.::: Official Home Page Of Marcel Jacob :::.

Talisman's debut album, "Talisman" , yielded a huge hit with the song "I'll Be Waiting" shortly upon its release in 1990.

Regarding the statement from Z records saying that the public can expect a Humanimal album 2003/2004. Says Marcel: "I won't do it, Jeff won't do it, it's possible Pontus Norgren might go for it, but that would be like Ace Frehley releasing a Kiss album without Paul Stanley & Gene Simmons."

"Admittedly, the name Humanimal is not copyrightable and therefore I can't stop Mark Alger from using it, but that name has for so long been associated with Marcel Jacob,Jeff Scott Soto, & Talisman that for him to use it for something different is in quite poor taste. It's a shame this person has to try and exploit other people's creativity in this manner."

1/17/2003 - Hard Rock Musicians Join Forces To Expose Record Label's Unscrupulous Business Practices

More than a dozen primarily Sweden-based hard rock musicians have joined forces in an effort to bring to the public's attention to what they allege are unscrupulous business practices adopted by England's Z Records in their dealings with the artists signed to the label.

Former YNGWIE MALMSTEEN/current TALISMAN bassist Marcel Jacob, ex-MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP singer Leif Sundin, former YNGWIE MALMSTEEN/current TALISMAN singer Jeff Scott Soto, and PRISONER/RAINMAKER guitarist Tommy Denander are among the world-renowned recording artists that have teamed up to produce an official statement outlining what they allege are deceptive, fraudulent, immoral and un-ethical means regularly utilized by Z Records owner Mark Alger to blatantly cheat the artists signed to his company out of monies and payments rightfully owed them under the terms and conditions of the respective artists' written contracts with the label.

" Payments according to contract: This simply does not happen. Invoices get sent to Z as per the signed contract, but payments never arrive. Mark will stall any way he can and he's almost made it an 'art form' to come up with new non-believable excuses. He will claim that 'the check is in the mail,' send checks that won't get accepted by any bank, or send checks that bounce. If you try to make him do a money transfer, he'll keep you busy sending and re-sending your bank info or claim that the money was sent and for some reason returned to him. Excuses range from 'there must be a problem with your bank' to 'the delay is due to the fact that the IRA bombed our post office' (imagine explaining to studios, photographers etc that the money is delayed because of these things). Some of us have gotten some money from Z, others nothing at all.

"1 - One band waited for several YEARS for their money. One of Mark's scams was to ask if he could pay through PayPal. The band agreed and Mark deposited 20 'just to see if it works', which it did. Then nothing happened with the rest of the payment so the band contacted him again only to be told that he now needs some 'card' plus 4 numbers to be able and make the payment but it worked fine at first??

"2 - He will agree to almost anything to get a band signed, promise a certain budget to ensure the band a good studio etc. But after the bands sign, the money never arrives, months (sometimes a year) go by, and the bands are often forced to pay the studios and personnel [involved in the recordings] out of their own pockets to finish the albums and even get their master tapes released from studios. He knows that as soon as a band is signed, he can pull his regular scams on them.

"3 Mark will promise to pay all travel and housing costs for bands flying in to Z Rock shows if they can 'only' pay out of their own pocket to get there. The band is told that they will be paid at the arrival, only to find out 'the money will be paid out as soon as you get home'. Of course it's rarely the case and some artists are out many thousands of dollars to this day.

"4 - He claims his bank in England can't make a bank-to-bank transfer to a couple of the biggest banks in Sweden due to all kinds of invalid reasons. When artists call their banks with all the proper information needed, they're told, with great confusion, that there's no problem at all and 'it seems that this person in England is only trying to avoid paying you.'

"- Statements according to contract: If statements are sent at all, they are always late, sometimes by several years. They contain inconsistencies, posts of extreme undisclosed expenses, and answers to queries as to what the statement contains will be met with angry retorts or hand-scribbled (unreadable) notes. At one point, a few of us from different acts examined each other's statements the numbers were exactly the same! No invoices are included to prove some of the ridiculous amounts listed. He has many times said things like, 'I've given all the info to our accountants who will send out the statements to you within a week,' and then made the mistake a few days later by telling the same person that HE has just finished the statements and is just about to print them out. They are NOT the work of any professional accountants but rather the work of Mark himself.

"- Nonpayment of mechanical royalties: Mark will try to persuade artists not to sign publishing deals. He has even gone so far as to sign away publishing without informing the artist and keeping the money himself. Those of us who already had publishing deals have been curious as to why we have been unable to collect, and if we have, why the numbers don't match royalty statements from Z.

"- Announcements: Mark will make any announcement possible for the purpose of keeping interest up. They are time-consuming to disconfirm. Recent victims of this are John Sykes and HUMANIMAL (no, there will not be another HUMANIMAL album at least not for Z!). John Sykes was (and still is) listed as an artist at the Z web site before the deal that later fell through was signed. Of course, all labels makes announcements as they should, but few are so blatantly self-serving as Z's.

"- Advertising: Mark has booked ads with a number of magazines & web sites that have been published and not paid for. He consistently keeps them in debt, probably in order to be able to control what they publish. There are sites that won't/can't say anything negative about Z out of fear that they won't be paid. One magazine we know of has gone bankrupt due to non-payment by Z. And one very big magazine in Sweden won't publish any more ads from Z, only reviewing Z albums out of respect for the artists. And yet Mark has charged us all huge amounts of money for promotion!

"The list could go on and on. Here's one more example of how things can go: [TALISMAN guitarist] Fredrik Akesson signed a licensing deal for an band/album titled SOUTHPAW with Z. He financed the album out of his own pocket. The contract he signed is in very poor standard, doesn't entitle him to statements or a specified time when he should receive royalties, or any legal recourse. You may say that was not so clever on his behalf, that he should only have himself to blame ŗ we say that record labels ought to have a commitment to ethic principles. Anyway, the term was for 3 years, it has expired 2 years ago, Z is still selling the album and Fredrik has yet to receive a royalty statement or any royalties.

"All of us have individually tried to sort things out with Mark, and it has been time-consuming and traumatic to the point that there are artists that just can't handle being involved in anything regarding Z anymore, and therefore haven't signed this document. But believe us, all artists from Sweden signed prior to 2002 have left or are leaving and in the last couple of days we're please to hear about several international acts that have decided to 'jump ship' as well plus one American band were able to avoid signing with Z thus 'saving them a lot of headache' (their words)

"Legally, we have been advised that there are too few of us who have any legal recourse written into the contracts, and for those of us who do, the costs we would incur for lawyers and accountants would be quite high. And that this would be a very high risk since Mark would in all probability either place his money out of reach or go bankrupt in order to evade our claims. In the meantime, Mark Alger lives well and drives expensive cars.

"We're all aware that this press release will neither get us our due money or 100% prove to all of you there what's going on it might even hurt our chances of working with a few other labels in the future. Who knows? But the bottom line is simple: If we don't rid ourselves of this label and person now, many others will suffer in the years to come artists, bands, web sites, magazines, promoters, and many others.

"Help us copy this mail to all you know in the music industry and please post it on all your web sites around the world.

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