James Moore's Blog, page 76

Wilco Shrug with Their Tenth Album, Schmilco

In the past few years Wilco have become the most low key rock band, passively releasing albums at a steady cruising pace, shrugging at twenty years of creativity and maintaining an anchor for five individually talented musicians. When they release albums now it’s almost like they’re shielding their eyes from a harsh sunlight. They’re so deflective they didn’t even bother to name their tenth album. Nah. Wilco, Schmilco. Here ya go. Here’s some more songs.

That lackadaisical approach followed them into the studio barely a year after their last release, Star Wars. Each instruments is still trying to establish itself as the songs start. They flop around like untied shoelaces.

Schmilco is maybe the quietest, most wind-swept Wilco album. The songs are like loosely knitted skullcaps that hang on your wall all spring. They come together for a moment and then they’re gone. Only one song tips over four minutes.

“Normal American Kids” opens the album with a lilting stum from Tweedy backed by Nels Cline’s muted guitar. “I was high as high could get always afraid of those normal American kids,” Tweedy sings, trying to untie himself from the grid. It’s in full contrast to the opening track off Star Wars, “EKG”–feathered and sweet rather than cut up and sloppy.

“Cry All Day” is the cheeriest song you’ve ever heard about day-long tear-shedding marathons. The instruments piled in the studio tickle each other on “Common Sense.” Millions of tiny guitar plucks collect in each speaker like the microscopic hairs of a sea urchin. The song transforms into a weird dream sequence with chunks of vibraphones switching off from miscellaneous guitar noise. I started to wonder if Tweedy was gobbling the painkillers again. (Kidding!)

The fwumping drums on “Quarters” disrupts Tweedy’s simple tale of cleaning of a cold, dark tavern filled with bums and floozies. It disappears with smoothed tone outro. “Locator” has a deranged sound with a steady incline as Tweedy dizzily sings, “here below,” ad infinitum, “here below.” It spins casually and forces you to hold onto something grounded.

Schmilco is far from the best Wilco album. There’s no reinvention here, only a gentle massaging of the formula they’ve established collectively over their twenty-year career. Tweedy remains a consistent songwriter for these times and it’s great to hear the band find their sweet spot even if the album comes and goes like the wind between windows.

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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When Is Your Band Ready To Tour

This is the first question that any band should be asking themselves at almost any stage of their career. Even major touring bands need to properly think this one out. There are a lot of times when you are not ready to tour, and that’s fine, you just need to accept that as part of the polemic. Plotting out tours and getting them booked is tricky to be sure, but it’s also an essential part f making money as a band. There are a ton of factors that come into play when you are trying to determine if you should be hitting the road and I want to help you be able to pick them apart and determine if tearing up the nations highways in the name of rock and roll is right for your band right now. There are a lot of good rules of thumb you can use, and from there we can start to figure out when, where and for how long you should be going out.

The first metric I like to use is for beginning bands, or at least bands who are having hard time getting onto real tours – what is your draw at home? If your draw at home is under 50 people then you probably shouldn’t be hitting the road. I know that sounds crass and is kind of brutal, especially in a lot of smaller markets, but it’s true. The bands who hit the road and have a fair amount of success are the ones who are able to pull folks in their home market. I like to use this number for a couple of reasons. First of all, if 50 people in whatever city you are from care so much about your music that they will come out for your music, odds are people in nearby cities are also going to end up being interested. Furthermore, if you are drawing fifty people it means that you probably are opening for all of the cool touring bands when they come through your area. This is obviously a good thing because it means your network has grown and you have access to some truly special opportunities that you might be able to parlay for bigger shows on the road.

This doesn’t mean you can’t hit local regional markets, and one thing I recommend to a lot of local bands is that they hit up smaller markets around whatever the main city they live by is. It allows them more chances to play live and touch on a slightly different market. The odds are your small unsigned band is not going to draw anyone from the city to a suburb, but I can guarantee that in a suburb where nothing really happens you are going to find people who might never go to a big city for a band they don’t know coming out. This can be hyper beneficial in the long run and boost you to that 50 person draw you need. A small regional tour is also often a good idea from a branding perspective because it sets you up as a ‘touring band’ even if you’re playing towns within a hundred miles of your city – of course at that point you would probably be better served by just setting up weekend dates. The beauty of local level weekend runs is, assuming you have access to a big enough variety of markets you can do them as often as you want and keep playing to new people.

