James Moore's Blog, page 67

Having A Main Dude And Band Dynamics

I wanted to revisit a theme from last weeks set of articles – the concept of the “main dude”. For the uninitiated the “main dude” is the guy who does most of the important stuff for the band and the dude who consequently leads to shifts in band dynamics because they tend to be the one wielding the most real power. One of my concerns with my last article is that I feel I almost made it sound like a bad thing to have a main dude in your band, which is not really true at all. Having a focal point for your band can in fact be a good thing. That’s why with this article I wanted to spend some time discussing the balance of power and how it can be done in a healthy and sustainable way over the long term for your band. This is mostly gleaned from third party observation, since band dynamics are obviously different in every case. However having someone to help you think through hem can, in my experience, be a very fruitful thing that can save a lot of headache down the road.

Obviously the key appeal of having a main dude is the consolidation of power that he represents. It’s good to be able to avoid a ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ scenario and just have one or two band members filling out most of the marketing stuff and booking the shows. It can keep things from getting to confusing and it keeps communication clear. This is part of why a lot of labels like doing his, because it means they can minimize the amount of communication they need to engage in for their very busy lifestyles. Managers tend to feel the same way, as do promoters. The thing is all of these people are drowning in emails and having a main dude represents a unified front for your band. It makes your brand seem a lot more put together than it would otherwise which in turn helps industry figures to take you seriously. These should be key goals for your band especially as you move into new platforms and want to continue reaching higher levels of industry success.

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility. It’s up to the rest of the band to keep the main dude in check. Just look at Spinal Tap and you can immediately see where these sorts of things go terribly wrong. If your main dude is suddenly telling you to wear weird costumes or to present yourself in a silly manner or do something that doesn’t feel authentic on stage then you’re probably not doing yourself any favors. You want to make sure that everything you do makes sense to at least a majority of band members, or tat at least,, the main dude can justify why you are doing it. If not, then you need to rebuff him from his position of authority and work together to figure out a way forward. These can be hard balances to strike especially since the main dude tends to put so much work into the band, especially relative to most other band members. If you can work together to come up with a way to move together though then you quickly start to see results coming together in a way you never previously imagined.

This is because no man is an army. The band needs to be playing heavy support to the main dude in the band and giving him the resources he needs in order to help the band grow to its maximum potential. Look at the main dude as a de facto manager and treat him as such. Don’t be shocked when he wants things his way but rather try and see how you can help. Maybe he’s totally wrong, and that’s part of the checks and balances thing we discussed earlier, but maybe by helping you too can learn about this industry. If you are the main dude then you need to make it clear to your bandmates that there are certain things you expect them to be doing. Sometimes this can be easy, like having the graphic design guy design graphics, other times it can be very difficult, like trying to get other members to contribute to social media, or getting your bass player to not be a cunt. Fortunately there’s a fairly easy way to start getting things moving in this direction.

The answer is of course having regular band meetings. This is something that will probably be initially met with a lot of hemming and hawing but you have to ask yourself if you want your band to amount to something. You don’t need to make the meetings last long, they can be as simple as a fifteen to thirty minute session where everyone keeps everyone updated and looks at what they need to be doing next in order to keep momentum up. A lot of people view band meetings as a bad thing, I personally feel quite the opposite, I think that having meetings where you figure out how you are going to push things is vital to finding any sort of future for your band. If everyone isn’t on the same page or some band members are just content with being clueless then you had better pray that either you have a really solid main couple of dudes and managers or simply realize that you are going to see things fall apart surprisingly quickly.

A lot of these things are a bit of a commitment, I know this far too well and it’s why many bands grow to resent their main dudes, fire them from the band and then wonder why no one cares about their band after the fact. In fact I think that the very thing that pushes a lot of bands forward is also what rips them apart. This is part of the struggle of music, artist types sometimes can’t get over themselves and sometimes shit rapidly goes south. Alas, we need to embrace this and realize that when all is said and done it’s only rock and roll and if we just accept the music for what it is and try our best not to screw the whole thing up and just have a good time. The main dude wants to accentuate that, so why not let him?

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Do People Even Care?

So today I received an interesting question from a client texting me about the future of their band. While the context was certainly rather specific what it boiled down to, as far as I understood it was, “What if the showgoing audience genuinely just doesn’t care and would rather just see other type of music?” And that’s a great question. I think part of the frustration of being in a band is any number of plateaus you see yourself hitting that you may have to toil at for months if not years on end to get to the next level. I’m not trying to question the dedication of any bands out there, after all, it’s only sane that you would start to wonder these things after a long period of leveling out. There are a few ways to tackle this question and all of them are, I think, hopeful and certainly ones I hope to expound upon in the future. After all – any client you can seriously discuss the ins and outs of bong creation with is one that you should probably treasure. So let’s see what happens when it looks like the showgoing audience does not care about you or your style of music.

