Never waste a good crisis…or scam in the case of Real Sickies.<\/p>\n
Imagine being asked to write a song for a six year old’s birthday. His name is Danny and his dad wants to pay $500 for the song. An insane amount, but you accept it since due to the pandemic you haven’t played a show in ages. The dad provides you with some cute trivia about what the kid loves. The song basically writes itself.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, there is a problem with the dad’s bank account, and he won’t be able to send the money until later. Your gut feeling tells you something’s off. You go online and discover there is an ‘original birthday song’ scam<\/a> going on targeting artists in the area. The scammer eventually pays for the song, but over deposits the money. When the well-meaning artists return the overpayed amount, the scammer’s cheque bounces. Artists lose the money they’ve returned and have to pay for the bank fees as well.<\/p>\n It’s an evil trick, but fortunately in this case, one Real Sickies narrowly escaped.<\/p>\n You know what’s best about this story? Real Sickies decided to release the birthday song (Danny<\/em>) anyway, and record two additional songs. One is a rerecorded version of Danny<\/em> with lyrics about the scam(mer), and the other is a short cynical happy birthday song. It’s simultaneously bittersweet, funny and ironic, and executed in the powerpop\/ramonescore\/poppunk style the band by now has perfected.<\/p>\n Leave it to Real Sickies to turn a negative into a positive. Press play, grab some popcorn and check out the band’s Facebook<\/a> post on March 5th for behind the scene footage (i.e., screenshots).<\/p>\n