There is an issue though that we have to talk about that impacts touring bands of all levels – oversaturating a market. Unless you are going out and playing kickass opening slots on national tours every few months, you probably don’t want to hit the road more than once every four to six months, or at least not hit the same markets. You can sometimes pull off your first two tours near each other as a sort of one two punch, but after that you’re going to want to step back and try to figure out how to space them out best. Obviously you want to tour around the release of new records, and then usually you can pull off one more national tour in a year, then after that you’ve kind of exhausted your market. Maybe you can do a few small local things here and there but you don’t want to be that band who play out too much and end up ruining your draw. I know it’s tempting to try to keep going out there, but until you have new content you are just going to suffer.

The other thing a lot of bands need to realize is that an opening slot can often do little or nothing for your band. It really depends on getting on the right package. It’s better to say no to the wrong opening slot, even if it is for a bigger band, and wait for a better opportunity and increase your fans desire to see you than it is to deeply invest yourself in a tour you have no business being on. A tour is a long term time and financial investment, you don’t want to waste that out on the road with someone you shouldn’t tour with. Sometimes a weird package can work in your favor, but most of the time it doesn’t. You need to look at the kinds of fans both bands draw and determine if that crossover is worth taking advantage of. Sometimes, even if you don’t have that fifty person draw you can justify going on tour because the crowds will be huge regardless, keep this in mind as you plan the future of your band.

Odds are regardless your first tour or two will suck. I know bands who have been touring the country for years now whose tours still oftentimes suck. There’s nothing you can especially do about it, that’s just how it is, there’s a lot of bands and a relatively limited market unfortunately. Sure that’s shifting, but you can’t lose sight of how lucky you are to go on tour, if you can. Don’t go forcing yourself on the road when you’re not ready for it and it’s no ready for you. Rather feel things out piece by piece and fall in love with what you can and avoid what you should. Going on the road is a scary experience, so be sure you are totally ready for it before diving in.

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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Alternative Markets, Touring And You

The more I tour and the more I book the more I realize some weird hidden secrets about the music industry and putting together shows. There are things that you only start to pick up over years of experience and hard earned observation. It’s part of why it’s important for you to tour a lot even if you aren’t in a band – you get to see how things work in different cities, and most importantly B and C markets. In some ways it teaches you that there is no such thing as a truly B market if you play your cards right and reminds us time and time again that with a bit of good planning and trying to set up stuff as far in advance as possible then you are going to be well on your way to making solid progress in the music industry. There is always a path forward, no matter how brutal things get you can figure out where things need to move. I had a great learning experience tonight in Bellingham, Washington and want to help you too figure out more about your scene.

What I learned in Bellingham, and honestly have seen throughout my life, is that if you hit a college town during the college season you are going to get people coming out. It doesn’t matter about the genre, assuming you are in a well located venue relative to the college you have a built in crowd guaranteed. The crowd will probably vary by genre, but college kids are desperate for shit to do, and you are there to provide it for them. The other advantage of these college towns is that college kids, by definition, have a lot of money to spend on the arts. They still are young enough to value the arts and realize why they are important. You need to take advantage of this, and if you can upsell to them they are going to crack. Why? Because college kids want to feel like they are a part of something greater, and still are young enough to invest heavily in the arts. College towns have a very weird place in the American economy, but the good ones in America make for strong tour stops and mercifully short drives.

On a similar note I’ve found that it can be surprisingly profitable to play B markets on a Friday or Saturday night, especially if you aren’t a huge band. The reason for this is that a lot of the big bands will focus their Fridays and Saturdays on major markets, making enough that they don’t need to worry about a few shitty shows in B’s for the rest of the tour. There is nothing to do in Omaha on a Friday night, I should know, I’ve been there, it sucks. So what happens? People in a major city might never have been interested in your band but these folks quite frankly don’t have much of a choice. They can either stay in or go to your show. You should take advantage of that. It can lead to a stronger overall tour and a better average take. In terms of morale too it’s so much better to have an average of 80 people a show rather then capitalize on an A on a Friday and play to 150 people. In the long run it ends up paying off quite a bit better too!