First of all don’t worry – there are probably people out there who care. I know that it doesn’t always feel like that and I know that it can be rather frustrating a lot of the time, but I assure you, some people out there are probably interested in what you have to do, or at least the concept of what you do. That is to say, if you are confident in your songs and creating music with a degree of professionalism then you are probably going to be able to find at least some success. The issue a lot of bands seem to have, beyond simple songwriting is being unsure of how to present themselves in a way that people who actually matter will check out their music. This is the part that requires a lot of hard work and prayer hat you start to become someone of note. Moreover, you need to remember thing from the context of you target demographic and figure out how you can manipulate that in order to find a way forward for your music within that demographic.

In other words you need to change how your live shows are executed. Now this sounds really intimidating, but I assure you it’s quite the opposite. Instead it allows you the opportunity to sit down, break down the interests of your consumers and then think about how you can entice them to come out. So if you are playing to, for example, primarily a wine bar crowd, perhaps you could request the wine bar in question to offer a free sampling of a new and rather unique wine in order to stimulate interest. If you are playing folk shows at clubs you can perhaps try and come up with ways to enhance your stage show such that when people think about you they remember how unique you are, rather than think of showgoing as a sort of social obligation. Remember, this isn’t because your band is bad, we already covered that side of things, this is because there are a shit ton of bands out there and cutting through fucking blows.

The other thing that you probably need to do if you find yourself with a seeming lack of interest at people coming out to your shows is to realize that sometimes you ust need to recalibrate your audience. Maybe you’re not targeting the right people. If you’re making money off of a demographic that doesn’t typically attend concerts you need to either consider changing demographics or you need to go back to the drawing board in terms of making money from them. By the same token if you’re targeting a demographic who go to too many shows you once more need to recalibrate in order to make sure that you can find the people who exist in the sweet spot. I know that sounds impossible, but that’sexactly what your favorite most successful bands do. Even on a local level. For example, the New York powerviolence band Pink Mass dress up in bondage gear and have a blasphemous and extreme stage show, it means that the word gets out and suddenly people who don’t normally schlep out for local shows go out of their way to see Pink Mass because they know they are getting exactly that, a show.

This ties into one of the hardest realities I think for a lot of bands to accept. The places you play and the amount you play is irrelevant if your branding and live show is good enough. My friends in the group Tower are simply the best goddamn live rock and roll band in their city so they don’t give a shit how often they play because they know a 100 people will come out regardless. They’ve been able to prove that they are sufficiently unique and talented such that people will come no matter what the circumstances. The only way to really become really fucking good, godd enough or this to easily happen, is often by playing live a lot and also by calibrating your stage show so that it appeals to some of the core musical desires of your fans. If you can pick apart your stage show from top to bottom and determine what works and what doesn’t then you will succeed. Just look at the greatest rock and roll show on earth, KISS!

When it comes down to it, you and your peers all have a lot of hard wok to do to reach that next level. You need to grind it out and get your live show to a point hat people will come, because if you’re good enough and you can prove your role in the scen to be worthy then they will come. I know that it can be hard with certain demographics but that’s why you need to play to their interests. Remember that it’s ot just about the music these days, it’s about the entire product and being the brand, inside and out. You want people to have a wide variety of effective peripherals that are going to inspire continued interest in what you have to offer. If you can do that tied in with a great performance then empires might well crumble.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Dealing With The Main Dude In Indie Bands

One thing that I’ve seen a lot of bands struggle with is the phenomenon of there being a ‘main dude’. You might try to disavow this, saying that in your band everyone participates equally in writing songs, invests equally financially and the band has all main roles doled out so that you all put in similar amounts of work. Now this is totally within the realm of possibility. It just is generally an overoptimistic view of the way things are. I deal with bands every day of my life and there is almost always a core member or two who I chat with primarily while everyone else just kind of hangs out and doesn’t really pose any questions. Now this is fine too, you just need to realize it and appreciate the consequences that this can have on your band. I’ve seen countless bands get torn apart by not paying attention to the fact that they have a key member who does most of the work and simply not addressing it. So let’s go from this premise and start to try and understand band dynamics from an outside perspective.

See – the core member of a band thinks that they are the ones who make everything happen for the band, and oftentimes they are right. They feel like they are the person responsible for the bulk of the bands income. Even if they aren’t the ones finding the visual artists or singlehandedly putting together the shirt printing they are still often the conduit through which these things are distributed and how people are getting to find out about the band. This gets even worse if the person booking the shows, which is again, the main way that people are going to find out about what you do, is also handling your social media. This means they are probably also the person talking to any relevant industry figures, not just promoters who are, of course, the most visible example of the music industry in your local scene. Now it’s fine to have one guy who does all of these things but you need to appreciate that this guy is basically the manager of the band and like most full time managers he is oftentimes is going to feel unloved and unrewarded for his efforts.

I’ve seen outside members views of this core person run the gamut. Some think “Oh yeah what he does could be done by anyone” and try to belittle his role in the whole thing. Others think “That guy is amazing, good thing we have him running it so I can chill and just chip in when needed” Some are totally clueless and don’t even realize that one member of the band is making things happen or think that their own personal small and essentially meaningless contributions are somehow equivalent to the guy who books all the shows and runs the social media. There are of course also people who are in a bunch of bands and don’t have the time to be core members to any of them. There’s a value to these ‘utility players’ too and there place in the scene needs to be respected. Now obviously there are other mindsets and positions than these and I’m simplifying, but I think that it’s fairly obvious that several of these viewpoints are going to end up driving more than a few “main dudes” crazy. They need a support team behind them, even if they are going to man up and be the main dude in the band.

