The Truth of What Happened With The Hunna

I've waited more than five years to write this, not because I didn't want to before, but because the timing wasn't right.

Now, it's time for people to understand the truth about what really happened between myself and The Hunna.

The truth is that up until October 3rd, 2018, everything was going amazingly well.

High Time was considered one of the most innovative music companies in the world due to the unprecedented results we achieved with UK alt-rock artist The Hunna, from zero to selling 10,000 tickets in London in less than two years from their first show.

Up until this point, every objective I set had been achieved.

The results we were getting day in and day out were incredible, with outcomes that others deemed impossible.

For context, it is considered a big achievement for a band to sell 500 tickets in London after two years of starting.

In our case, we sold 10,000—twenty times what is considered a big achievement.

Furthermore, we also achieved a top 15 album position in less than a year from starting, sold 85,000 tickets across the UK, 60,000 record sales in two years, and generated 300 million streams across all DSPs (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, etc.).

Before I go on, I want to highlight that I had been working with the band for five years, with the first two years being a period where I personally bankrolled two of the band members, Daniel Dorney and Ryan Potter, to allow them to quit their jobs and focus 100% of their energy on writing songs.

This meant we had great songs ready to release at the point of launching the band, and I continued to bankroll the project by taking out credit cards and loans.

When the email arrived on October 3rd, 2018, from a lawyer the band had hired, terminating our working relationship, it came as a shock. 

We had never had any major disputes, and at no time was I ever made aware of a need to execute the dispute clause in the contract between High Time and The Hunna, whereby we would sit down formally to discuss and resolve any differences.

Prior to receiving the email, under the advice of Lyor Cohen (one of the most respected and successful music industry executives ever, and current CEO of YouTube Music), I had been working to get a US visa in place for myself, my wife, and my two young children.

This six-month process had been finalized, and we successfully received visas to allow me to work and reside in the USA. 

This was a crucial step, not only to allow me to further grow High Time but to expand the success of The Hunna to enable them to break through into the USA.

However, the band believed the grass would be greener on the other side, so they decided to end our relationship through a lawyer.

To this day, I have not heard a single word from them directly, despite having worked with them for five years between 2013 - 2018, and creating and executing the strategy that achieved impossible results on paper.

I also want to add that there was never any legal case that went to court, nor were there any court orders issued between the band, myself nor High Time.

The band has since discovered that the grass was not greener on the other side.

The management company that turned their heads dropped them like a lead balloon when they realized the band had no idea how we got the results that we had achieved, simply because it was not the band who built the machine that made it happen. 

That was me.

That was High Time.

Having good music alone was not enough to break records for The Hunna. 

The strategy that I developed and which my team executed was the missing piece.

We had 20+ people working on behalf of the band, day in and day out.

When they decided to do what they did, they not only lost someone like me who was prepared to fight to the death on their behalf, but they also lost the entire machine in High Time that I had created which allowed us to achieve such results. 

It was not just about breaking records for the band. 

For me, it was about turning my mission into reality; it was about starting a movement, turning heads and creating some noise to show it was possible to create a fairer world for artists outside of the traditional music business. 

And it was working extremely well.

I’m not going to go into much more detail here because I am now publishing additional chapters in my book, ‘Zero to Record Breaker,’ which outlines the statistical decline of the band since they made their decision and explaining why this happened.

Most everything Jack Parker from All Things Loud wrote about in terms of High Time owing people money was the direct result of the action the band took when they decided the grass was greener on the other side. 

I do not blame the band for this.

From the moment my interview with Music Business Worldwide was published, where I attacked traditional music business players for their unethical practices, I heard whispers that people from the industry were getting into the band’s heads.

They were fed constant lies.

One of the biggest, being that I was somehow stacking up the money and stealing it from them.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Up until this point, I had been reinvesting everything back into the project and ensuring the band was served at every level imaginable.

In 2019, the band would have been playing a sold-out arena tour across the UK. At this point, we would all have had a huge payday.

The powers that be knew this and took action at the very moment when I was maxed out at every level… but on the verge of making millions.

When the band took this action, my company, High Time Records, went from being on the edge of riches to being in a situation where there was no longer any income. 

