Metal Anarchy

Business Insider have shared a new report focusing on music artists who allegedly misused COVID-19 relief funds granted by the Small Business Administration’s Shuttered Venue Operators Grant. Among those mentioned in the article were Alice In Chains and Shinedown.

Business Insider said the following about Alice In Chains:

“On March 23, 2022, records show, the Alice in Chains singer and guitarist Jerry Cantrell took in $1.4 million as an “SVOG distribution.” The band’s drummer, Sean Kinney, received the same amount, and its bassist, Mike Inez, booked half that sum, about $682,000.

In all, $3.4 million of the $4.1 million the grant allotted for payroll went to the three musicians at the top.

Like other grant applicants, AIC Entertainment — the three band members’ touring business — had to tell the government only that the money was “necessary.” But the month before they took their grant payments, the band members recorded about $48 million in income from selling the copyrights on their catalog. They made hundreds of thousands of dollars more from merchandise sales and other profit distributions in 2022.

The band spent some money to pay its staff. It paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to sound-equipment-rental firms, videographers, and managers. But the precarious nature of working in the live-entertainment business didn’t change for some of its employees. Scott Dachroeden, a guitar tech and tour photographer who had worked with the band for years, received a cancer diagnosis in late 2022. The band, which records show did not spend grant money on benefits like health insurance, circulated a GoFundMe page on Twitter.

“He has no health insurance and now cannot work to pay his bills,” the page said. The band’s lead singer said on Facebook that Alice in Chains helped out behind the scenes, but a person familiar with the situation said that Dachroeden didn’t get much, if any, money from the band during the pandemic and that after his diagnosis, the band connected Dachroeden with a charity that helps with medical bills. Dachroeden died soon after his diagnosis.

Alice in Chains‘ publicists and manager didn’t respond to requests for comment.”

They also added the following about Shinedown:

“Three of the four members of the rock band Shinedown split at least $2.5 million of their $8.3 million grant. On top of those distributions, Shinedown‘s four members paid themselves more than $100,000 each out of the roughly $1.2 million of the grant that was allocated to payroll.

The band’s 15 touring-production workers, meanwhile, received a combined $650,000 of the grant money — less than a single member of the band got. Publicists for the band didn’t respond to requests for comment.”

This news comes after Slipknot, Korn, Nickelback, The Smashing Pumpkins, and more previously got namechecked in Kentucky senator Rand Paul’s 2023 “Festivus Report” on wasteful government spending.