Stars’ Amy Millan & Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos on Ke$ha’s Sony Injunction

At yesterday’s GoodVybes Festival, we caught up with Stars front woman Amy Millan and Passion Pit mastermind Michael Angelakos and got their two cents on the state of the music industry. One issue both artists were particularly outspoken about is the preliminary injunction pop star Kesha lost to her label Sony, which would have allowed her to terminate her contract with the company.

If you’re not up to speed with the issue, here’s the gist: In 2014, Kesha claimed that she was “sexually, physically, verbally, and emotionally abused” by longtime producer Dr. Luke (aka Lukasz Gottwald), and filed a lawsuit against him. Dr. Luke denied allegations and countersued, while her record company Sony took his side on the matter. Kesha then added Sony to her lawsuit as a defendant, saying that the company “had knowledge of Dr. Luke treating female entertainers under his tutelage and supervision in the same manner as alleged here regarding (Kesha), which includes physical and emotional abuse.”

As the court case drags on, it’s become impossible for her to record and release new music—the preliminary injunction would have allowed her to do just that without Sony and Dr. Luke’s involvement.

“I know her. She’s an amazing person. She’s not lying when she said all those things about Dr. Luke. How is that possible? Why are we not changing that system? There’s something wrong,” Michael sympathizes.

Amy chimes in, similarly expressing strong disagreement over the decision of the New York Supreme Court. “In the public, in the judicial system, she’s completely unsupported,” she says. “But there’s been a flood of her community [on social media] that’s coming to have her back on how ridiculous it is that they would put consumerism over her soul.”

“If anybody [in] their right mind who ran a company, who had a person who is basically a slave that wants to leave, they should let her out of her contract,” she continues. “And so I find social media to be an incredible tool to bind people together for a common cause that makes it loud enough to be louder than the judicial system that’s basically [dictated] what the rules are.”

There are people all over the world who love you @KeshaRose. And I can say truly I am in awe of your bravery.

— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) February 19, 2016

standing with @KeshaRose through this traumatic, deeply unfair time. send good vibes her way everyone

— Lorde (@lorde) February 19, 2016

Disgusted by anyone in power positions abusing their authority. My heart breaks for Kesha and all people affected by this toxicity. Fuck.

— h (@halsey) February 19, 2016

Standing up to sexism in the industry
While neither Amy nor Michael are currently embroiled in issues as grave as Kesha’s, both have had experiences of discrimination in the music industry. For one, Amy is a woman working in a male-dominated industry, while Michael was accused of pulling a publicity stunt after admitting to his struggles with bipolar disorder. Last November, he came out as a gay man on writer Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast.

“All the time. I can’t count, like a million times,” Amy answers when asked about how many times she’s encountered sexism in the industry. “There’s a lot of things that I didn’t even notice were sexist until I started to really pay attention, and all I can do is to keep my voice up every time it happens and call people out on it.”

“Like, my husband is Evan Cranley who plays the bass, and when people ask where my child is, they don’t ask him—they ask me,” she points out. “They’re like, ‘So, where’s your daughter?’ And I’m like, ‘He’s right here. Why don’t you ask him that question?’”

On the topic of coming out, Michael observes that he hasn’t experienced similar backlash since his confession. “If it’s honest and you’re being honest, it doesn’t read that way when you tell it to people. And that’s just it: If you’re telling the truth, most people can tell. Like, say, a really famous person—I’m not really famous—but when people who are really famous, when they’re lying, it’s so obvious. People aren’t stupid. They’re not as stupid as, like, the artist seems to think, and I think when you’re really, really honest and you’re just being yourself, I think it’s kind of hard to deny that,” he says. “I was just very honest, and I was tired of holding everything in.”

“The voices of dissent die out because they lose interest. The only reason they were interested is because they probably dislike you for some reason, but they stop disliking you because they don’t care anymore,” he adds.

On effecting the change they want to see in the industry
“That’s just up to me as a woman to, like, stand my ground and have my voice. I’m the one doing the interview today. And to raise my daughter [Delphine] to be loud and be heard and say her feelings and say what’s on her mind,” Amy answers when asked about how she can address the issue of sexism. “I just think it’s a responsibility of [ours] to keep the word ‘feminist’ in the conversation because I think it got lost and misconstrued and a lot of women were afraid to call themselves feminist, and I think it’s really been a detriment to women’s rights.”

“When you believe in something and you want it to change, just change it. People are all, like, ‘Oh, you can’t do that.’ And everyone just accepts it, and everyone moves forward. If I think something’s broken, I’ll go and fix it. Like, I just watched it being broken for a long time, and I’m tired of it,” Michael chimes in.

“I have a really good situation, but I know most people that don’t. But artists have to stop, like, complying with these archaic models, and they have to start creating their own because we don’t really need the big money as much as we used to,” he adds. “It starts with the artists not being like, ‘Well, this is a terrible deal, but I need the money right now.’ It’s like, at that point, it’s prostitution, you know?”

In a sense, that’s what Michael’s current album Kindred is all about: “Kindred was about action as opposed to just talking about it, but it was actually complete denial—so, that’s another thing. I’ve learned a lot about that one!” he shares. “But the next record’s going to be really…it’s not a happy one, and I think that’s okay. I think it’s time to…this is a record I’ve been, you know, kind of meaning to make for a while, so I’m actually really excited about it.”

On differentiating hype and talent
Eventually the topic of the ongoing feud between Kanye and Taylor Swift arose, which begged the question: As an artist, how do you feel about hype on social media taking precedence over talent?

“Well, it’s part of the game of pop music. It’s absurd, ridiculous, silly—it’s to do absurd, silly things. You know, I worry sometimes about Kanye lately, but I think what’s worse is not saying anything. Like, just [sticking to] the status quo and being this corporate behaviorist. I prefer drama. I’m in a band with a lot of dramatic people; I like when things are spicy, so I prefer the spice,” Amy answers, adding, “I think that it’s not mutually exclusive—like, hype and drama from talent. I think there can be both things.”

Michael, on the other hand, is grateful that the hype machine didn’t have this much influence over his career when Passion Pit was starting out in 2008. “I don’t know how bands do it today. I don’t know what the hell’s going on half the time. Just like, what are we listening to? There’s just so much music. And I feel bad because there’s such great music too, I don’t know how to find it, actually,” he admits.

“It’s amazing because being a new kid on the block now is [being] way overexposed and kind of made to—you’re essentially paraded around. Or, you’re just competing with eight billion other artists and they all have similar band names and weird things going [on]. I just think I came up at a good time. I was really lucky.”  

 

Photos by Magic Liwanag