Complaint Review: Rage on Stage Management - Internet

This is a review/complaint on Frank James Welcker of Rage on Stage Management. Rage on Stage Management (now referred to as ROSM) is allegedly a professional management group in the music industry that handles business affairs for Rock/Metal bands signed under their roster. I honestly dont know where to start with this. First, allow me to share with you the reasoning for this review. This is an attempt to protect and warn any band that may consider the services of ROSM in the future. This is probably the only negative review youve found regarding ROSM and after reading you will understand why there are no others to be located. It should also be known that this review is protected by the very first Amendment of the Constitution of the United States; Freedom of Speech and most probably by whistle blower status as well. For those that dont want to read this lengthy review, my advice, not that I have established credibility yet, is to stay away from Frank James and DO NOT enter into a contact agreement with him. If your intuitive conscience can already sense he is full of s**t, listen to it! Has he told you his real name yet or is he still referring to himself as Frank James? This isnt the same Frank Welcker that worked for Shaker Management Group is it? You see, when he told us we wouldnt find anything bad about him on the internet, thats because he didnt give us his real name or the name of his previous business. I will try to keep this short, but there is a lot to review. Lets get started! ( <- Here we go.)
 
I first came in contact with Frank towards the end of 2011. My band had been utilizing the help of a personal friend/advocate who was performing basic management duties for us, but did not have the actual title, nor did she ask for any money. Our advocate friend was doing some work on ReverbNation and found a few management companies out there. In an attempt to help get us to the next level, she wrote a few emails and out of all the professional management services available, Frank wrote back.
 
Soon after, my number was forwarded to him and we began contact on the phone. After hours of conversation about what his company does for bands and his reputation in the industry, he presented us with a contract agreement to lock us in for at least 1 year, up to 3 years if mutually agreed upon and accepted. Part of the contract agreement is a retainer fee of $300 a month, which was allegedly funding for an individual who writes the press releases for ROSM. The four band members and I considered this contract for a few weeks and allowed several trusted sources to overlook the contract to make sure it was legit. There were a few quarks that needed to be worked out, but overall, we were told this was a pretty standard contract. Other than strong warnings, they said it was nothing special. Frank preached that he was a veteran professional in the industry and had the reputation to back it. However, he didnt give us any sources as to where he previously worked and because ROSM had only been in business a few years finding negative reviews was difficult.  He suggested we do our research and try to find anything negative on the internet about him. We did just that and, of course, found nothing bad. In the end we found just a few press releases about new band signings and the releasing recent bands. Why are there no bad reviews of his new business venture ROSM? Because Frank utilizes the power of intimidation and threatens to sue if anyone hurts the reputation of his company. During phone conversations with Frank, and pay attention because this is important as he MADE SURE this wasnt recorded or documented, he stated that he wouldnt hold the contract against us if we were not happy with his services or didnt feel like we were headed in the right direction. The contract is just a legality, as he stated on that first conference call with all of us and several times thereafter. FYI, we arent stupid. We know you cant take a mans verbal word over a signed contract. It doesnt work like that. A contract is a contract and no matter what was verbally said, you cant use verbal statements like this in court. With that being said, we foolishly signed the contract, got it notarized (as requested by Frank) and sent it to his address in Oklahoma (not California where the company is supposed to be based at) making it official as of January 1, 2012. In July of 2012, 6 months after signing when we were fed up with him, he of course, used the contract against us. we have a contract with your signatures on it and I'm holding strong on every stipulation therein. I'll take legal steps to enforce it if necessary. I will strongly enforce the "Termination By Convenience" provision of our Contract Agreement, by court order if I'm pushed to it.  I suggest you read that stipulation carefully. Its also worth pointing out we were seeking to terminate on the grounds of cause not convenience as they are very different types of termination.
 
