In disgust over a $400 royalty check, Steve Kilbey posted the following statement to his Facebook page: "I have decided to leave my own band permanently as a protest to being fucking treated like this. I have decided to illegally and eventually put all Church records up on my bandcamp. You can buy them from me and make sure the money is going to a member of the band."

Second Motion label owner Stephen Judge posted a rebuttal (full text on The Church's Facebook page) and here is a snippet from the message: "First and foremost, the comments about the band making only “$100 each” is totally false. The rest of the band shares our frustrations in the fact that there is information out there saying otherwise, its simply not true and every other member of the band will tell you this is not true and are doing so where appropriate to respond to these comments."

Kilbey posted a furious response to Judge's letter (full text on Steve Kilbey's blog): "i am so fucking sick of being ripped off and underpaid. you are the final straw that broke this camels back. let me make this plain. i am leaving the church because of you"

It is sad to see Steve Kilbey bow out on this note but not shocking as I've been reading about a number of musicians who go out on a sold-out tour and come back owing the label money. For anyone who wants a more in-depth look at the inanities of the music business, Tim Quirk (Too Much Joy) posted on in-depth write-up of the misaccounting on his band's royalty statements.

Links:
The Church