this project really necessary?' The simple truth is, yes. But we will face these challenges and absolutely find a way to tour as much as we possibly can. Nothing has changed. Our motivation is to continue being a band, writing songs, recording records and touring.
On that note, this tour is happening. We're excited about it and hope you guys are too. Just to be transparent, to insure it could happen we ended up having to borrow $ from family for a good chunk of it and our label is lending us money against future royalties for the rest. Both are painful. That's the reality of Eisley doing support tours. Headlining tours are a little easier financially but in any case, our nursing babies are too little to leave at home and it would be insanely wrong and dangerous to try to tour with 3 or 4 tiny babies in a van. We have to be in a bigger, safer, vehicle which costs between 15 - 20k (before fuel, driver, etc.).
To sum it all up, the intention of the project was to help facilitate all of the touring we need to do to support our record but it was also a way for us to have fun with you guys, make cool stuff and connect with people that we may never have had the opportunity to connect with otherwise. We still want to find ways to do so regardless of how this particular idea worked out!
Please know how thankful we are that you were willing to give unselfishly to the cause. We really just want to move past this episode, get back to music. Thanks again and we'll be talking more and more about our new record and this tour during the next few days.
Love,
Eisley
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