There are a few ways now to balance out having a key member and the impact that it can have on your band. First of all I think it’s important to simply up and recognize who that guy is if you haven’t already. Trust me, he will appreciate it. These guys are often doing the legwork for the passion of it and want their passion to be praised. Also realize that this is such an established tradition in the world of independent music that low to mid level labels almost always assume a lack of manager and specify that the label will communicate with a ‘designated member’ of the band they are signing. Once you start going forward from this viewpoint you are going to find a lot more success in helping the guy who makes all the shit happen for your band feel good about himself. Start to buy him drinks and appreciate his hard work and then start to talk about potential ways forward.

I think one of the most vital parts of sating your main dude to avoid tensions is to figure out what he wants form the band. Try to give him more creative license (Assuming of course it doesn’t suck) since he is the guy guiding the ship in all other ways. If you’re making actual money you should consider letting him take a managers cut in order to help alleviate some of the stress of the countless hours that he pours into this. Sometimes this can be a little trickier f you have the fairly common situation of two core members, but even then it should be fairly easy to figure out what the most logical way forward is for your guys to find a sustainable future. Sometimes, as much as it sucks, it’s good to have a clear power structure laid out so that people understand where they stand in the group. It can help ease arguments and push things along further.

Of course the irony of this article is that because of how the industry is the odds are that only people who are the main guys in their band are going to read it. They will read this and feel sad that they are not going to get any help for these things from their peers in the band and find themselves continuing down the far too frustrating world of music industry suffering. They need to find a way to implement these without coming off as a dictator badmouthed in their scene and instead just remain a nice guy trying to help keep things cooking for the betterment of the entire society. I know this can be tricky and frustrating but you need to have these struggles if you want a reasonable path forward and continue to grow your band.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Finding The People Who Make You Money

One thing that I don’t think a lot of people in music seem to understand is targeting where the money is. People seem content to jut hit the same generic local punk markets utterly ignoring that there are millions of dollars sitting out there if they are able to look beyond an audience of just their friends. So I wanted to take some time to look at approaching new markets that can help you to get the recognition and income that you justly deserve. This isn’t about finding alternate sources of income like licensing we’ve already discussed that at length, this is about looking at your target demographic and realizing who has the funds that can make things change for your band over the long run and then trying to cater your products towards them. Some may call that selling it out, but I just view it as a way to help grow your brand and have more resources to address the folks who you wanted to be listening to you in the first place.

I think to understand what I’m saying I need to take you down the road of an epiphany of mine. I had a moment when I was trying to figure out how to most effectively market a heavy metal band. I would work at merch and noticed that fairly regularly we would have these super fans come up and spend a hundred bucks at the table. I tried to determine the defining characteristics of these superfans piece by piece and slowly came to a bigger realization about the genre. Musicians always talk about how heavy metal and punk is maintained by hungry 15 year old kids looking for music. That’s not true though. For the last 15 years, music starved teenagers have just pirated everything – I should know – I was one of them. So who does routinely give heavy metal the funding it needs? Well it’s older dudes in the trades who make good money and have no kids. There’s a specific type of branding those dudes like and when you see bands who have that on point you also tend to see a fair amount of money.

So how do we translate this into financial success? Well to continue on the heavy metal example I looked at what the people who were putting money were into. A lot of them tended to like burly stoner rock riffs with big choruses they could drink beer to. Moreover, they liked beer. Cheap and lots of it. They wanted things that reminded them of their youth but also that reflected a certain measure of class. These were people who liked to think of themselves as ‘salt of the earth’ and didn’t want thing that were too weird or overtly complicated in terms of their music consumption. They want pretty up front and brazen marketing but not have it be so intense that it fucks up their family situations with grotesque imagery. So that’s what I gave them, and it worked! Sometimes it can feel like lowest common denominator marketing is dumb, but guess what it makes money. The best bet though is to do a blend, both pointed at who you hope to be your super fans and grow from there.

I want to point out that I didn’t just do a demographic breakdown to figure out where the money was. I did a sub targeted demographic breakdown and used that to determine where the money was. That’s the key step to going from having your fanbase to catering to the part of your fanbase that makes you a significant chunk of your money. This isn’t always easy to do and it requires a lot of personal investment from band members and whoever sells your merch to make sure that you have your shit together and are properly tracking the right people. It’s times like this where having a Facebook group, not a fan page, can be helpful. It gives notifications to all of your core fans and helps to grow your brand by making the people who are most personally invested in your brand feel like they are a part of something greater than themselves. At the end of the day that’s why so many of us invest our energy into this – and if you can give that to your fans then you are going to see some rapid monetization of your band.

Tracking point of sale is tricky I know, especially at a local level when most people aren’t going to do more than attend a few shows and maybe buy a shirt. I think though that it’s important to try and track those people and document them, be it by mailing list or Facebook group. It’s not just about contacting them though, I really want to emphasize that. You need to figure out what the shared interests are in this group. Moreover you need to look at your genre as a whole and make sure that the people in your key funding group are similar to the people in the rest of the genre. If not, you either are misidentifying your fanbases musical tastes and other interests or you are missing out on a huge financial opportunity. Either case can potentially be huge for your band since if its the former it means that you can totally shift your marketing and be relatively consequence free, and if its the latter it means you’ve found a whole new group of fans to work with. Keep these things in mind as you continue trying to develop your marketing down the line.

