News•April 19, 2018 2:07 PM ET•10,250 views

Periphery part ways with Sumerian Records

Sumerian Records founder Ash Avildsen was the featured guest on a new episode of Jamey Jasta's 'The Jasta Show', and he had some interesting things to say about Periphery. Sumerian signed the progressive metal band in 2009 and they've since put out six records together. According to Avildsen, however, the partnership may have come to an end as Periphery will apparently self-release their next album, which they are currently working on (see below). Avildsen told Jasta that Periphery are their own worst enemy, often sacrificing commercial potential for artistic integrity and self-indulgence:

"With Periphery, if they–Look they could tour more, there's other things they can do to make money. I write them nice six figure checks–er, sorry I take that back, I write them "nice" checks every six months from their royalties and they make good money on the road and they reinvest in themselves and they have side hustles. The drummer does the teacher, everyone is hustling their shit but fundamentally they need to have bigger streams and bigger ticket sales to really have the money they want to have. They could but they don't want to go…I look at a band like Tool or A Perfect Circle. You think anyone is worried about their cred? They don't conform to some verse-chorus plug-in play format. They are incredibly artistic, they're incredibly creative and they still know, yeah we have some singles, right? Periphery could be an arena band. They have the…Spencer has a voice, he can sing it, they did a great cover of Florence and The Machine, which really shows the depth of them if they did want to write songs that could get on radio and big playlists but they only write for themselves, period. Most artists will say that, 'I'm just playing music for myself' and what I say to that is, you can do that at home, but then don't worry about making that a living."

From the perspective of Periphery founder and guitarist Misha Mansoor, Avildsen says he's just "the label guy":

"It doesn't matter because it's coming from me and no matter what I'm the label guy. To Misha I always be, oh that's Ash, he's Hollywood, he's the label guy, he doesn't get it the way I get it. And Misha doesn't get it the way I get it. We can disagree to disagree. I'm comfortable saying that. I wish them the best, like they're going to self-release their next record, at least that's what they told me. I don't think this is me in the Whiskey backstage with animosity, I'm telling you right now on the podcast, Misha, I love all you guys, unless you write bonafide fucking hits and you're rolling to radio, I don't believe your new record will sell more than what you've done on Sumerian because I have pride in what we do and I know the value we bring to any band especially a band like that, with everything we do to promote and market and creative."

Avildsen summed up his conflicted opinion of Periphery in this fashion:

"Misha, I love you to death brother, you're a super star, but you get in your own way. You should be making–if I could play guitar like Misha and I had a singer like Spencer… Again, Periphery was an instrumental band in helping grow Sumerian and I'm so proud, so none of this is meant as a diss to them. They are incredible, but this is me being candid record label guy talking about an artist I love who is very hard to A&R because they don't want to hear it from anyone."

You can listen to the entire interview here:

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Meanwhile, Periphery has been working on material for their next record, sharing some audio clips from the process via YouTube. Here you go: [via MetalInsider]