Soldiers marching solo.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

ROCK 'N' ROLL SOLDIERS CD RELEASE With: Western Aerial, Vatara, the Tunnel Kings When: 8 p.m. today Where: WOW Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave How Much: $10 in advance, $12 at door

When the Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers march on stage at the WOW Hall tonight it will mark the end of a waiting game that began two years ago when the Eugene band signed a lucrative four-record deal with Atlantic Records and the clock began ticking on the release of a new album.

It will also mark the beginning of a new chapter for the group, which is severing its ties with Atlantic Records.

"We're in a really good place for an indie band," says lead singer Marty Larson-Xu on Thursday, embracing his new identity as an independent artist.

If Larson-Xu seemed overly upbeat, it's because of the terms of the deal, which will allow the band to release an album originally intended to be on Atlantic Records on its own label, RNRS Records.

Through some skillful negotiations and a rare bit of benevolence from a major record label, the group found a way to be released from its contract and still retain the rights to the recordings and music videos it made while on Atlantic's payroll.

It's a settlement the band's lawyer calls uncommon but not unprecedented.

"I think Atlantic, at the end of the day, did the right thing," says Paul Sommerstein, a music lawyer who also represents Will Oldham, the A Frames and dozens of other artists.

"I wish it would have worked out so that Atlantic wanted to put the record out, but I think that's a risk you take as a new band with no prior history, no sales, no touring history," Sommerstein says.

When the Soldiers signed their big deal with Atlantic in June 2004, the group was an unknown quantity outside of Eugene.

Founded in the late 1980s at Roosevelt Middle School, the group built a local following playing all-ages music venues such as the WOW Hall.

Named after a Radio Birdman tour, the Soldiers modeled themselves on the Stooges, the MC5 and other forefathers of punk.

Larson-Xu, a former varsity basketball player at South Eugene High School, competed alongside NBA draftee Blake Stepp before suffering a stress fracture during his senior year that cemented his career in music. Original guitarist Lucas Gunn left the band in 2004 and was replaced by Frenchman Kevin Sciou.

After signing with Atlantic, the Soldiers spent a month in a Hollywood recording studio tracking the bulk of the songs that appear on their new record, "So Many Musicians To Kill."

Then they embarked on an almost constant cycle of touring and self-promoting in anticipation of its CD release, which was scheduled for late 2004 and then repeatedly pushed back.

The band's songs appeared in video games, TV shows and cell phone commercials and the group toured everywhere from small clubs to major arenas. They released a pair of EPs on smaller labels, toured with the band Less Than Jake and appeared in an MTV reality show.

Despite the marketing blitz, Larson-Xu says the there were signs the record label wasn't interested in releasing the band's album anytime soon.

The group was repeatedly sent back into the recording studio to re-record songs and track additional tunes and there were whispers that the higher-ups had lost faith in the band. Two months ago, the group "delivered" its album to Atlantic, a move that contractually required the label to either release the record or let the band go.

"I didn't feel like we could move forward. We were stuck," Larson-Xu says. "We could tour, but you can only do so much when you don't have a CD. It was like this never-ending waiting process."

Now ready to move forward, he says the Soldiers will continue to make Eugene their home base, but may spend time living in another city with plans to re-enter the recording studio later this year.

Many in the local music community were not surprised to learn on Thursday that the Soldiers had parted ways with its major label sponsor.

But the fact that the band managed to escape with their master tapes in hand seemed remarkable to many familiar with the ways of the music industry.

"I could tell you a half a dozen instances of musicians who never got their tapes back," says Howard Libes, owner of the Eugene independent label Happy Mistake and a veteran of the music business.

The list of bands that have lost control of their own music after signing with a big record label is long and includes Springfield's own Marigold, which lost the rights to its recordings after being signed to a label in the Geffen Records stable and then dropped in the shuffle created by the 1999 sale of PolyGram to Seagram's Universal music company.

"A label in (these) situations can really destroy a band and Atlantic chose not to do this," Sommerstein says.

Andrew Brightman, the Soldiers' manager, says labels have been known to require bands to purchase the rights to their own recordings before giving up the tapes.

Atlantic's decision to let the band go with no strings attached gives the group an opportunity to do something on their own, he says.

Although the band will be selling fewer CDs as an independent band, Brightman says the group will retain more money from the sale of its CDs than they would have under their deal with Atlantic - 60 to 70 cents on the dollar instead of 15 cents on the dollar.

"This is the best situation for the band," Brightman says. "Now they have to do the same things they have been doing. They have to hit the road, play great shows, connect with their fans and build their (fan base)."