I know that we tackled a few fairly major points this time around but I also think that these are all viewpoints that you should be able to pick apart and make work for your own band. Part of the struggle of writing this blog is trying to keep it relatively generic to the type of music that you play so I can’t always delve into specifics, but one thing that often works that I’ve talked about before is borrowing the marketing of people in bands in your genre that are slightly larger than you. Even if you are still to small to have superfans sometimes it can be worthwhile borrowing from their superfans demographics and going from there. The music industry is not really a place of new ideas but rather one where things germinate and grow, embrace that and watch it flourish.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Unsigned Band Syndrome

I can see it coming from a mile away. Someone is chatting with me and finds out I manage bands and work with labels. Not only do they find that out but they find out that the bands I work with make money, don’t do pay to play and generally seem to be doing okay for themselves in a lot of cases. Their ears perk up and they start trying to pitch me their project. I try to nod politely but most of the time before I’ve even herd the music I can tell whether or not someone is a pretender. It ties into know nothing managers and FUCKING try hards. These are the people who give me gray hairs and make me hate this whole ting and the people who I inevitably have to turn down. Now I know that this can be tricky to explain without sounding super pretentious, but I definitely want to talk about at least a few things that make you out to be a band that no one takes seriously and even touches on the border of ‘perpetually unsigned’

I think that first, foremost, and most generally we need to look at presentation. This is a pretty massive subject and probably requires an article in an of itself. It encompasses everything from art and layout to how you perform. I think that the general rule is not to straight up emulate one or two bands and hope it works out. Rather you need to look at twenty bands and see what they have that works and try to distill those core elements into how you present your band. I think that a lot of artists are a little too clearly derivative of one style or thought process. They don’t have the grander vision in mind and it doesn’t do them any favors. The other key, and a theme you will find throughout this article, is figuring out where to invest their money in presentation. This can mean either bullshit PR which doesn’t do anything, flashy stage shows when no one cares about their band or failing to pay for good album art because your buddy did it for cheap. A lot of bands have their priorities out of walk and it consistently works against them.

Now I know I touched on this in the last article but I know that a lot of you read these out of order or independent of the greater context, which is totally fine. The point being – if your songwriting is shitty everyone can tell and few people will have either the knowledge or the balls to really point it out to you. I know this sucks because it’s an intangible and intangibles are always the worst to have to work out, but by god can your shitty songwriting make me feel bad for you. This is especially relevant, in my eyes, to bands that have done everything else right. They do DIY tours, make friends in the scene and generally grow their brand but at the end of the day until their songwriting gets good then no one will actually care. There certainly is validity to wanting to build up a name as you imporve, but the sheer frustration of looking at artists who have been doing this for decades and still can’t write good songs drives me a little bit crazy.

A huge part of this is because they frequently buy into bullshit. Aside from the bullshit PR schemes and ridiculous live doodads that I mentioned earlier groups that suffer from ‘unsigned band syndrome’ often try and get showy awards that mean nothing and are little more than participation medals. Beyond that they frequently invest in pay to play shows that get them nowhere. While a pay to play opening slot can certainly be a cool experience and even help your band, if your presentation isn’t on point and it’s not in context that people actively want to watch you then you aren’t going to find any real forward momentum. I’ve seen countless bands pay to play on special showcases and that almost never gets them anything. It’s sold to them by industry figures desperate for a buck and it just leaves them deeper in debt. That’s how you get the entire city of Los Angeles.

And so we get into the fundamental issue and one of the big things that drives this blog forward – understanding your scene. A lot of these bands just straight up don’t understand that they need to be nice to the people who book the cool DIY shows if they want to really go places. They need to connect with small specialty labels and try and coordinate grander visions for the future. You need to make friends with people if you want real fans because direct to peer marketing is going to get you miles further than any sort of advrtising campaign will ever get you. You need to figure out what makes people in your scene tick and then play off of that. Otherwise you’re just going to keep disappointing yourself and others in a struggle towards the end. Is that a little romantic? Yes. But at the same time, when you look at how much crap is going on out there to make artists suffer you might as well accept it for what it is.

So – I write this having not slept in twenty four hours. My teeth hurt and my head aches but I know that the event I am going to is far more real and will have much more potent connotations than many of my trips to industry mixers in LA or showcases in New York City. It’s going to be potent because it’s a finely curated festival that attracts the people who are interested in the same precise kind of music that I love and are able to connect everyone together because it’s music that people are passionate about. I know that sounds hella pretentious but after seeing bands shoot themselves in the foot time and time again by going for festivals that don’t mean anything and never will it’s hard to not feel bitter. Turn your bullshit detector on, because being in a band sucks.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Songwriting And Your Indie Band

So I think that one of the fundamental realities of the music industry that a lot of my compeers don’t really want to fess up too is the significance of songwriting. While it’s certainly easy to say that anything can be possible and anything can get big these days, and that is true to a large extent, (Hell – Primitive Man just did a harsh noise EP to RAISE money) but I think that it’s easy to forget that many of the bands which we hold sacrosanct and the bands that we mock despite their popularity share a lot more in common than we care to think. The songwriting is on point in every case. Sure the aesthetics might not be how you like them, but when you start to pick apart some of these songs it’s easy to see that it’s the structures and compositions that determine popularity more than an aesthetic or branding choices. Sure it’s not everything, but I think it’s far more relevant to the human condition than any sort of shirt or hairstyle.

I think one of the most obvious and humorous examples of this comes in the film Detroit Rock City, a movie about a bunch of high school kids going to see KISS live. There’s a theme in the movie of making fun of disco, the humor being that from a songwriting perspective the music of KISS is pretty damn similar to that of ABBA (Not to mention that KISS would go on to put out a disco record) Both bands were able to generate massive fanbases because not only did they have a distinct visual aesthetic but moreover their songs were immortal. This rings true across all genres and movements. Even in styles that are supposed to eschew these common principles you find that a lot of the most popular acts adhere to them. Just look at the Ramones. Not only did they kick start punk but their songwriting is pretty goddamn timeless! When you start to look at musical movements through this lens you start to find the songwriting constant to be relevant even in some of the most blasphemous music out there.

This is how I was able to move from being a straight up black metal kid to someone whose favorite singer is Kesha. There is a timeless appeal to some of those songs, the way they are put together and how they feel on your eardrums. Be aware though that just because a certain style of songwriting is more easily digestible doesn’t mean you should go just for that. As much as I might think it’s important to appreciate the rich harmonies of Taylor Swifts music there is a certain appeal to a track like Kathaarian Life Code with its meditative magic, allowing the listener to get fully lost in a sound that transcends thought. That being said – I think if you asked the guys in Darkthrone, the would certainly be able to praise ABBA, because they understand that the songwriting needs to come before everything else. That’s why they shifted from being a shitty death metal band and into a great black metal one. They figured out that they could craft great songs if they embraced this up and coming sound.

I think that this ties into what I have started to bill as ‘unsigned band syndrome’. For people like me who listen to thousands of records in a wide variety of genres every year you can almost immediately tell if a band is signed or not based on the songwriting alone. There are other tell tale signs, but most of the time, just by listening to a few tracks it’s pretty easy to tell if anyone is actually going to care about this band right now. It’s hard to put into words, but you see it impact their careers all the time. Though they might be doing everything technically right their music lacks a certain spark, a power behind the riffs or a depth to the harmonies that makes one band incredibly engaging and another band a total bore. I know that sounds impossibly pretentious and is more than a little confusing, but it’s a grim reality and one that I run into all the time. It’s hard to tell bands, but a lot of the time as hard as they might try – the songwriting isn’t there.

Now don’t get me wrong. Songwriting is not the be all and end all. There are certainly other things that you need to have on point – you can’t just hang your hat on songwriting. The people who do that are just called ‘songwriters’ and work for record labels. You obviously need to have some performance talent, good looks, a distinct visual aesthetic and more, but if your songwiting sucs you’re not going to get anywhere. Of course you can pay for a songwriter, and that certainly can be effective but it’s also something that I think a lot artists have difficulty accepting. We all have our own limitations and if this is one of yours then you might just need to accept that and go from there. If your music fits a certain zeitgeist well enough then you can luck into success no matter what your music or ability. Just look at Limp Bizkit. They were derivative of everything else but sold millions of records. The real question is, do you want to be Limp Bizkit?

I think that facing this fundamental reality can be pretty challenging, especially since songwriting is such a intangible thing. You obviously don’t want to be lowest common denominator and I think that objectively speaking the relative merits of Cannibal Corpse are similar to that of Led Zeppelin. In my eyes it can help to go to the person in your scene who you view as the harshest. The person who has the most discerning taste and ask for their opinion. Make sure they pull no punches and try and see what bands they like. It’s the people who are willing to cut through the noise and make executive decisions on what isn’t total horse shit that you want to associate with and who are going ot be able to help you take things to a new level .

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Europe And Indie Music

So I write this whilst on a plane flight from New York to the Netherlands for a music festival, drinking what is my first of what is apparently infinite free beers. So I’ve come to the logical thing to discuss in such a situation. That is to say – how the US is just so much worse than Europe and how embracing a European way of thinking can deeply impact and enhance your budding music career. It’s the sort of thing that is apparent, even from chatting with friendly strangers at the gate, just how much easier life can be in Europe and how much more willing people are to look at things from different standpoints and worldviews. I think the beauty of the European continent, especially in the West and North is that a mish mash of cultures and a socialistic governmental structure has created cultures full of joie de vivre and a certain willingness to embrace the moment and really give everything up from the art, something seen on many levels of the industry. Maybe I’m just romanticizing but I feel like there are concrete proofs of superiority across the pond.