Anyways, back to January 2012. We were very excited however. We were led to believe that we just made a big step towards a future and career as professional musicians. ROSMs first step was to let the world know they just signed a new band. They added us to the roster and updated all of their social media websites. Then came our first red flag. Only days after signing the contract a press statement was released that included a couple quoted statements from band members. These statements were actually false, as in made up (!) and were never verbalized or written by us. Furthermore, the statement didnt even sound like ANYTHING we would ever say! He asked us to proof read the press release before it went public, which we did. We informed him that we didnt say any of this stuff, nor would we even think to say something like that. One of the quotes stated that we sought him, when he sought us. Another quote said we sold out all of most recent Portland shows, which is simply not true. Their made up quotes from band members were absurd and laughable. And parts of it were actually copy/pasted from the band bio I wrote for our social media websites. He released the press statement anyways and we just wrote it off because no one saw it. He posted it on ROSMs Facebook one time and left the rest of the promotion up to us. You can find that press release now if you happen to search for it, but thats about as successful as it ever was. This is a perfect example of the press releases that he stated warranted a $300 monthly retainer.
 
During the next few months, the majority of our contact with Frank was via email. He began coaching us in a few different areas. Things like image, stage presence, that type of thing. At first, the longer we were with Frank, the scarcer it was to receive an email from him. He only wanted correspondence with one person in the band, me, so it was always one guys job to inform a band member(s) of how shitty they are at something. He coached us in a way that was insulting and consistently degrading. He actually told our girlfriends it was their job to use their feminine wiles to manipulate us into doing what he wanted. Dont get me wrong, some of his tips were helpful, but the delivery and the way he talked down to us must have been similar to how women and black people were treated before the civil rights movement. It was really over the top disgusting. He talked down to us like he owned us and many times just told us to, Do what I say. His perception and the way he treats people around him is just a littleoff. Its hard to explain. He never once treated us as musicians paying for a service, we were owned by him and his company and we had better not forget it.
 
After a couple months with ROSM, we were presented with an opportunity to do a short 3 week tour with another band under the ROSM roster. A band we were told was well known in their area of California. After a little research we found this to be true, this was a great band with a huge following (who also terminated their contract shortly after signing. This was exciting for us as we have never toured previously, however, two band members had jobs and three band members have families. In phone and email conversations with Frank, we stressed the concern of not having the money to cover hotel costs and fuel. He assured us that this is a professional tour and that we would be compensated at the end of each show depending on the draw. There was no actual dollar amount mentioned, but he said each show would definitely pay enough to get to the next one. After a few weeks of consideration and verbal promises from Frank, we agreed to do our first tour!
 
We had two months to prepare and save up some money to get us by. We were still booking our own shows to earn money. Frank suggested we buy merch to sell on tour as this will be our main source of income. We bought some shirts, a few decals and along with our professional CDs, we had a sufficient amount of merch to tour. We sought out a small enclosed trailer, costing $1,500, to tow our equipment behind the van. In these two months, we spent over $2,000 in preparation and were able to save up a little for food and fuel. Frank stayed in pretty good contact with us regarding scheduling and routing for the 15-16 booked shows we would be performing. One of those shows was actually booked by me. As the tour dates became official and everything was starting to unfold, the headlining band we were supposed to open for backed out. We later found out that Frank rushed to find ANY band that could tour. Much, much later we found out the band  backed out because working with Frank was damaging their reputations in their community. Its also worth mentioning that many of the shows booked for the tour were this other bands personal contacts. Contacts and venues that refused to work with Frank and his company after the band backed away from him. Basically, at the last minute, he talked a band under management into touring, against their original wishes stating that they are not ready for a tour. Frank had told us that we lost many venues due to the change in line-up and basically had to rebook half the tour. In the end, he was only able to book 13 dates, using the same amount of time but with little or no promotion and little to no local following. A venue in California contacted us on Facebook and asked us of why one of our shows was cancelled. It wasnt because we lost a headlining band, it was because of Franks poor business practices, he wanted everything for nothing. The impression the booking guy received from Frank also reflected a bad reputation on us.
 
