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Within the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated stay-home orders, issues received fairly bleak for lots of full-time artists, musicians and crew members. This led to a program known as the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, which was established as a manner to assist out struggling venues and artists. Based on a brand new report from Business Insider, which reviewed hundreds of paperwork associated to the grants, many artists misused the funds they acquired by way of “loan-out corporations — company entities used to deal with the enterprise of touring,” which raises questions concerning the ethics and oversight of such applications.
Many artists acquired giant sums of cash, however this new report from Enterprise Insider has led to hypothesis about the way it was spent and why funds weren’t extra intently monitored. Lil Wayne and Chris Brown allegedly misused thousands and thousands of {dollars} on events and designer clothes, whereas grunge legends Alice in Chains got here underneath hypothesis to be used of their grant cash.
From the Enterprise Insider article and report:
“Based on the report, ‘On March 23, 2022, information present, the Alice in Chains singer and guitarist Jerry Cantrell took in $1.4 million as an “SVOG distribution.’ The band’s drummer, Sean Kinney, acquired the identical quantity, 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 on the high.”
Enterprise Insider notes that the month earlier than they acquired the grant, Alice in Chains made $48 million promoting the copyrights on their music catalogue. Some cash was paid out to employees, videographers, rental corporations and managers however grant cash was not spent on issues like medical health insurance or serving to longtime guitar tech/crew member Scott Dachroeden when he turned sick with most cancers.
Alice in Chains shared a GoFundMe for Dachroeden, who’s now deceased, and the band stated they helped financially behind the scenes, however an individual near the state of affairs instructed Enterprise Insider that is not true.
Whether or not or not there are penalties or additional investigation, for both the artists who acquired cash or the overseeing Small Enterprise Administration, stemming from Enterprise Insider’s report continues to be to be seen.
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