I think the most obvious way in which Europe rules over the US is in concert attendance and merch sales. People are a lot more willing to spend money on music industry stuff on this side of the world and that makes touring like night and day with he US. Where in the US a local bill is likely to only have a few dozen attendees if that, the European countries frequently will see over a hundred attendees to local bills. Sure it’s frequently fairly limited because costs to run concerts etc are higher over here but at least there’s a crowd! There’s a certain beauty to touring in Europe – a lack of the common nihilism that so often plagues the Americans. People turn up and actually care, and while that can certainly make for hard conversations when folks come to the US for the first time, it’s nice to have that base going on. The reason for the base is manifold, but asides from socialism I would make the argument that public transit is a huge reason why more people are able to access live music. This ties into one of the most important factors in the European scene… government investment.

This is, I think, one of the things that makes it that all your favorite bands come from Europe. I mean it’s not just that after all – but so do all of your favorite songwriters. Outside of the obvious example of ABBA, a lot of the worlds biggest pop songwriters come from Sweden. By the same token student pensions and guaranteed health insurance mean that young people have a much greater vested interest in investing in their quality of life. Where in the US you often find yourself dealing with totally uneducated musicians, even kids in punk bands in Germany will have a solid understanding of fantastic chords and where to find them. The willingness of governments to invest in the arts directly is also a boon. Just look at Norways fantastic cultural programs which give thousands of dollars to even black metal bands. It’s a worthwhile investment though as black metal tourism is common enough in Norway for these dedicated fans to have earned their own nickname, “blackpackers”!

Beyond this I think that a lot of Americans dismiss the power of culture in Europe. In Europe you routinely stumble into buildings that are pre-Columbus. You find cultures that have maintained strict ties to their ancestors whether they admit it or not, you still have royalty and some of that royalty still have some measure of power. There are ties to the past everywhere you look, much more so than America a nation that really only started to form its identity after the Second World War and whose foundational myths barely stretch back beyond the foundation of some of the newer buildings in many European cities. Think about that. Think about the effect it will have on the art to be perpetually couched in so much history. This is a huge part of why Europe has so often churned out more refined bands there is a sort of pressure there and it allows the scene to continue to flourish.

This all being said – the US certainly does have its advantages. First and moremost things in the US are much more democratic especially on the indie level. There are so many more options in terms of music industry careers and if you are sufficiently dedicated then becoming a financially successful band, agent, manager or whatever, is far easier. People in the US are much more willing to just fucking go for it, pull themselves up by their bootstraps and see what they can make happen. The underground is a lot more welcoming, and quite frankly Americans are less likely to fuck you over. It’s easy to fall in love with the United States because you get a sense of freedom in everything you do and his freedom informs a lot of the scene and the development therein. When I moved to America I saw my career explode simply because the system allows for a lot more options, and at the end of the day, having these options in front of you can be incredibly helpful.

At the end of the day – perhaps Europe isn’t better but it certainly is appealing after an extended exile on these blasted American shores. There is something reassuring to being in a room with 15 other people and having 20 languages represented. The sense of security and hope that a lot of Europeans have is exciting and the willingness to invest time and money into their art is the sort of thing that makes this industry so rewarding. While it is probably best to have a balanced approach I think there is a distinct appeal to looking beyond any cultural divides and determining what is best for you at a given point. Borrow from both sides, hell borrow from the smaller markets of Australia and Asia if you gotta, but find a path and keep the power of the continents in mind.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Advertising Your Indie Band On Facebook

I think one of the big struggles we are going to be facing in the next few years is social media advertisement. Like it or not (And let’s be real – probably not) it’s extremely difficult to set up ads within social media and these high barriers of entry are a huge problem especially for DIY bands who don’t have a lot of experience with the low level programming that these often require. I know that the music industry isn’t a place meant for pretenders but by the same token – why the hell does some of this shit have to be so hard? I’ve been wrestling with Facebook Power Editor for the past few days now and felt like it might be worthwhile to spend some time sharing my experiences in order to help you figure out what is going on with the development of these programs and what you can do to get the most bang for your buck from them.

So first I wanted to tackle what most bands do these days which is the simple straight up boosts that you see on Facebook advertised to you all the time. These generally target fans of your page or friends of fans of your page. This is a good way to get started on developing your music and getting announcements out there. It makes sure that you are in peoples feeds because, unless people click ‘follow’ as well as ‘like’ they are never going to see what you have to offer anyway. Now this is a perfectly legitimate what to promote your band and probably the easiest way. It’s the closest Facebook offers to a one size fits all approach to band promotion. Unfortunately it’s also not super precise and can often be more like a sweeping blow than it is a accurate strike at who you want to be targeting. Still – if you just want to toss $20 into an ad to get the news out about your upcoming show this can definitely be a valid way to do it.

One of the key things then if you want to have truly effective and targeted ads is to have your Facebook Ads Manager and Power Editor game on fleek. For the uninitiated Power Editor is the big brother of Ads Manager, it’s a little more involved and quite a bit more powerful than plain ol’ Ads Manager. The general interface though is fairly similar, I prefer Power Editor simply because it gives me more flexibility. Unfortunately both of these platforms are extremely finnicky and hard to understand. For example – the ther day I as trying to create a lead form, did everything right, hell I’ve created lead forms before but it just wouldn’t work out. Why? Because of an “Unknown Error” after a few hours of struggling it randomly started working, I’m still not sure what made it start working, so I remain generally frustrated with the unfortunate reality of it all.

