Unlikley, that's not really how it works. You'll get zero label interest this way. They'd approach labels directly, management will be putting the feelers out and talking to labels, sending them samples. Ori has a deal with Frontiers, so that's one avenue, although not sure how they'd feel about it not being a rock record. RSO was on BMG so they will talk to them directly also. Is Doc still managing Richie? If so, he will have plenty of contacts.

If Doc was involved I think more would be happening by now. Or he's so low on his totem pole between Kiss and others maybe he is, I don't know.

Just so odd this albums been finished for ages and no release date


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According to the McGhee entertainment website i just found they only have Kiss, Ted Nugent, Down Paul Stanely and Caleb Johnson now.

A lot of labels still have a backlog of releases from last year, so signing new artists os not really a priority at the mo. Getting the right deal can also take a while, Richie is probably holding out for the right label and doesn't want to make the same mistakes as RSO (hopefully).

I do wonder who is managing him now, as it's not McGhee...maybe he's looking to get management in place first. There are a lot of cogs in the machine, so it can take more time that people think. It's not like Richie is an act that sells huge amounts and can walk into a great label deal - it takes work and negotiations.

This is important if a lack of label support is what's holding back an album. Richie may not be able to find a label that gives him what he wants. Still, in this age he isn't going to be making money off this album, so there are other ways to release it without a label.

I doubt it's really about money at all for Richie, but more about exposure. The RSO album was released with no promo or fanfair. Even a lot fans didn't have a clue it was out. He needs to avoid a mess like that again. There's no point making an album that you are proud of and then nobody knows it's been released.

You're right, you can totally do it without a label, but that's a lot of work and takes a lot of time to get right (again could be a reason for the delay). A label already has distribution, manufacturing etc in place, so that would be the easiest option all round. I think a good strong Indie label is the way to go. Unfortunately I think the bad experience with the leak and then the label going under just after Aftermath was released may have put him off the Indies.

I mean to be fair the leak was from his own damn camp.

Was it? How do we know that?

I'm pretty sure Richie's buddy, Phil Cassens (?), posted it on Soundcloud. I don't remember his role; but he was working with Richie on the album.

Interesting, I never knew that, thanks. What a silly move that was!

Yup yup. He co-wrote Learning How to Fly With a Broken Win and I THINK one other (maybe You Can only get so high?)

It was from his personal soundcloud that had rough mixes of the songs. A select few people found it by accident, it was up for a week or two under Aftermath of the Lowdown. View count was pretty low but as soon as Richie announced the title and people started googling it, it was just about the only link for it.

It really did feel like a genuine mistake, not realizing it was set to public not private. I never thought it was intentional. To be honest some days I feel really bad I didn't do more to let his camp know it was up to help stop the leak before it happened.

Well that was the whole reason Forgiveness Street is widely available, no?

Yes. I think the leak was easily something like 3 months prior to the official release? Didn't something similar happen with Undiscovered Soul in Japan as well?

Someone posted something about that recently, but I'm not sure that is correct. I certainly didn't hear it until I got a hold of the early Japanese release and don't remember anything about a leak, but then they were different times and people were still trading rather than downloading. I always thought it was because Richie was over there doing a lot of promo with a Japanese artist that he did a single with and the label wanted to cash in on that, but I could be wrong.

The Japanese version of Undiscovered Soul was RELEASED early, as in: Sold. As far as I know, it wasn't like the scenario with - for example - Kiss, where a bootleg of a still unreleased album was sold, but the Japanese label just officially released the (as of then unfinished) album early. So I'd say it's quite different, especially compared to a leak.

And I don't remember how early the Aftermath leak was, but it was a LONG time before the release. Might have been even longer than three months.

Really gotta check if I still got that early leak. Also never really looked into whether the mixes were different from the final ones on AOTL. Did anybody do that?

The mix changes were pretty minor. A few songs had some rougher count-ins lopped off for the proper release, Richie had a very Grohl-esque growl in the intro to Nowadays.

If I recall, Nowadays was added pretty far after the rest were and I feel like that was in a lower quality.

EDIT: Looked into it, it was released in Sept of 2012 and the press release went out in July of that year. By that point it had been up for a month or two.

Now that you mention it - yeah, Nowadays was added later on and criticized as too much of a Bon Jovi-styled song on here back then. My early files also date back to somewhere in June of 2012, so the leak really was early.

The first RSO EP met the same fate.

RSO was just terribly marketed. Barely anybody knew it was out, you couldn't even find the ****ing artist in Spotify thanks to the name, and I don't think I've ever seen it in stores.

Speaking of stores, is Aftermath still that silly expensive? Amazon only seems to list market place sellers, indicating it is out of print. At least that one had a cool cover...

Haha I totally forgot the EP accidentally leaked too.

That was only a few days before the actual release though wasn't it?

Definitely out of print, but you can still pick the CD up on eBay for less than £15.

I regretted not going for the deluxe vinyl box set that was sold though his website for a while.

Yes, it was exactly a week before.

True story. It took me a while to find it in the streamings too.

My God, I'm crying.

You're a goddamn treasure haha

Thanks man. That's a really nice song.

Nice song, thanks for sharing

There's something about the sound that reminds me of You're Not Alone and Learning How To Fall. I love this one.

Would love to track down the era. Does anyone know when that promo CD was released? Based on the tracklisting and shape of his voice I'd guess post Undiscovered Soul pre Box- set.

Also HOLY CRAP, GOOD FIND.

How are the other two? Ballads? Rockers?

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Kinda similar mid-tempo numbers.

I'm presuming that the version of If I Can't Have Your Love is the same as the box set version, so the latest recording on the promo is Great Hall Of Fame, which I believe is from 2008 (correct me if I'm wrong), so it would have to be sometime after that but before Aftermath (2012), I would imagine, that the Promo was released.

Oh yeah, good call. Great Hall of Fame was released 2008 but written much earlier. It was one of the songs on David Bryan cassette vault that was auctioned within the last few years. I would assume the final version is the one on this but all bets are out the window because these three songs were included.

Great Hall Of Fame was from 1995 as far as I remember. In 2000, Richie said that he was contemplating doing a compilation album of the first two records, "like the best of them and adding three new tracks." That's exactly what the CD is. Furthermore, the publishing company doesn't seem to exist anymore and can't be tracked down, so I guess it's a promo CD from the early 2000s.

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I don't know about the date of the CD, but the song sounds like a cross between Fallen From Graceland and All That Really Matters. My guess is it's an outtake from US.

True, but it probably wouldn't have been the same as what would have been released as the "best of". It would have been put together by the publishers, not any label or Richie. These kind of CDs were pretty common at the time to push the artists back catalogue and songs to other artists to record, or for stuff like inclusions in movies and TV ads. They would choose songs that they felt would suit this medium rather than an actual best to picked by the artist. I doubt very much that this had any connection to the planned Best Of, as you'd expect that to be put out there by a label rather than the publishers. But who knows..?