Worse, so much money had already been invested into paying for venue deposits, marketing, and everything else associated with big shows that the band’s actions created huge losses.

The truth is that the person who lost the most money from this situation was me.

I was still owed money from the company for the initial seed fund I invested into the band.

With no income coming in, the company quickly found itself unable to cover costs, and it is true that because of this, many people did not get paid.

This is a symptom that any company on the planet would present in the same situation.

It was not a situation created by me personally.

If the band had never taken the action they did, this would not have happened, and nobody would have been unpaid.

This is 100% a fact.

Both myself and the band would have been very wealthy had we continued.

I was moving to the US with the objective of working to break them in the US and beyond.

The riches of our hard work together were about to come to us in abundance.

Everything Jack writes about in his hit piece is designed to damage my personal reputation as much as possible.

The original part one piece, which was massively distorted and designed to make me look bad, did provide some level of context as much of what I am writing about here was mentioned.

This piece was created at a moment when I was under an incredible amount of personal pressure.

What happened and the way the band did it, was not only a disgusting way to do business, but it also put myself and my family into a state of fight or flight, where we had to find a way to survive quickly due to no longer having any income.

We were poised to go to the US to the point of having our tickets booked and school places secured for our children.

Jack knew this, yet I can only presume he was excited by the idea that he could create content to bury me and hope to gain some traction on his blog.

Most of the people mentioned in his hit piece have their names redacted, and much of what was said is outright lies.

For example, he references my ‘right-hand man.’

I never had a right-hand man; I had a right-hand lady.

This lady has remained close to me since then, and we’ve even worked together on specific projects.

Many other former team members are also still close to me, some of whom are about to join the team again as I embark on this next chapter to resurrect High Time into the biggest and fairest music company in the world.

I was originally planning to write more here, but I do not believe it will add any value.

Instead, what happened is simple:

Myself and The Hunna worked together for five years. 

In that time, I personally supported them at a level most people would not. 

I invested my own money into doing this. 

Further, I created a strategy and built a team that collectively allowed us to achieve incredible results, taking the band from nothing to playing to 10,000 people in London in less than two years from their first show.

After five years, when we were on the cusp of making millions together, the band had their heads turned and decided the grass was greener on the other side.

I have not had a single word of communication directly with the band since that day.

The result of the band's actions meant that my company, High Time Records, instantly lost 100% of its income.

This loss of income meant it was no longer possible for the company to meet all its liabilities, and as a result, people did not get paid, including myself.

There have been no court cases against me personally, nor do I have any personal liabilities in relation to these matters.

I have spent the last five years getting to a place where I know I have the missing pieces of the puzzle to re-boot High Time and make my big goal a reality: to build the biggest and fairest music company in the world.

Despite the article being online for over five years, I still sold over 30,000 copies of my book, ‘Zero to Record Breaker,’ and I still have a huge loyal following of artists, fans and industry professionals, for which I am incredibly grateful. 

On the flip side, the article written by Jack Parker actually ended up serving as a filtration system, finding the artists and people who actually understood the magnitude of the work I did with the band and saw what happened for what it was—a situation totally out of my control and 100% in the control of the band themselves.

The simple truth is this: if the band had some grievances, all they needed to do was to request a meeting to talk about it.

Unfortunately they didn’t have the basic decency to do this.

Instead, they chose to terminate a relationship built on loyalty, based on hearsay and rumors from traditional old-world music execs, believing a better pathway awaited them.

As I write this, I hold no gripes with the band or feel any animosity towards them. 

They have suffered more because of their actions than I have.

The action they took led me to create an innovative and pioneering ‘People Metrics System,’ which ensures that High Time will never have to endure working with artists like The Hunna again, who showed signs of being difficult to work with even before we launched the project.

I’ve waited until now to put this reply up because this is the moment where I am truly ready to GO!

I’m ready to build High Time into the biggest and fairest music company in the world and in the process, create a brand new music industry where artists don’t just survive, they thrive.

-The Baker

It's High Time for change | #thetimetodoisnow

P.S. I am very active on my personal Facebook profile, which you can find here.