“We were silenced”- Fin Power addresses STONE’s exit from Polydor Records, teases comeback

STONE, the British band from Liverpool, has left Polydor Records. The band left the label after the release of their debut album, Fear Life For A Lifetime, in 2024. Now band member Fin Power has spoken out and elaborated on their exit from Polydor Records, while also revealing that the band is now with a new label and working on their second studio album:

"STONE is deep into writing our second album. We're just waking back up with shows across Europe and UK and I've had this itch I can't ignore. I need to speak on it. Its about Music Business... I want to talk honestly for three reasons: 1) It's therapy, 2) Some new bands need to hear it and 3) Because why the f**k would I shy away from speaking our truth."

The singer then went on to describe the events that the band went through after signing up with Polydor Records, despite the label's promise to support the band and its vision and elevate it:

"Within months of signing, everything changed. Every time we brought up making an album, it got brushed off. Like the word album had become dirty. Suddenly, I was being sent off to write with strangers. We were being guilt tripped into TikTok dances. I started questioning every word I wrote. We barely heard from the A and R who signed us. A phone call every few months, if that."

In another part of the statement, he described how the band's own music was ignored in favor of outside music writers:

"The only songs that got attention were the ones I wrote with outside writers, who were all brilliant people by the way. We were a project. A product. A gamble. And that’s the truth. To most of these companies, artists are just scratch cards. Buy a stack. See which one hits."

The singer continued:

"There was a moment where I realised how far it had gone. I'd send a song and they'd reply: who did you write this with? Not wow this hits. Not let's develop it. Just who else is on it. Like the idea that we, the band they signed, could write a song that mattered on our own was absurd to them...We were silenced. Undermined. Ignored into thinking our instincts were wrong."

Fin Power went on to explain several more such situations, which ultimately led to STONE leaving the record label. He ended the statement with the message to young musicians that they should not sign away their identity or let it be chipped away by record labels for some illusory promises.

STONE is not the first artist to leave Polydor Records

As Fin Power mentions in their statement, they were not the first artists to leave Polydor Records over this issue of creative control. STONE's departure from Polydor Records was preceded by the departure of RAYE from the label in 2021, who also left the label after it refused to release her debut album.

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STONE and RAYE are themselves part of a larger trend by bands and musicians leaving labels and releasing music independently or in collaboration with better labels. Seminal bands such as Mastadon, You Me At Six, Krept & Konan, and more have all called out labels or moved away from them.

Other notable figures who pointed out the power imbalance between singers and labels included Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean, as well as Prince, Kanye West, and more.

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