It’s important to figure out which cities on your route are truly merch cities. Every once in while I will stumble upon a new city where Tengger Cavalry will, instead of making an average of $10 per head on merch will make up to $13. Other cities just aren’t merch towns. Some towns, like for example New York (for Tengger at least) tends to average quite a bit lower on merch per head. Some of this depends on how much a certain band covers a market (Which is why locals sell so little merch) and some of it really just depends on the spending power of the local economy. I like to look at average GPP’s, overal population and other demographic information in order to determine what the merch take will probably end up being at a particular show. As crass as it might sound you can reduce a lot of these cities to spreadsheets, especially if you use your own experience and the experiences of your friends in order to use anecdotal evidence to modify those spreadsheets for maximum accuracy.

A final key thing that I’ve picked up is that some markets just have traditionally low guarantees. This can be for different reasons. For example for economic reasons Canada tends to have lower guarantees with higher turnouts and a minimal chance to go into points. That’s largely because their venues often have a lot of employees and have to pay taxes on American musicians playing their venue. Other cities, like Sacramento or Philadelphia have notoriously fickle markets, so it doesn’t make sense for them to give high guarantees. However in many of these cases they will be extremely open to go into points if you can prove that you maintain the right draw in those sorts of cities. You need to learn about each of these markets individually so that you can make sure that you are asking for reasonable things when you try to book in these markets and don’t come off as a complete asshole – which is always a good thing.

The music industry is an industry of experience and it’s only harsh experience that will improve your chances – you need to keep doing your best yo make this a win win for everybody. I think that relatively soon we will be at a point where record labels are totally obsolete so a lot of it now is making sure that things run more smoothly. Management can help you a lot with this and guide your way to figuring out which markets you need to be targeting and when. A lot of this can be very stressful and you need to keep learning in order to keep growing up yourself and your peers. It’s not a good time all the time, but if you got this far then I think you can handle the hard times.

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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The Good Dude Network

This is one of the most important things to realize about the music industry, there is a network out there of ‘good dudes’ who have similar ethics, beards, sub-poverty incomes and an unwavering dedication to the music. Note that good dudes can also be dudettes, but they are of course limited by their lack of beards. (For those about to send me death threats, that was in fact a joke) People don’t seem to realize that this network exists – that it’s people who genuinely care about each other and who are fighting to help build a better tomorrow. Tapping into this network and being a ‘good dude’ yourself is a great way to fight for the music industry and allow everything to grow. While yes – the mainstream music industry is dominated by assholes and pieces of shit who just want to make a quick buck, on the independent level it’s the good dudes who work hard in order to craft something better, and they are the most important people in the world to market and promote you music towards.

What defines a good dude? Asides from the fact that they apparently all have beards, there are a few other things that you can watch out for. Your typical good dude plays in a cool band that has toured a lot but has had limited success for whatever reason, and odds are they either work as a sound guy back home or have a frustrating dead end job that they do to pay the bills for their music. Some of the truly good ones have sick jobs as engineers or doctors, allowing them to clear six figures and thus really take care of bands when they come to town. Good dudes are the dudes who only really care about the music and they have kept the independent industry going with their contributions, know how and dedication to the scene. If you want to succeed you need to be able to connect with them and work with them in order to grow your band. As it happens though – pretty much all good dudes know each other and getting plugged in with a few of them plugs you into the music industries oldest social network.

So how do you get connected with good dudes and build up a better future? Being a good dude yourself certainly helps. God dudes tend to be able to sniff each other out and figure out who has some clue as to what’s up. That’s not the only way to really do it though. The way you need to do it is to create something of substance that shows you work hard. Good dudes give up to much of themselves for this music to want to mess around with people who aren’t 100% dedicated to this and proving it with their actions. They are willing to give up a lot more than they get out of it, but they can’t really be bothered to do that if you’re just sitting around with your thumb up your ass. I know that sounds crass and you are doing all you can, but realize that these people give up thousands of dollars a year and many hours of sleep for other peoples bands. I know it doesn’t seem possible that these guys exist, but they do, I know them – they are simply in it for the love and the community, the same reasons that you should be involved.

