In one of the more bizarre things to happen in the music industry, legendary thrashers Queensryche have made their band public…and you can now own a stake in the band.

It seems like after the Geoff Tate fiasco the band have decided to go and revolutionise the music industry. With crowdfunding the current trend in music with bands turning to the fans to raise money to make individual albums, Queensryche have gone the whole hog and offered fans equity in the band in attempts to raise $2,000,000 for the band. While it seems totally bizarre to think that this would work, the concept presents a very interesting opportunity going forward in the music industry…

While crowdfunding attempts to cut out the middle-man in record distribution most bands still have to succumb to the risks of record labels taking the majority of profits of album sales. If you need clarification on the subject Jari Maenpaa of Wintersun has been particularly vocal about it recently. Having fans as your faux executives eliminates the corporate red-tape that seems to restrict many artists these days and allows the band and passionate fans to make decisions about their own futures. Fans will generate revenue from their initial investment into the band and the band themselves will get a bigger stake in all music related activities.

Of course the downside to this, especially from the Queensryche perspective is that every album produced by the band in the near future could be a theoretical re-recording of ‘Operation: Mindcrime‘. Fans can be quite temperamental with their favourite bands and could lead to a lot of conflict, but it’s nothing Queensryche haven’t dealt with before! There could be a lot of factors that would make this potential new business model for music difficult to work – we look forward to see how this develops!

A video was released by the band below to explain an outline of their new business model how you can invest in the band: