Eskimo Joe turns to Pozible for latest album

Australian band Eskimo Joe is using Pozible to fund its next album, with the aim of raising $40,000 via the online crowdfunding platform.

Pozible is fast becoming a household name among creative types, partly thanks to high-profile campaigns from the likes of Aquarius Films and STREAT, a social enterprise café operator.

Led by Rick Chen, Pozible is a local crowdfunding platform for creative projects and ideas, the latest of which comes from Australian alternative rock band Eskimo Joe.

The band has walked away from major record label Warner Music and has launched a Pozible campaign. Its goal is to raise $40,000 to cover the recording costs of its new album.

“We’ve made a choice to step out and take a fresh approach to writing and recording our next record,” it said on the Pozible website.

“This Pozible campaign is about creating the right set of circumstances to produce a great record and we’re really looking forward to enjoying the creative freedom that goes along with [that].”

Eskimo Joe said it sees the project as an opportunity to share the album experience with its fans, promising there will be many ways for them to get involved.

“Every package on offer here is exclusive to the supporters of the campaign,” it said.

“We’ll be producing two bonus songs during the album sessions that will never be available again and our ‘supporter only’ edition CDs and 12″ records will only be available through Pozible.”

According to Chen, Eskimo Joe’s appearance not only raises the profile of the Pozible platform, but adds further validation to the crowdfunding concept.

“It’s great exposure for us to have a big band to draw a crowd and draw attention [to Pozible] and draw attention to crowdfunding,” he says.

“For $6,000, you can book the band into your backyard to play for your friends. This sort of opportunity is very engaging for the fans and exciting, but it wasn’t open to the public before crowdfunding.”

“It makes the whole [funding] process more fun and engaging.”

To date, Pozible has overseen around 1,300 successful campaigns, totalling more than $6 million.

However, Chen has ruled out offering equity in Pozible projects, at least for the time being.

“We’re not offering equity-based crowdfunding anytime soon [but] we will have our eyes on it,” he says.

The real direction for the site, Chen says, is the concept of matched funding, whereby businesses and government organisations match the level of funding raised by Pozible campaigners.

Pozible has already partnered with ScreenWest, which has pledged to match the funds raised for certain projects.