One year ago when Tennis signed a contract with to use one of their songs, it was the most money the band had ever been promised for a song.
Soon after, their track “Marathon” off 2011’s “Cape Dory” appeared on TV and online ads for Marmara (which you can watch below). But one year later, Tennis allegedly hasn’t seen any money from the hotel chain that it promised in the contract, according to the band.
“We’ve talked to our manager and our lawyer has reached out hundreds of times and we haven’t heard anything,” said Tennis’ Patrick Riley. “We’ve been chasing this money for months and now we give up.”
But even though the band says they have the contracts and legally deserve payment, they’re caught in a bind. Riley said that their team is advising Tennis not to sue Marmara because they’d be caught up in a lengthy and expensive lawsuit with a big company.
“It just gets very distressing when you do everything right and they can just ignore that and there’s no recourse because you don’t have the money,” said Tennis’ Alaina Moore. “There’s not much we can do because they’re owned by a huge, huge corporation.”
Moore said licensing agreements like Tennis’ Marmara deal for a big chunk of artist’s income in a market that has many bands looking for .
“It’s our one place where we can make money — even that is shrinking and getting more exploitative,” Moore said. “They want to borrow our aesthetic to build their brand and I feel like they know we can’t do anything about it.”
With legal action not an option for the band, Moore decided to put , telling fans and other artists what happened.
“We just don’t want them to have this without a single repercussion,” Moore said. “I don’t want them to skip off into the sunset with our song playing in the background with no recourse.”
As of noon on Friday, Tennis’ Facebook post has more than 300 shares and dozens of comments.
“We’ve gotten insane support. I’m very thankful. I feel like people really get it,” Moore said. “I’ve read some insanely touching things, like, ‘Let’s start a Kickstarter campaign to get that money back.’ Like how sweet is that?”
For now, Tennis has given up on expecting the money, but has learned to be more careful — even with something like a contract that seems certain.
“We aren’t safe even if we’re in a contract,” Moore said. “It sucks because we’re going to have more mistrust and thatap not how I want to live.”
The good news for Tennis is they just kicked off a May tour with sold out dates throughout California. Tonight they play a sold out show at the Troubadour in L.A.
Marmara Hotel has not responded to Reverb’s requests for comment.
