Four For Friday - Unholy Hatred

Back in the day, the music biz was a lot different than it is now. Rock bands could start in someone's garage or basement and with some luck and talent, get famous overnight. Unscrupulous managers and record labels often roped these hungry musicians into fine print contracts which made promises of money and gave lots of perks.  The perks were often women, drugs, and the trappings of fame. What many of the bands didn't realize was that they were actually paying for this excess, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars in debt to managers and record companies. Only a few really savvy musicians didn't fall into that trap, and today's blind is about one of them.

Our musician was a child prodigy and extremely talented in his genre. We'll call him Mr. R. He joined forces with another legendary musician and formed a band that was critically acclaimed in their time, but may not be so much on the radar of younger people now. Mr. R was not only a creative force in this band, but was also the brains behind their finances. Mr. R's grandfather was a shrewd immigrant store owner who taught Mr. R accounting and bookkeeping when he was young.  Mr. R would often visit his grandfather's store and sit with him as he went over his ledger books, while his grandfather taught him the basics of running a business. Turns out that not only was Mr. R musically gifted,  but he also had a photographic memory for numbers. This was indeed a valuable skill and even landed Mr. R a part time bank teller job as a teenager in his town, which was unheard of at the time.

Mr. R's bandmates were also a dynamic individuals as well. The most noteable of them I'll call Mr. J.  Mr. J also came from a hardscrabble immigrant background and had been trying to make it in the music business for years when he met and joined forces with Mr. R. Together they knew they had a genius combination of talent and would be a huge success in the rock n' roll world. Not only was Mr. R a gifted musician, he was also ahead of his time in terms of marketing and branding. Mr. R also understood that merchandising was also going to be an important part of the business, which netted the band a lot of money in the future. In addition, he designed an innovative business plan for the band while keeping a tight fist on the band's finances.

The band did indeed become very successful and was also critically praised for some of their work. The problem is that over time, Mr. J became insanely jealous and resentful of Mr. R's talents and financial savvy.  Mr. J complained to anyone who would listen that Mr. R was exerting too much control over the band's business and financial matters. The sad part is that thanks to our musician, Mr. J was very wealthy and had been for the most part protected from predatory managers and contracts due to Mr. R's shrewd business practices. What had also helped was that Mr. R had met an infamous billionaire who gave him a lot of valuable financial advice that he was able to implement in managing the band's finances.  This did not matter to Mr. J though, because he was too blinded by his own ego, too many drugs and just greed in general to appreciate the work that Mr. R had done. This irrational jealousy towards Mr. R eventually boiled over in an extreme way when Mr. J physically attacked him and almost killed him while they were on tour. It was at this point that Mr. R decided to leave the band, which he did and never looked back.

The band continued on in various incarnations, doing well for a number of years more.  What isn't widely known is that Mr. R's savvy business acumen also protected his financial interests AFTER he left the band as well.  Mr. J was livid when he realized that not only were Mr. R's interests totally protected in their financials, but they were also irrevocable. This meant that Mr. J could not cut Mr. R out of any future profits from his past work with the band. Of course Mr. J spent innumerable hours with lawyers and accountants trying to find loopholes which could be used to eliminate Mr. R's piece of the revenue stream from his past work, but it could not be done. The financials were brilliantly structured, similarly to an irrevocable Trust - the infamous billionaire's advice had clearly been put to good use. All the band members shared equal parts of the money, and if one of them died, then a portion of their money would go to their surviving relatives and the other portion would revert back to the surviving band members. Once all the band members were dead, then the money would go into a Trust-like entity which would pay out monies to surviving descendants in perpetuity. This was ironclad and Mr. J was enraged that it could not be changed to steal monies from Mr. R that he was legitimately entitled to.

Mr. J harbored his extreme hatred of Mr. R for years about this, even though Mr. R's savvy business dealings helped make Mr. J a millionaire many times over. When there was a later phase in Mr. J's career in which he was extremely successful both commercially and critically,  he was unable to enjoy that fully due to his rage.  This is because Mr. R had contributed several of the ideas for the project many years before, and had carefully documented them. And because of that, Mr. J's lawyers had no choice but to write Mr. R a big fat check.  The sad part is that not too long after, Mr. R was found violently murdered in his home. The murder has never been solved, and since Mr. R never married or had children, his piece of the band's earnings finally reverted back to the band and Mr. J.