The industry initiative includes support from Live Nation, Ticketmaster, iHeart, Pandora, SiriusXM, Entercom and many others, with the song also slated to appear on the soundtrack for the upcoming Better Noise Films release about teen addiction, SNO BABIES, which will be out on VOD on Sept. 29; Better Noise Films' share of the profits will also be donated to GRI.
"So, Nikki rang me to see if I’d lend a vocal to ‘Maybe It’s Time.’ After hearing the track for the first time in a while, I was reminded how good it is so I was in! It felt right, all around giving back to the much-needed Global Recovery Initiative,” said Elliott in a statement, with Vext adding, "Alcoholism and drug addiction are family diseases. They’re the only diseases that everyone is mad at and hurt if you have it. People don't get upset at you if you get cancer. It's because with addiction, it affects everyone whose life touches the sufferer.”
Slipknot's Taylor called addiction a "real issue" that is "affecting young people more and more every year, so it’s very, very important for all of us to pitch in and do our part, especially some of us who have lived through it…those of us who have survived… it’s the least I can do."
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a dramatic increase in opioid-related overdoses and deaths according to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program, which said drug overdoses increased by 42% in May as those struggling with substance use disorders have lost their support systems and become isolated from treatment options.
Better Noise Entertainment CEO Allen Kovac tells Billboard that ever since he helped Sixx enter rehab more than 15 years ago they have made it their mission to talk about the dangers of addiction and search for concrete ways to help those in its grip. "What we're trying to do is take this beyond just awareness," said Kovac of why he's including the song in the end titles of Sno Babies and encouraging his peers in music, film, TV and radio to get involved to raise the kind of money that will allow GRI to put people in the field to do direct outreach to those suffering from addiction.
"The biggest challenge if you're a Prince or Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Petty or Michael Jackson is you need to talk to someone, and that's the hardest ting because of the stigma that people don't know who to call," Kovac says of the difficulty in getting those who need it help; both Kovac and Sixx are on the board of GRI. "All these organizations are giving us this time and exposure because they care about our industry, which is losing so many artists... and the industry needs to not just talk about it, but have a call to action." Because when someone like Juice WRLD dies from drug-related causes at a young age, Kovac says, Live Nation loses their global touring revenue, but radio and streaming services also lose out on potential new music from great artists, film companies lose stars of today and tomorrow and we all lose out to a killer that took more lives in 2017 than the entire Vietnam War.
"There is a cure, but it’s destigmatizing and being able to get awareness out there and have an outcome [that matters]," Kovac says. "You can create all the foundations in the world, but unless you get an outcome you haven't done much. And our outcome is to get people out there in the fields.
Check out the "Maybe It's Time" video and Sno Babies trailer below.
