Great White album pits band against label
This week marks the release of the first Great White album since the Station nightclub fire last year in Warwick, R.I. It's not an album of new music -- rather, it repackages two previous discs -- but the project has pitted the band against the record label.
"We bought a bunch of their [recording] masters, and we're just trying to recover some money by putting this out," says a Cleopatra Records executive, Jeff Gray, whose Los Angeles label issued the double CD, "A Double Dose," Tuesday. It consists of Great White's Led Zeppelin tribute album ("Great Zeppelin") from 1999 and another cover disc, "Recover," from 2002, in which the band performs hits by AC/DC, the Rolling Stones, Bad Company, and others.
The release, however, caused a conflict because of what the band says was a disagreement over the cover art. The cover has a shark leaping from the ocean, but the band initially thought the cover was supposed to be of a shark jumping out of flames and responded with a statement saying it was "horrified to discover" that the record company "had attempted to profit on the horrible tragedy of February 20th, 2003." (Band manager Obi Steinman did not return calls seeking further comment.)
Cleopatra Records, though, maintains that the flame design was never going to be used, Gray says. Although the original cover of the "Great Zeppelin" tribute did show a shark jumping through flames, Gray insists the band was told that no such image would appear on "A Double Dose." He added that Great White knew this and yet still criticized the record label purely to raise interest in a coming tour. (The tour dates are all in the Midwest and West.)
"They still went ahead and released a press statement," says Gray. "They want to be humble, but they're not."
Gray says the band "has never sold that well" for the label, which has reissued Great White material before. Yet the liner notes of the new double CD say this release is "a must-have, limited-edition collection. Get 'em while they last!"
Great White also has experienced recent problems with an Italian label, Comet Records, which was to have released other repackaged music in Europe under the album title "Burning House of Love."
The band complained, and the label apologized and stopped distribution. The title "Burning House of Love" was actually the name of a cover song, written by the Los Angeles band X, that Great White recorded for a 2002 album.
The band is back performing in clubs. One member, Ty Longley, was among the 100 killed in the fire, and two members subsequently quit, but they've been replaced by two others. Singer and mainstay Jack Russell has said in published reports that the group has donated more than $70,000 from club gigs in the past year to a Station fire fund to aid victims. He also has said Great White no longer performs three songs: "Burning House of Love," "Baby's on Fire," and "Desert Moon" -- the song the group was playing at the Station when the fire broke out.
