Following up on a story from 2023, the music industry was one of the most devastated due to COVID-19 pandemic took hold, the U.S government signed into law The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant. It was for payroll, and operations capitol for venues and bands. It was meant to keep artists afloat during the lockdowns. Touring did not really resume full-time until 2021. The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant and the Paycheck Protection Program – these federal loan programs were created in 2020 to help businesses, and self-employed workers, impacted by the COVID-19 etc. during the lockdown.
However, there’s long been allegations of bad actors abusing the program for their own financial gain. Back in December of 2023, U.S. Senator Rand Paul publicly railed against the lack of accounting transparency as to how artists who received aid through the grant and loan programs actually used that taxpayer money.
In his 2023 ‘Festivus’ Report On Government Waste, Paul also provided figures of some of the various musicians from heavier genres who took part in the relief programs. Among them were Slipknot ($9.7 million, while their ‘Knotfest‘ festival also received a $1,050,736 grant,) Korn ($5.3 million,) Nickelback ($2 million). The Smashing Pumpkins were also among the names, along with rappers Post Malone, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown and more.
While no wrongdoing was revealed in said report, Paul remained concerned about just how the money was actually used, stating at the time, “while some may claim these funds were used to keep supporting staff, artists were not required to do so, and we have no way of determining how these blank checks were used.”
A newly published report by Business Insider has now shed the light on where at least some of those funds were apparently directed. Citing accounting documents both verified and reviewed directly by the publication themselves, their report also added some new names to the list, including grunge legends Alice In Chains and multi-platinum hard rockers Shinedown.
https://www.businessinsider.com/lil-wayne-chris-brown-covid-relief-funds-svog-grant-2024-12
No fraud was alleged, but Business Insider‘s report. As for their findings regarding the accounting documents regarding Alice In Chains & Shinedown, they wrote:
“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.
Alice in Chains‘ publicists and manager didn’t respond to requests for comment.’
‘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, 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.’