A day prior to the Victory email that encouraged its street team to tamper with a competitor's CDs in retail stores, a missive was sent to rally the troops by Victory act Hawthorne Heights. It's a sometimes humorous rant that pits major labels against indie labels, and its delivered with the kind of fire-and-brimstone fervor often seen in Victory boss Tony Brummel. It's us against them, the band insists, indies against majors, genuine versus manufactured success, rock versus non-rock.

"You might ask, how has ROCK been put on the backburner? A current example is an artist that we are up against called Ne-Yo. Many people are saying that Ne-Yo is going to outsell us because Ne-Yo has had a tremendous amount of over the top, mainstream media coverage. His album will be in stores tomorrow. Radio has played his single 160,000 times. Our single has been played 3,800 times. We know that does not seem possible but it is the truth. Ne-Yo is on a major label. Hawthorne Heights is on an independent label. ROCK music needs to win tomorrow."

The entire email after the jump. (Thanks to the Leafblower for forwarding the email.)

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