This is where we start to get into rant territory but you gotta hear me out on this one. Part of the issue with the Facebook ad campaign software is that it is routinely updated and so it rapidly makes existing guides invalid. By the same token it means that a lot of the public questions on the Facebook help service refer to obsolete or radically altered features. This is where it starts to make you want to tear your hair out of your head. It means that most videos you see about Facebook ad setup are invalid and that the ones that do work are often extremely long and confusing because the system is just not intuitive. I know this sounds whiny, but it sucks so be prepared to run into some difficult scenarios. That being said not all hope is lost and you definitely can teach yourself how to do it, you just need to be prepared to spend quite a bit of time beating your head against a wall.

At the end of the day the world of Facebook ads is just like everything else in the music industry, yeah it’s hard and stupid and sometimes will fuck you over for no discernible reason (One fun feature of campaign editor is a lack of backups and making it impossibly easy to accidentally delete hours worth of work) but it’s what we have to work with. Objectively speaking this is the kind of service that indie bands from years gone by would have killed to have had. If you’re not willing to invest the time and money needed to properly understand what this software can offer then you’re not going to be able to reap the true benefits and that’s your own damn fault. A lot of people are intimidated by this program and rightly so, but it’s the sort of thing that with some hard work you are going to be able to pick apart, as complex as it might be and as much of a headache as you might be having there are ways forward.

I’m sorry that this piece wasn’t a step by step guide for how to use Power Editor and Ad Manager but in my eyes that wouldn’t have been effective since things are probably going to change soon and the software is so goddamn finnicky that no matter what I write it will probably not work for a good portion of you. I know this because I’ve spent hours reading about Ad Manager and Power Editor and walking away with only frustration. There are a few general marketing rules that hold true throughout though and I’d like to get into those son. There is a lot to pick apart with what is being done here and it makes for a future that could realistically revolutionize how we market bands and what we do to get the word out there.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Brand Sponsorships And Your Indie Band

Sponsorships from non music related brands are like licensing. One of those things that you know can be a reliable source of income but which most people view as basically impossible to get. This is, unfortunately, fairly accurate. The music industry has a lot of people trying to find the limited amount of money on offer. While it certainly makes sense for certain brands to want to sponsor artists it’s an entirely different question to find out whether or not they will actually go out and sponsor you. This is for a variety of reasons, many of which are outside of your control. There’s a reason you don’t see a ton of bands going out there with a million sponsorships, but it is my belief that with a little creativity and hard work then you can start to find products that will want to endorse you and maybe even give you a little bit of money in order to be associated with your brand. I know that sounds over the top but believe you me – it is very possible.

I think the key thing that most people don’t realize is that you need to have fairly precise targeting when reaching out for sponsors. You want to be targeting lifestyle brands that want to be associated with what you have to offer. A lot of more staid clothing brands, corporations, or more ‘conventional life’ oriented products are going to have no interest in working with you. You need to look at companies that are run by creatives and exist within some form of creative sector. Now this isn’t always obvious – after all, some sectors, like for example hot sauce, are surprisingly friendly to bands. That being said, a general rule of thumb is that you want to target brands whose target demographic mirrors yours. I know that can be hard to determine sometimes so think of it this way, you want to be targeting companies who sell stuff that you and your fans use and are interested in. This is why it’s so useful to, for example, hit up skate companies, a wide variety of music fans also like skating and those companies have started to generate very real income.

Now here’s the shitty part – pretty much none of this is usually accessible to local bands. At least not money and nice free shit. I don’t care how influential your are in your local scene, unless literally everyone under the age of 30 in your town knows about your band then no local companies are realistically going to be interested. Remember – you need to offer something of concrete value. Folks aren’t just handing out free money! However, if you are a band who tour quite a bit and are starting to get some serious social media numbers then finding companies who want to affiliate with you one way or another can be a lot easier, especially if you offer to use their logos on your backdrop, on your van as part of a wrap, or just about anywhere else. I know that this can feel like selling out, but in my eyes if the companies you are working with are following the same ideals that you and your fans do than what are you doing but creating a stronger network for everyone to be a part of? It makes the brand affiliation part of a bolder future.

To make this happen though you need to have a variety of options. If your variety is big enough than even local level bands can start to find some hope. If, for example you ask for a local fashion company to print some shirts off for you with their logo on it you are much more likely to get a positive response than if you were to ask that company for $200 (Approximately the cost of 50 shirts) so you could rep their logo on tour. If you are at the point that you are going on tour and are hoping for a little money from sponsors then you can’t just offer van wraps since those are pricey. You need to be willing to carry free samples, have smaller banners around your merch stand or perhaps something as simple as stickers available. I know that these things sometimes sound tricky and overwhelming, but in my eyes they can serve as an easy way to get a few extra bucks in your pocket.

I think the key here is approaching companies in the spirit of collaboration. Maybe they won’t like any of the ideas you had for sponsorship, but the odds are there is at least one music head at the company in question who has a cool idea of how they might want to associate a band with their brand. Even if the opportunity doesn’t fit with your band for whatever reason you can always pass the opportunity on to one of your peers. Remember -what goes around comes around so if you have the opportunity to hook up one of your homies you can be sure tat somewhere down the line they will do the same for you. Also remember that you need to be flexible because the kinds of companies that are big enough to give serious sponsorships to bands are often also pretty far removed from that world. You need to act as a friendly guide and who knows, maybe they will start supporting other bands too!