We left for tour on a Wednesday and performed in Salem, Oregon. At this show, we were able to officially meet Frank for the first time. He was our best friend right off the bat. *Sarcastically* It was like he had known us for years and tried to compact a lifelong friendship into just minutes. Thats to be expected by someone who seeks to pick your wallet or manipulate you. We performed for a total of about 15 people that night including Frank, his girlfriend (who just happens to be a photographer taking photos of the bands) and the members of the other band. Overall, we had about eight or nine shows of this nature where 20 or less people were there. Only three of them had a draw of more than 50 people. One of which was a show located in our area, one that we promoted and sold tickets for, so a majority were there to see us. We believe this lack of audience was mostly due to absence of promotion from ROSM and for the venues on tour. In fact, two of the venues during tour didnt even know we were playing until we got there to check in. Part of the time, Frank didnt even know what was going on. Do you know what thats like? Being miles from home, driving multiple hours to play somewhere and have no one even know youre going to be there? Its pretty demotivating. After every show, there was some excuse from Frank as to why there was a lack of draw and money made/paid. Regardless, we were not making the money implied. Keep in mind that we were never promised a dollar figure, but we were led to believe that we would make enough to support the trip. He also stated that if, for whatever reason, we didnt make enough money and didnt have the cash to support things like food, gas and lodging, we would be taken care of. Never did he mention how we would be taken care of.
 
To start the tour, we played five shows in the Seattle area. Out of those five shows, the only one worth speaking of was at Hard Rock Caf, which didnt actually have that many people there besides other band members and girlfriends/wives. We made $80. My personal bar tab was more than that! That was the first time we made any actual cash from Frank. We made another $140 during an epic show in Boise, which had a full house of over 700 people, mostly because the bar in question had been giving away free tickets for the whole previous month. And throughout the rest of the tour we made a few bucks here and there, but never it amounted to anything much. I believe that only four, maybe five shows actually paid at all. During the entire tour, we spent over $1,200 on fuel and about $1,000 on hotel costs. Not including food and repair costs (guitars/van), or the $1,500 trailer. Not once did we receive anything that could be close considered taken care of, we were simply on our own. At times wed get lucky and a band member would have family in the area (free place to stay) and Frank actually asked to crash with us!! As if having 5 sweaty unshowered guys coming in late at night, after hours of driving, wasnt imposition on them enough. However, to be fair and appreciative, he did buy us a pizza one time on one particular tour date that turned into an absolute dud. No one showed up to this show. We are in Reno, NV on a Friday night on 4/20 of all days (party day of the year!) and no one showed up. WTF is that!? The sound system was faulty and the headlining band didnt even get to play that night.
 
That brings me to my next subject. As if an awesome band backing out on a tour last minute isnt enough, the new band we were opening for was dismissed for the remaining tour dates by Frank. Basically, this other band wasnt making money either and they were fed up with being led to believe the tour would get better. Thus, we continued the tour solo, assisted by Frank and his girlfriend/photographer. We played the remaining five tour dates under these same circumstances (low draw, no money) and finally ended up back home. Broke as s**t.
 
The last day of the tour was featured in our backyard at a venue we have performed at many times before. A venue we are familiar with how things worked, a show we knew would have a large draw because we promoted the show. We were all pretty excited as a band we had bonded with was coming out to play at the venue with us. There was a minor altercation that turned into a major deal between the singers girlfriend and security, who let her pass thru from the bar area to deliver a drink to the singer on stage. A few minutes later, she was forcibly taken by the arm and escorted out because there are no drinks allowed on stage. News to us! We had played there eight times and it was always previously acceptable. The venues security used excessive force and intimation on the 120 lb girl, (to the point of a 300lb man going to get boxing gloves from his car to give this girl what she deserved) As she was standing there calmly trying to explain that she had always previously been allowed to deliver drinks to her bf on stage, Frank immediately jumped to the defense of the bouncer and wouldnt even listen to what we had to say about it at all and HE didnt even witness any of it. We are all responsible adults and we have never had issues with security or a venue. He didnt listen to ANY of the witnesses at all except the out of line bouncer. Later the venue admitted fault and dropped the altercation altogether. Since then, the venue has asked us to play several times, even though had Frank made it clear we would never be welcomed there again. Frank used that against us many times to insult our professionalism and obviously didnt even have our back when we needed our manager to listen.
 
