Today is the day.

Hey everyone,

So, you're probably familiar with my band, Archspire.


I’ve been in the band for over 16 years, and honestly it's been the main driving force in my life since day one.

I've poured tens of thousands of hours into this project writing music, planning tours, working with artists for album art and t-shirt designs. From recording rough demos to working with world-renowned producer Dave Otero. From cramming into a van with no trailer to touring in a full-sized bus across countries I never thought I’d visit in my life.

If you've ever done anything like this, you know how much relentless effort it takes, and that the work is never actually finished.

A couple of years ago, we started thinking seriously about the band’s future. Our deal with Season of Mist (who were great to work with) was about to end, and we were offered several new record deals. Some of them very tempting, but each one came with the same downside: giving away ownership of the music we wrote.

When you sign most record deals, you're selling the rights to your work. From the outside, that might not seem like a big deal. And realistically you still get support, recording budgets, sometimes tour funding, and a label that shoulders the financial risk.

But, we saw another path. One that came with a massive workload and a steep learning curve: going fully independent.

I’ve always believed that the best decisions are often the scariest. And in this case, the scariest thing we could do was bet everything on ourselves.

So that’s what we decided to do.

We turned down the offers, and started planning a massive crowdfunding campaign to make the next album possible.

The upfront costs for an album like this easily run into the hundreds of thousands. Studio time, artwork, photography, marketing, manufacturing, and countless other expenses add up quickly. And for a band in our genre, it’s nearly impossible without help.

That’s why, the morning I hit “launch” on the campaign on my laptop in Vancouver, I was literally shaking. It felt like a massive responsibility, and aside from the stigma around crowdfunding itself, there are very few bands that successfully have pulled this off.

But within 12 hours, we hit our goal: around $125,000 USD.

Since then, the campaign has continued to grow. It doubled our goal within a few weeks, and it has continued to build. This campaign gives us the freedom to make music on our own terms. It represents true artistic independence, and we hope it shows other artists that this is what the future of music can look like.

If you’d like to contribute and grab some exclusive vinyl variants and merch, you have 24 hours left before the campaign ends.

Thanks for believing in us. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/archspire/archspire-independence-day

Dean
Archspire