Long Island Sound: A 5-grand gesture for Blameshift

After Blameshift returned from its national tour last summer, the Syosset band was ready to make a new album. The music industry, however, wasn't.

Instead of waiting for everything to fall in place, the band took matters into its own hands and asked for some help from fans.

"A friend of ours, Russel Hornbeek, the founder of Music Saves Lives, suggested that kickstarter.com might be the best way to raise money for the new album," says Blameshift guitarist-vocalist Tim Barbour. "We checked it out, and we decided to go for it."

Blameshift set a goal of $5,000 to record the new album in Los Angeles and ended up raising more than $5,500 in three months for the project on kickstarter.com. Barbour says the band will head to California to start recording the album next month with producer Erik Ron.

"We were so happy they accepted us, because your project has to be chosen," Barbour says. "Then, we came up with a ton of different incentives to explain to fans why they should donate."

The pledge levels ranged from $5 for an early digital download of the band's forthcoming single to $10,000 for a full-page ad in Alternative Press celebrating the donor, as well as a round-trip ticket to the album-release party. No takers for that one, but they did have a $1,000 donor, who will get a show by the band.

"We even got two people who donated $250 to get a hand-knit scarf from Jenny [Mann, Blameshift's singer]," Barbour says. "It means so much to us that our fans wanted to help, especially those who don't have a lot of money."

Blameshift plays a free show at Hot Topic at Roosevelt Field Mall at 6 p.m. Thursday.

Contact The Long Island Sound at glenn.gamboa@newsday.com or follow @ndmusic on Twitter.