After the tour, we were broke. As a band and personally, we were broke. We had exhausted all of the accessible funds available and then some, only to make a few dollars in return. This is something we had stressed to Frank. But he didnt seem to care. His outrageously humongous ego led him to believe that this tour for the most part was pretty good. He stated that a few things didnt go according to plan, but overall, it was a good tour. You would think, after all that talking himself up, he admit fault when it was so blatantly obvious right? We didnt hesitate at all in informing him that although it was a good experience, the tour was overallshitty for us, for lack of better words. How can a management company book a tour, lose two bands in the middle of it and have the other lose THOUSANDS of dollars and say it was ok? Something we asked ourselves weeks after the tour, how do we even know we were paid accordingly? We never knew exactly how much each venue paid out or even how much Frank and the other bands got paid. We werent given access to that kind of information although it was stated in the contract as a requirement.
 
After tour, Frank heavily forced a sense on control over the band via phone/text and email conversations. He seemed to have a problem with everything! He berated the band constantly, from our music, to choreography, our image, our personal relationships. His language was so incredibly disrespectful it was literally mind boggling. We as a band would come together to write a measured reply, try to address his horribly stated concerns, tend to his ego and still make our own concerns known. And every time we were met with more criticizing language and Frank telling us he didnt have time to address our concerns or even read the part of the our e-mail detailing them. His level of drama takes me back to high school. We had appointments, set by our advocate friend who had previously been handling our business, one for a local radio interview and also a newspaper interview that would feature the band. We sent an email to confirm this was ok and Frank didnt like that we were handling some business affairs on our own. In this particular email, he stressed that As you know, I am a professional and I have been doing this for a pretty long time.  I know how the industry works, I know how to get results and I know what a band needs to be doing to get to the next level. He asked that all business affairs be handled by him. (Its also worth pointing out that he approved this newspaper interview 2 months prior to actually getting the go ahead from the paper, when this was brought to his attention he quickly stated that he had NEVER said such a thing, fortunately it was saved on my phone and I was able to forward it to him. Needless to say he didnt like being caught in a lie). We then agreed to let him get results and never again heard from the radio station or newspaper. He failed to keep in contact with the radio station and we did not get the interview or the newspaper article and then blamed that on our advocate, who had set the appointment in the first place. Proof is as follows: SIS has a signed contract for my services and all she (the advocate) does is interfere with what we do with our services.-Frank James Welker. Truth be told, Frank interfered and cost us a radio interview and the paper interview. Remember that all this time were paying HIM for a service, his personality and business protocols cost us opportunities to promote ourselves. He constantly berated the band and to top it all off was writing insulting emails about our girlfriends, whom, by the way are way supportive and want nothing more than for us to be happy. They are and will always be our biggest fans. In no way were our girlfriends actually getting in the way or involved in business affairs, but he stated that they were trying to dictate how to run my business and do my job. This was total bullshit on all levels. Additional insults were thrown out there in this email as well, things that were so unprofessional and inappropriate they would just blow your mind.
 
After we received this email, we all reviewed it as a group in hopes that we could make sense of why so much hostility was used to stress such petty concerns. We decided to write him back and comment on everything he wrote. We were respectful, non-threatening and wrote it from a we hear you standpoint despite the abuse we endured from him. The majority of my emails to him were like that. I had to agree to a lot of his remarks to attend to his massive ego because it would end the conversation without his feelers being wounded. We attended to his concerns, which consisted on our lack of image and professionalism, and explained that some of these things are situational. The email we sent back to him was long, addressing his offensively expressed concerns and also some concerns of our own that we wanted to stress to him, as mentioned previously, things we felt hurt the bands reputation and image. He responded with I dont have time for this right now, Ill get back to you. Three days later, he decides to write back attending to some, but not all of our concerns. It was so bad, possibly he was drunk when he wrote it? Once again, we got a poorly written tongue lashing about how we are hurting ROSMs reputation by our lack of professionalism. He told us that our girlfriends can be at the shows, but when it comes time to work they need to let you go from 2 hours before the show to 1 hour after. Really? He expected us to tell our life partners and some of our biggest fans to just simply f**k off? Get real fool!
 