When it comes down to it – the music industry isn’t a friendly place so perhaps it makes sense that a lot of the salvation that we find comes from reaching out to other industries who might end up being far more sympathetic to our cause than the money grubbing labels and shady figures who define so much of our world. There is a lot of room for cross collaboration – and these days when more people listen to independent music than ever before it seems to me that there is no reason not to go out and try and make personalized pitches to hundreds of potential sponsors. After all – you have nothing to lose and a whole load of friends to make and connections to gain. If that’s not motivation enough for you, remember that there could be a whole lot of money in this also.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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Your Core Merchandise Situation

So I’ve written a lot about how you want to have exclusive items at your merch stand in order to generate buzz. By the same token we’ve talked about how you want to have a wide variety of options for your superfans to really be able to capitalize. I think though that with many of my merch articles I didn’t really address beginner bands. Groups who haven’t quite figured out what they want yet and who aren’t trying to plunk down a thousand dollars on merchandise quite yet. So I wanted to spend some time looking at what the core merch items you should be getting are and how to gently expand. What you can do with a lot of these is come up with a purchasing plan such that you never spend too much merch at once but instead slowly grow your reserves in order to build a better future. If you focus on a gradual build then things will start paying for themselves and you don’t have to be that guy coming up and trying to twist your band members arms for $300 at a time.

So of course the basis of any merch stand is the standard CD and T shirt. These should be sold separately as well as in a combo pack. They should be professionally presented and put together because they form the basis of your income, much more so than even guarantees. Some bands have even moved past the CD and just sell download cards. I think we might not be quite there yet but it’s certainly getting close. Now, you want to have as many CD’s on sale as possible (Kunaki.com is my favorite spot to grab ’em!) and you also want to try and have at least two shirt designs. Remember with shirt designs that text only or logo designs rarely do well. You want to have your logo and some sort of image. You also want to try and get any design to three colors or less to save money. If you have a good printer they can even do color blending to help maximize the potential visual impact. To start off with a hundred CD’s and 50 shirts, 25 of two different designs is usually a good launching point and should only run you $400 or so, which when split across four or five band members isn’t bad at all!

The next thing you want to do once you get your basic merch items taken care of is to find your $5 items. These are the ones that have super high turnover and which you’ll be able to more easily convince people to buy. In fact there is an argument that you should invest in $5 items first simply because the ROI and turnover is so goddamn high. I think this is definitely valid, especially if you’re at a point where, for example, you have no physical product to sell yet but playing live. $5 items that make a lot of sense to invest in would be patches, coozies, lighters and posters. These all fit with different sorts of bands, but I just kind of want to get you brainstorming. The point is – people like cheap items, and especially with regards to coozies and lighters, cheap items with utility. If you can capitalize on the fact that you’re playing dive bars then you’re going to be able to generate some very real income.

Then we get to the category that I refer too as ‘luxury items’. These are things that bigger bands seem to have no problem selling and which small groups try to emulate, often with limited success. Look at it this way – if you’re getting a good deal on, for example, sweatshirts, you’re paying $17 a piece which means you’re not selling them for less than $25. Well, if no one has ever paid more than $10 to see you on a bill with three other local bands nor spent more than $15 at your merch table then why would you even fucking bother? No one is going to buy sweatshirts. Sure it’s cool to wear your own bands sweatshirt around, but is that really worth a several hundred dollar investment? You need to be aware of what your market can hold and what is going to give you at least some positive return on investment. If you’re still at the early stages of your career then there is no need to be trying to sell items that cost $25 or more – unless you have something truly special.

I think that the best way to start to grow your merch selection into all of these categories is to create a list of items in terms of priority and then figure out how much each item is going to cost you. Once you have these numbers you and your band can determine a schedule of how you want to acquire these items. Like I said, in my eyes it’s more about spreading out the costs, especially if you’re not facing any tight tour timelines or anything. So if you get a chance to spread the costs out over a few months then you can find yourself with a much stronger merch selection at a fraction of the up front cost. This makes things less stressful for everyone and also means that your initial investments will hopefully already be paying off by the time you order the final pieces of merch on your list. It’s all about looking at things over the long term rather than screwing yourself over because you couldn’t wait to optimize your situation.

So yeah – back to the usual schpiel I guess – merchandise is the core of any band in 2017 and if yours sucks then you will suck. If you’re trying to make money then try and figure out what the best arrangement is for you – it’s hard to give hard and fast rulesbecause they can change so much per genre. At the end of the day I always just try and figure out how I can get my bands the best return on investment and then go from there. You need to be aware of what works in your scene and not just buy shit because you think it’s cool. Once you get to that point and start to grow your options fans are going to come calling and your career will slowly start to get the financial backing it needs in order to really take off.

Independent Music Promotions’ (www.independentmusicpromotions.com) revolutionary music PR campaigns are the most effective in the industry. Submit your music to us today.

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