I’ve been a bit hesitant to write this post, but I feel I want to share the story about how I went from becoming top 10 in a remix/cover competition to getting threatened by a label with legal consequences and in the end coming out as the winner. I wont share the names of the label or original artist in question, since I don’t need to bad mouth neither of them, even though there has been times I felt angry enough to do so.

Anyhow, it started in the fall 2018 when I jumped on the challenge to do a cover of a pretty nice pop song. Instead of making a remix, I wanted to make my own interpretation of the song.



So I spent a lot of time in the studio arranging and recording the song with acoustic guitar and orchestral arrangement. Then I teamed up with my friend and producer Tobi (Tobisonics) to mix and master it.

Then I sent the final version in and also got to know I was competing against 170 other entries. So my happiness when I got notified I had been shortlisted for winning the whole contest, but ending up just outside top 3, I got incredibly proud and happy.

Since I didn’t end up top 3, the label weren’t gonna release my version. So I contacted them via Messenger and asked permission to release it as a cover and they were very positive about it.

After we got the ok from the label, me and Tobi decided to polish up the song a bit mix and master wise since we had more time. And then I started to planning a big promotion campaign in social media, making videos, promotion pictures, blog post etc etc. And of course securing license to release it (so the songwriter gets their share of any royalties).

So finally it was time to release it on January 25th and I was super excited. I had pre-released it to my Messenger and e-mail subscribers and gotten a lot of great feedback for the song. Just two hours before it went live I got a really unpleasant message from the label that now demanded me to take it down.

Since I was pretty sure I had everything in place to release it and I had put in a lot of time and money in the release I refused to take it down and the tone from the label got even more threatening and unpleasant. And they also claimed that another label were the once demanding the take down.

At last, even though I thought I had done everything by the book, I felt pressured to take it down since I don’t have the time or knowledge to put up a fight against a label with paid lawyers. With all the time spend by both me and Tobi it felt really bad. But at the same time I contacted the other label, and their response made me a bit surprised, they had no idea about the issue and didn’t have anything against me putting it out.

So I mailed all the involved parties and suddenly the tone from the label changed a lot and finally, after a lot of wasted time, they changed their minds again and apparently I was allowed to release my cover after all.

And so, one month after the original release date I’m able to for real present my new song “Tables Have Turned” for all of you. I do have to admit I feel quite bummed out from all the work I had put down for the first release and how all of this made me feel quite down. But at the same time I’m really happy to see that I came out right from the whole process, and hopefully it can inspire some other independent artists to take the battle against the industry and actually claim your rights!

So #Keepoutofthemainstream and keep making great music!