After this email, and the months of being talked down to and controlled, we wrote him an email suggesting that we part ways. We lost so much money as a group, that two bands member sought more work and got new jobs to catch up. This created a lack of availability to play shows. In this email, we told him we can no longer afford to give him $300/month. After all, a couple shows a month booked by him doesnt pay enough to pay his fee much less get us to and from a show. He gave us an offer, loaded with legal intimidation. One offer was to stay at a lower price and another to terminate and pay him a bunch of money. Being that we didnt have money, we were s**t broke from tour and trying to catch up on personal bills after spending our savings on his tour, we decided to take the lower payment of $150/month and have him continue to book shows. More shows that also had no draw.
 
It wasnt even 3 weeks later that we sent him an email to let him know this isnt working out. His shows were constant busts, he wanted us/our advocate to promote on our social media sites then turn hed around and tell us we had no business promoting. We could no longer humor his egotistical personality or his arrogant and vulgar comments about our music and girlfriends. All of us decided that we need this guy out of our lives. He needs to go. He is too much drama and too much stress. If this was what the next level entails we were happy to have our awesome local following and play locally forever. Being degraded and talked down to, humiliated and intimidated, having our partners called inappropriate slurs, and being treated as though we were a thing bought and paid for, I own you attitude. We were a group paying for services but we werent treated like it. On a personal note, almost every venue we have ever played has commented on our professionalism, loading in and out quickly and quietly and our fantastic shows. We have been a band for five years and never have encountered such juvenile and dramatic bullshit. We couldnt afford to pay him $150/month when he isnt booking shows that make any money, especially with our lessened availability because of all the money we lost on tour. He then started booking shows without our consent, not checking with us at all (!). This of course, led to us having to cancel those shows, thereby hurting OUR reputation, which in turn also led to us hurting the reputation of ROSM and the threats came thereafter. Blame was always placed on the band, even when Frank was clearly responsible and clearly in the wrong, never did he take actual responsibility for any outcomes. He stated to us that no one would take us seriously if we were not signed to ROSM. As laughable as it really was. After all, we had been a band for 5 years and actually had way better turnout and pay when we and our advocate were booking shows. After days of additional insults and ego-driven comments, we finally came to a settlement. We were actually willing to give him money to make him go away. Thats how important it was to get this negative influence out of our lives. Pay him to go away. So we did.
 
Days later, he referred to us on Facebook as trying to soar with eagles when youre working with turkeys, he had also referenced us as unprofessional turkeys in this fashion in a personal e-mail. As stupid and humorous as we thought it was, we took no offense. After all, we paid him the money and still felt like we won because we would never have to talk to his a*s again. One of our girlfriends posted a photo to his page of a cartoon turkey flipping him off in response to his turkey comment, it was really a pretty funny pic, not really that inappropriate, and after everything he had said to us and about us, and her and the other ladies, it was a VERY light retort. This turned into more insults, but this time more f*cked up serious. He publicly and relentlessly, WRITING AS Rage on Stage Management, replied to the girlfriend as follows: Cuntdrunk b***h! Good thing I have your s**t a*s blocked to post. Continuing in a new post, loser a*s, have some class b***h. Minutes later, this post was deleted by him to prevent hurting his own reputation, but not before she captured a screen shot of the offending statements.

 
Oh boy, this led to some serious drama. He threatened to sue the band about 20 times after this. He demanded we take down photos his girlfriend took of us on tour or he would sue us for copyright infringement. We all received days of emails about it and additional threats. So, we did just that, we took down the photos. He then dragged it on and on until I finally told him to just f**k off. I literally had to tell him to stop contacting me.

Heres the kicker though. We are not the only band that has experienced this. We are one of 5 bands that have experienced this lack of personal character and professionalism. Previously it would have been next to impossible to find the truth about Frank James Welker as he sets you up from the start to be researching the wrong person. This guy is a nightmare. And he has a s**t reputation once you start researching in the right direction. This report is straight whistle blower status. Someone has to stand up and protect local bands from this vulture. If hes trying to sign you right now I highly advise you to do more research before proceeding. FIVE BANDS in the last 4 months have parted ways with him without having to pay him anything, just by simply telling him to f**k off. Since parting ways, we've heard that his LLC is no good, making it illegal to collect money and that the contract is fake. Copy/paste contract with typos. We technically got screwed on this deal. But well be the last.