I know it can be hard to want to dedicate that much of your life to something. Believe me, it’s been a process for me to get to where I’m at in terms of constantly letting bands crash and cooking for them and getting them shows. It’s not fun to always be giving it up for the scene and the far off goal of this eventually paying off for your own band but it’s the best way to find your own path forward, by giving back. Nothing you do on any social network is worth anything if you’re not out there actively supporting the scene as a whole. If you’re not showing with your actions, and not just stupid social media posts, that you care about the music you are involved in. Social media can only do so much, it’s your actions and words that make people see who you truly are and that really establish a brand for your band. It’s about being able to appeal to the people who have well trained bullshit detectors – these selfsame good dudes – and using that as a litmus test for your own legitimacy.

It seems fitting that the best form of DIY marketing is the same form of marketing that has worked for us for most of the twentieth century. It’s about being legitimate and honest – not just another poser trying to milk the scene. The people who are going to be doing you real favors want to be catered to. They want specialty packages from kickass labels, t shirts from touring bands, and generally just to know that they are spending their time and resources on the right people. You innately know how to be one of the right people, I’m sure of it, so use that to your advantage. It’s just a matter of hard work. The network of good dudes that we see out there is fundamental to the future of the music industry because those good dudes provide the essential backbone we all need. Any capitalist society is based on some form of cheap labor or volunteer work and our good dudes provide that for us. That needs to be respected, not taken advantage of.

The music industry is a really hard thing, and knowing how to handle your marketing and PR is very important – but if you aren’t marketing to the people who have a tendency to get well and truly invested in the music then you really aren’t doing yourself any favors. It’s not even that hard to be a good dude, you just need to be committed to showing up. Music promotion has always really been a question of being able to make the right sorts of friends and getting them sufficiently invested to want to help you out. Most people fail to want to show up and be an active and driving role in their scene and then wonder why no one cares about their band. So keep on pushing, embrace the good dudes and reward them justly, for they are king.

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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The Do Nots Of In Person PR

Initially I was going to leave this chapter as one section, but then I realized that I talk so much about face to face relationships in this book that I would be remiss in ignoring the many ways that you can fuck up marketing in person. The world of music is one of physical relationships and the knowledge that you can deal with someone, buy them dinner and relate over something more important than either one of you. It’s interesting because if you screw up online you’re probably okay in the long run but if you screw up in person then you are kind of fucked. People tend to remember that a little more- you will have a much harder time changing your face then your email or your company, and that leads to some long term issues. So you need to be aware of what you don’t do in these kinds of meetups – a lot of it is basic manners, but you’d be shocked at how many people fail to do even that much.

So of course, the first big do not is not to forget your basic manners. Do not assume the other person is going to pay, do not fail to ask them questions, do not only talk about yourself and do no succumb to the money hungry brutality of the industry. This does not mean that you should be afraid to be direct – people appreciate that sort of thing. Just because you’re trying to be polite doesn’t mean that you aren’t still there for business. I know this sounds obvious but a lot of people seem to think that just becaue it’s rock and roll they can get away with murder. Just remember that people like dealing with folks who seem like real human beings, in fact, I’ve found that being more formal than needed can actually help, as long as you play it off as your ‘thing’. When I meet people I go for the double handshake, engage in lots of bowing and on many occasions even do the business cheek kiss thing. Don’t engage in creepy amounts of physical contact, especially if your colleague is of the opposite gender (Just calling it like it is guys) but don’t be afraid to go for a hug, this is the music industry after all, it’s kind of what we do.

What’s also important to process though, and something that I think many of my peers ignore, is that if you’re out at a business dinner with someone you shouldn’t only talk about business. I know that sounds counterintuitive but trust me on this one. If you’re only talking about work stuff then everyone is going to go insane, and frankly you are probably going to have a rather superficial relationship. Humans are social creatures, they can’t just have an extended conversation just about the numbers behind their work. They are going to want to have something more substantive that can allow them to figure out who they are dealing with and what they want, beyond just in the business world. This entire industry is built on personal relationships – that’s part of why we are constantly drinking and partying. I know music has a reputation for it, but if you look at networking events across all industries you see similar trends. We all just want to be friends, and the people who are all business – well they can just go be accountants or something.

