The Tea Party on Auctioning Teaparty.com to Ideological Foes for $500K Minimum

When Stuart Chatwood, bassist/keyboardist/webmaster for Canadian rockers the Tea Party, registered the band's domain name back in 1993 -- so deep into the past that Google didn't exist -- there's no way he could have foreseen the controversy that now surrounds www.TeaParty.com.

Nowadays sought-after domain names can sell for small fortunes -- and Chatwood and his newly reunited band are sitting on a potential goldmine as America's Tea Party movement tries to acquire the URL. The band's asking price: a minimum bid of US$500,000.

"Since we separated I've had a very successful solo career so I'm quite comfortable financially," frontman Jeff Martin tells Spinner, insisting the decision to sell off the site isn't a cash grab despite, of course, hiring online broker Sedo to field potential offers.

"I'm pretty sure that Jeff [Burrows] and Stuart would say the same thing," he adds. "They certainly invested their money from the Tea Party wisely."

So if they're not looking for a big payday, why bother selling the domain? After all, they're back playing shows after six years in limbo and finally have tour dates and updates to post for their fans.

In an interview with Edmonton, Alberta's Gig City, Burrows explained that any proceeds from the sale would be fed back into the band. "If a windfall were to happen, it's only to help us create new music and afford us the opportunity to get back in the studio," he said. "No one has a record deal and no one has a publishing deal and no one is going to be able to afford to do music [without the sale]."

Martin, on the other hand, isn't so keen to discuss the sale of the domain, calling it "internal business" and deferring to Chatwood on all issues concerning the band's online presence. Chatwood was the one who told Businessweek: "So much damage has been done to our name by the political movement. We've considered lending the name to Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart to have them dispel some of the stuff that the Party says."

While Martin refused to comment further on the TeaParty.com domain, it's very clear Martin wants nothing to do with any political party (except, perhaps, to cash their cheque).

"Obviously we have no affiliation with the Tea Party political movement, it's the furthest thing from my ideals," Martin says. "I'm a spiritual person, not a political person."

In the end, the domain is up for sale to anyone with a few hundred grand to spare, but it sounds like the band would prefer not to sell to the Tea Party movement. As Chatwood quipped to the Montreal Gazette, "Ideally, I'd like to sell it to someone who's against the Tea Party movement, but you know, at a certain point, we do have families. We're not idiots."