STONE leave Polydor Records after being “silenced, undermined, and ignored”

Liverpool band STONE have spoken out about their decision to leave Polydor Records. 

The band released their debut album Fear Life For A Lifetime in 2024, but frontman Fin Power posted on X (Twitter) on 9th May, voicing how the band felt "silenced, undermined, and ignored" by the major label. He first posted the statement on his personal Instagram account. 

Power’s statement explains the band is now writing their second album and that STONE is "stronger than [they've] ever been", but that "things nearly fell apart last year". 

The statement goes on to say the band was "guilt-tripped into [doing] TikTok dances", with the band being "brushed off" every time they brought up making an album.

 “I read about another artist who got completely fucked over by the same label. Their album got shelved. They weren’t allowed to release it independently. They ended up leaving and doing it their way, and now they’ve gone on to win seven BRIT Awards. I remember thinking that won’t be us. We’ve got a vision. We know who we are. We’ll be fine.”

That artist he was referring to is RAYE, who left Polydor in 2021 after claiming the label had refused to release her debut album after she signed a four-album deal with them.

Power continues, "We were silenced. Undermined. Ignored into thinking our instincts were wrong. Every 'no' chipped away at who were were... everything we cared about got stripped away. We lost ourselves."

"We got signed as an alternative rock band and slowly shoved towards pop. We were stuck in an identity crisis. I remember being sent Mix 4 of a song we recorded and thinking, wait, where the fuck is Mix 1? We weren't even trusted with hearing the evolution of our own sound."

Power also accuses the label of changing the band's sound, stopping the band from putting their "biggest track" on the album, and that the band was seen as a “product”. 

The post ends with with "We're writing music that feels real again. We're fucking happy again" before saying "And to the system that tried to turn us into something we're not - fuck you."

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Header image credit: STONE / Facebook.com