The other big don’t I’ve noticed is don’t try to set up a meeting that isn’t over a meal or at least drinks. I’ve seen people try to set up meetings on the cheap and it’s almost always weird. Unless you work with someone regularly and have a longstanding relationship, any type of meetup at a show or in an office tends to wind up rather awkward. I think this is just one of those basic social human things – it’s like we need something to do with our hands and bodies when we come to those natural pauses in conversation. Those pauses are fine over a meal when you can shovel more food in your mouth or at a bar where you can dump another beer down your throat, but if you’re sitting opposite a table then it just feels weird. I work really hard to not be socially awkward, and if I can help that by being able to create a space that will make it less awkward then I will. It leads to more productive meetings that keep the whole thing moving forward.

The final thing to avoid is please don’t be a creeper. I know this ties into good manners and having a solid place to meet up, but realize that there is so much latent stuff you need to be careful of. Remember names but don’t be weird about it. Try to be as eloquent as possible without sounding flashy. I know tons of people who try to impress me with their command of the English language but end up showing me they know how to use a few big words and then embarrassing themselves. Don’t try to oversell yourself because people will hold you to it, and if you can’t live up to it then you might be fucked. I know I’ve built my reputation on saying I could do something and then learning how to do it but make sure that you can learn how to do it. You don’t want to leave yourself hanging and owing people money all over town. You want to come of as charismatic and confident, the sort of dude who drives good deals and wants to build a better tomorrow.

Obviously this isn’t a complete list but it shows you how to start. Some of this is clearly colored by my own personal experience, but trust me, charisma is a skill you can learn. I used to have none, now people who meet me once say it feels like they have known me for years. You can learn to be a people person, even if you need to nurture that with some sot of chemical dependency (My drug of choice is alcohol) and you can use that to your advantage. No matter how hard your first few in person meetings are I assure you it always gets better if you are willing to work at it and show people that you are cut of the same fine cloth as they are.

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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Days Off On Tour

It’s crucial to build days off into your touring schedule – of course I write this in the midst of a day off, but it’s a day off that I desperately need. In a world where so much of our time is spent waking up at 8 in the morning to get in the car for 8 hours to play a show to thirty people it’s hard to justify a day off – don’t you just want to get through the touring experience? Make your money and go home? But the thing is – you need to embrace the days off, use them as a time to recharge your batteries, catch up with folks back home and steel yourself for the road to come. Your days off are your opportunity to sit back and relax, to take in all that has been offered to you and figure out what you need to move forward, a good meal, a night of sleep in a real bed, a new tomorrow. Your days off are the best way for you to move forward in one of the most grueling processes you can put yourself through, so you had damn well better use them for all that they are worth.

When I’m on the road and have a day off without a major drive or anything I try to spend as much of the day as possible away from whoever I happen to be touring with. This isn’t because I don’t like them but merely because we need space. When you are stuck in a van with the same people every day, all day you really don’t want to be with them during your down time. You want to take some time to appreciate other things – maybe go to a museum, chill out a little extra, see some old friends. These are the things that make tour life worthwhile after all. It’s really easy to get burnt out on tour and forget why we started doing this in the first place, so we might as well appreciate it for what it is. You get to find yourself with a spare day in a city you probably won’t have time to visit for another few years – you might as well make the most of it! If you don’t, you’re kind of doing yourself a disservice – so why travel that much in the first place?

If you are hanging out with your bandmates, try to at least bring a new element into the mix, be it buddies or a museum or something. I’ve seen bands spend their day off hanging out around the van and they want to kill each other by the end. That just feels like a wasted day. You need to spend your day off going to music stores to restock on gear, calculating your merch situation, figuring out where you want to go next and maybe even getting a head start on getting to the next gig – after all, you know what’s better than one solid night of sleep? Two solid nights of sleep. There is a lot of bullcrap that builds up over the course of a long tour. A lot of stress and frustration you are inevitably going to have to deal with. If you have a day off then you can use that time to start to get some of that frustration squared away. You can get that real meal you’ve been needing and change the oil in the car without worrying about having to be somewhere in six hours, and that’s a beautiful thing.

