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All Leather: taking music back from Dim Mak
Justin Pearson unimpressed by Steve Aoki
"We just wanted our music back," says All Leather's Pearson.
“We just wanted our music back,” says Justin Pearson (Swing Kids, The Locust, Deaf Club). Founded in 2008, Pearson’s band All Leather originally released their debut EP Hung Like a Horse through Los Angeles-based Dim Mak Records, owned by Bitcoin enthusiast, NFT dumper, DJ and (as we’ll get to shortly) federal grant recipient Steve Aoki. A new career-spanning All Leather anthology, Amateur Surgery on Half-Hog Abortion Island, is set to ship at the end of July on Pearson’s Three One G label. It will include re-recorded or otherwise altered Dim Mak releases that Pearson says they’re taking back ownership of, including the full-length When I Grow Up, I Wanna Fuck Like a Girl, which won Best Hard Rock Album at the 2010 San Diego Music Awards. Pearson says he did not seek permission from Dim Mak to do this.
The fallout with the label started brewing almost immediately after their first releases. “Dim Mak stopped accounting to us after one of our tracks sold just shy of two million downloads - this is before streaming existed - so via Apple Music [at] $.99 per download, Beatport [at] $3.99 per download), etc. Granted, the sales were due to the masked Spiderman-esque DJ duo, the Bloody Beetroots, doing a remix for us, Hung Like a Donut [2009], but we were actually accounted for that track’s sales, which shows that All Leather made a little over $300 for that remix’s downloads.” While digital sales can be as confounding as Hollywood accounting practices, the overcharges and absence of reporting in other areas seemed a blatant “fuck you” to the artist.
“They also charged us for shit like a photo shoot that our friend did for free…so, needless to say, shit is pretty lame. They also took a vocal stem from an All Leather track and assigned it to another DJ duo called Religion, who released a song and video called ‘Burn the Bar Down.’ The lyrics of the song ‘Mystery Meat’ are ‘burn the barn down.’ I was not asked about that in advance, nor was I compensated other than Dim Mak saying ‘sorry’ and sending me a hundred bucks.”
Pearson, known for his outspoken views on social and political issues, took exception to a recent X (aka Twitter) post showing Aoki with a group of happy Bitcoin investors that included President Trump’s adult children. “This in itself seems alarming. However, it holds zero legal weight. It was more of a jarring moral point, seeing the guy who released our music standing with Trump’s degenerate garbage kids.”
But back to the numbers. “The recording budget for the All Leather LP was $7K. That was almost 20 years ago. However, the most recent statement we received after 14 or so years later says the band currently owes the label $14K. So if anything, it’s impressive that our debt to Dim Mak has doubled in almost two decades. Which I suppose makes sense. I guess I expect this situation from a dude who has allegations of misuse of funds from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant [SVOG], a COVID-19 relief program for struggling venues and arts groups. Apparently, Aoki’s company got a $2.4 million grant. Of that amount, $1.9 million was for officer pay. Oddly enough, according to a quick search online, Steve is the only officer.”
Pearson’s assessment isn’t just sour grapes. A 2024 Business Insider report based on documents seen by that organization alleges that Aoki, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, and members of Alice In Chains and Shinedown appear to have used SVOG funds on items such as designer clothes, private jets, and other non-essential purchases. It should be noted that fund dispersal was hurried by Congressional pressure, and little regard was shown for assessing eligibility or prioritizing need for the support. Instead, like many grants, the impetus was closer to “use it or lose it." The Small Business Administration oversaw the fund and, in February 2025, Business Insider reported that the agency would not be attempting to recover the 100 million-plus dollars in allegedly misused taxpayer money.
“Seems pretty fucked up when you consider how people could not pay rent or buy groceries, and died,” says Pearson.
Here's something you might be interested in.
All Leather: taking music back from Dim Mak
Justin Pearson unimpressed by Steve Aoki
All Leather: taking music back from Dim Mak
Justin Pearson unimpressed by Steve Aoki
"We just wanted our music back," says All Leather's Pearson.
“We just wanted our music back,” says Justin Pearson (Swing Kids, The Locust, Deaf Club). Founded in 2008, Pearson’s band All Leather originally released their debut EP Hung Like a Horse through Los Angeles-based Dim Mak Records, owned by Bitcoin enthusiast, NFT dumper, DJ and (as we’ll get to shortly) federal grant recipient Steve Aoki. A new career-spanning All Leather anthology, Amateur Surgery on Half-Hog Abortion Island, is set to ship at the end of July on Pearson’s Three One G label. It will include re-recorded or otherwise altered Dim Mak releases that Pearson says they’re taking back ownership of, including the full-length When I Grow Up, I Wanna Fuck Like a Girl, which won Best Hard Rock Album at the 2010 San Diego Music Awards. Pearson says he did not seek permission from Dim Mak to do this.
The fallout with the label started brewing almost immediately after their first releases. “Dim Mak stopped accounting to us after one of our tracks sold just shy of two million downloads - this is before streaming existed - so via Apple Music [at] $.99 per download, Beatport [at] $3.99 per download), etc. Granted, the sales were due to the masked Spiderman-esque DJ duo, the Bloody Beetroots, doing a remix for us, Hung Like a Donut [2009], but we were actually accounted for that track’s sales, which shows that All Leather made a little over $300 for that remix’s downloads.” While digital sales can be as confounding as Hollywood accounting practices, the overcharges and absence of reporting in other areas seemed a blatant “fuck you” to the artist.
“They also charged us for shit like a photo shoot that our friend did for free…so, needless to say, shit is pretty lame. They also took a vocal stem from an All Leather track and assigned it to another DJ duo called Religion, who released a song and video called ‘Burn the Bar Down.’ The lyrics of the song ‘Mystery Meat’ are ‘burn the barn down.’ I was not asked about that in advance, nor was I compensated other than Dim Mak saying ‘sorry’ and sending me a hundred bucks.”
Pearson, known for his outspoken views on social and political issues, took exception to a recent X (aka Twitter) post showing Aoki with a group of happy Bitcoin investors that included President Trump’s adult children. “This in itself seems alarming. However, it holds zero legal weight. It was more of a jarring moral point, seeing the guy who released our music standing with Trump’s degenerate garbage kids.”
But back to the numbers. “The recording budget for the All Leather LP was $7K. That was almost 20 years ago. However, the most recent statement we received after 14 or so years later says the band currently owes the label $14K. So if anything, it’s impressive that our debt to Dim Mak has doubled in almost two decades. Which I suppose makes sense. I guess I expect this situation from a dude who has allegations of misuse of funds from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant [SVOG], a COVID-19 relief program for struggling venues and arts groups. Apparently, Aoki’s company got a $2.4 million grant. Of that amount, $1.9 million was for officer pay. Oddly enough, according to a quick search online, Steve is the only officer.”
Pearson’s assessment isn’t just sour grapes. A 2024 Business Insider report based on documents seen by that organization alleges that Aoki, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, and members of Alice In Chains and Shinedown appear to have used SVOG funds on items such as designer clothes, private jets, and other non-essential purchases. It should be noted that fund dispersal was hurried by Congressional pressure, and little regard was shown for assessing eligibility or prioritizing need for the support. Instead, like many grants, the impetus was closer to “use it or lose it." The Small Business Administration oversaw the fund and, in February 2025, Business Insider reported that the agency would not be attempting to recover the 100 million-plus dollars in allegedly misused taxpayer money.
“Seems pretty fucked up when you consider how people could not pay rent or buy groceries, and died,” says Pearson.
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