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Hollow Victory

Bands accuse the "anti-corporate" label of being corporate at its worst.

By Denise Grollmus 

This was it -- the moment Hawthorne Heights had been waiting for.

It was 2003 and the five Dayton natives were about to take the stage for a Victory Records showcase in Chicago. Over the previous two years, Hawthorne Heights had been living like most fledgling bands, working minimum-wage convenience-store jobs between grueling tours in a battered van, barely compensated for performing their emo anthems in basements and half-empty clubs across the country. They would return to Ohio tired and broke, without a nibble of interest from record labels, agents, or managers.

After months of sending off demos and bombarding industry types with e-mails, Tony Brummel, owner of Victory Records, finally gave them a chance.

It was divine vindication for the earnest rockers. Victory was the pinnacle of indie cool, the nation's second-largest independent label. Its roster read like the who's who of modern American hardcore, from Bad Brains to Hatebreed, Earth Crisis to Grade. Brummel had become the official spokesman for angsty teens everywhere, constantly railing against the evils of "faceless" labels with a Maoist urgency. "Victory is you, it's me, it is the street, the music," he reminded his loyal followers. ". . . [It] cannot be bought or sold. You either embrace it or get the hell out of the way."

For the pierced and inked, the label was the embodiment of what was right, pure, real.

The band took the stage before a handful of Victory staffers, who were dressed in their best black hoodies and studded belts. The group's three guitarists shredded into a cacophony of fast, screechy riffs as singer J.T. Woodruff transitioned between flat-out screaming and painfully honest poetry. The crowd stood with arms crossed, says a former staffer. They never showed too much enthusiasm at these events, lest they unnecessarily lift the band's hopes.

After the show, the Daytonites packed up and headed home, with only the promise of a phone call.

One former staffer remembers driving back from the showcase with Brummel. "All he kept saying was that they're from a small town in Ohio, untainted by all the industry bullshit," says the ex-staffer, who asked that his name not be used for fear of endangering his current job. "That was the most outlying aspect of the band for him -- their naivety and purity."

Brummel soon signed the group to a four-record deal. The next year, The Silence in Black and White was released.

As the band hit the road nonstop, touring with acts like Fall Out Boy, Victory pumped millions of dollars into marketing the record. Commercials for the album aired as frequently on MTV as ads for Fructis shampoo. Brummel paid handsomely for special promotions, making sure it was the most visible CD in record stores across the country. He was investing the kind of money reserved for major-label powers like Justin Timberlake and Aerosmith -- not unknowns on an indie that touts its "anti-corporate" sensibilities.

It worked. The Silence in Black and White sold over 800,000 copies and sat on Billboard 200 for 60 weeks, a feat unheard of for an indie act. It was Victory's best-selling debut. Hawthorne Heights had gone from slinging cigs at a Dayton convenience store to being adored by 14-year-old girls everywhere.

When the band's follow-up record, If Only You Were Lonely, came out in 2006, Victory pushed even harder. The CD debuted at No. 3 on Billboard. The band's van was quickly replaced with a decked-out tour bus.

But beneath the newfound stardom festered a less jubilant tale.

Last year, the band posted a "manifesto" on its MySpace page, announcing that it was leaving Victory "in part due to the actions of the man who sits at the head of the label, Tony Brummel." Victory's owner, the band asserted, "cares more about his ego and bank account than the bands themselves."

Hawthorne Heights complained that Brummel hadn't paid a cent in royalties, despite selling 1.2 million records. The group also claimed that Brummel's aggressive marketing schemes had tarnished its image. It described working with Brummel as "being in an abusive relationship" in which he constantly threatened to cut off promotion of their records if the band questioned his moves. "We were afraid, as many of the bands on Victory are, to stick our neck out for fear of being 'beaten,'" the manifesto said.

Success quickly devolved into a lawyer fight that's still being waged today. Hawthorne Heights is seeking $1 million in damages, accusing Brummel of not simply withholding its royalties, but of "heavy-handed, overly aggressive, unethical and illegal schemes and tactics."

Brummel has dismissed the band's claims, stating that the case is "really just about greed," according to court documents. But Hawthorne Heights isn't the only band to have rebelled against Brummel. Many of Victory's best-sellers -- including Taking Back Sunday, Atreyu, Hatebreed, and Thursday -- left the label after bitter fights over alleged unpaid royalties.

And it's not just bands that say Brummel has become the corporate archvillain he so publicly loathes. Former employees speak of the Victory owner as a control freak prone to unhinged outbursts.

"There was an air of creepy big-brother surveillance," says Kristin Bustamante, a former Victory saleswoman. "He bred a culture of fear in his employees. You were scared to leave and scared to stand up. It's like an abusive relationship. It was, bar none, the worst experience of my life."

Adds another former staffer: "All I can say is thank God I wasn't in one of his bands."

Tony Brummel has told his story many times.

Like most of the kids who buy his records, the Chicago native caught the hardcore bug in his adolescence, drawn to the unfiltered anger of acts like Black Flag and Social Distortion.

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