Coheed and Cambria have been touring successfully over the past two years with their new bassist Zach Cooper. Some might remember that Taylor took over Michael Todd’s bass duties for Coheed following his arrest in 2011. Todd has been busy as well, working on a new musical project dubbed Flux Fortuna, creating a Kickstarter campaign to fund his new venture and release a Live EP despite apparently being diagnosed with cancer. In addition, Todd had announced through his personal Facebook page (which has now been deleted) that he would be selling Coheed merchandise, such as hard to find Coheed vinyl and an original manuscript of Year of the Black Rainbow, trying to clear out his cache of stuff and move on with his life.
Unfortunately, for some, Todd’s attempts and selling merchandise didn’t turn out so well. A fan posted a thread on Coheed’s fan forum page Cobalt and Calcium stating that they and multiple other people had not yet received their merchandise and Todd hadn’t been returning their attempts at contact for weeks. Others opted to create a Facebook community page titled “Mic Todd Owes Us Money.” After multiple fan complaints, weeks of non-response from Todd, and the creation of the page, Todd released this statement via Flux Fortuna’s Facebook page regarding the allegation that he hadn’t been sending out the merchandise fans had paid him for through PayPal:
Okay, it’s Michael. It’s apparent that this has gotten way out of hand. This has taken this long to come out because I have been incommunicado for a number of reasons out here, until when yesterday at work the threads were brought to my attention.
Here’s my statement: I overextended myself, I made plans with people about obtaining items and made deals on items that I didn’t possess yet. I didn’t do this out of malice, but in a desperation brought on by my present situation. When things started to fall through one after the other I couldn’t keep up. And I am very sorry. I don’t know if this makes things worse or better, but some things have been shipped and a few more are to follow shortly, but the bottom line is, I don’t and won’t have them all, and I am here (albeit a little late) and I realize I made myself look pretty bad, but my intention and promise is that I will make full financial amends over the course of the next couple months if you’ll let me. I know this seems like a long timeframe, but I need to actually earn the money to pay you back. I just started working full time and the type of work I am doing does not pay a hell of a lot.
Any other people that may have been associated with me through music or business or whatever, were completely unaware to the situation till now, and have been and are unable to answer for me. I promise that the money that you may have contributed to the Kickstarter has been set aside and will only be used to fulfill incentives and the creation of the EP. However, since I will be working extra hours to make all this up to you, I may have to push the recording of the EP, originally scheduled for end of June back by some time. But I repeat, the Kickstarter money will not be tapped for these repayments. I admit, at first I thought about it, to just clean everything up quick, but that would be immensely unfair and more dishonesty on my part. So, all I can do at this point is come forward publicly and admit I screwed up. I own this, I’m here, and I will be hereafter available to answer you individually.
Moving forward, I will start addressing all your emails. Please give me some time to do so and I will let you know one by one if I have your item, shipped it or will need to re-compensate you because I do not have the item. The order in which I will address people will be by date of inquiry. Thus, please don’t be upset if I do not get to you initially.
I’m sorry again. I appreciate an opportunity to make good.
While it is commendable that Todd has promised to make good and return fan’s money, it seems that some fans have less than flattering things to say about Todd’s business practices on Flux Fortuna’s page while others fervently defend Todd and remain “Team Mic.” On the other hand, if you’re willing to give a known drug addict money and get upset when he doesn’t deliver on what he promised…