I love using days off to call home too. It gives me a chance to make sure that all is well on that front and that my cat is alive and my roommates surviving. Checking in at home can also be reassuring. It helps you get a little bit further away from the dangers of homesickness and shows you that life doesn’t stop – a difficult thing to remember when you are lost in America. It’s great to keep things moving forward at home, if you lose track then when you get back the post tour depression is going to be all the worse. If you keep denying yourself the importance of the home life you’ve left behind then the odds are you won’ be earning any favors when you get back even if you don’ have a family or anything, dropping out of your world for a month can have weird societal repercussions you should be aware of. It’s just another one of those little things that makes tour life so goddamn weird, difficult and incomprehensible.

Days off are few and far between – as it happens we can’t really afford them. Days off are a good thing to be sure but you have to be careful when you plot them. You also need to remember that a day with a two hour drive is practically as good as a day off and that a day off with a fifteen hour drive hardly even counts. In other words – days off aren’t always where they seem and are a crucial part of routing your tours it’s a huge morale booster, but too many days off can leave you in the dregs of despair. Pushing through those is the key – tour days off are hard to justify for, it’s a day you’re not generating any income and on a tight budget that can be hard. The thing is – on these long haul month long tours you need to take your day off like a weekend – even if you don’t take weekends back home, you deserve one now. You’ve been working 16 hours a day and sleeping on floors for a week – if you don’t think that you merit a day off to chill then I feel very sorry for you.

Tour is a grind and days off are one of the few blessings. You are far from work and home – you don’t need to worry about those silly things. Sure you may need to do band maintenance, but in the end – you have a day in a new place with old friends where you don’t need to follow ANY goddamn rules and can go out and get drunk just for shits and giggles. Take advantage of that – most people never get to leave their hometowns without their families or a million work obligations. You are out on the road with your buds living it up, and for one day you don’t have an ungodly drive and a show to play. Appreciate that. There is so little left to love in music, so little we can be truly grateful for as thing get increasingly stratified, so we might as well take what few benefits we can get.

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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Spending Money To Ease Tour Life

Do you ever make a decision so good that you decide you want to write an entire article about it? Because I did. And I’m going to. Your touring band needs a trailer. Ours is named Dennis and I love it. The change that this has rendered on our entire touring experience has been beautiful. Every once in a while you need to realize that spending a little bit extra money is going to save your entire bands experience and ensure that you don’t break up and are able to keep doing cool stuff with your band for years to come, rather than getting frustrated and deciding to call it quits. Being in a band is hard and if you can do simple things, like renting a trailer, to boost group morale by leaps and bounds then you had better damn well do it. Remember – morale is something you do have to spend money on on tour, even if it often doesn’t feel that way and that means that morale is a resource, a resource that is so important that it justifies spending five hundred bucks on a trailer. I seriously love this thing.

Dennis is great because even though he is small he can store most of our stuff. While I’d like to get a bigger trailer for the next tour so that we can load more easily and have all four rows of seats rather than just three, it’s still a blast to have it on hand because it makes our lives so much easier and means that we have a ton of room to sit back and lie down during those long drives. It means that we can do those all night drives a lot more safely because the person driving next can get a solid four or five hours of sleep while it’s not his turn to drive and have the energy needed to drive through until five in the morning. Sure it’s sometimes hard to park with a trailer and learning how to drive with one can be a challenge, but in the end, that sort of stuff tends to work itself out. It’s just one example of where spending money can make your lives a little bit easier and make things on tour flow more efficiently.

You see stuff like this all the time on tour, like bands who get hotel rooms or decide to shell out for vehicles above and beyond your standard fifteen passenger van. I’m not saying this is always the greatest idea, you certainly need to balance out comfort and frugality, but it’s certainly worth it to some people. I get that a lot of the time it can be really hard to decide to spend money when you aren’t making that much, but you also need to realize that if you’re out for a month that’s a month of your life. Consider what your normal living expenses are and realize that you’re not totally entitled if you apply at least some of them to your voyages. I’m not saying you should use that to justify extended lunch breaks or long bathroom stops but you can certainly keep it in mind. It’s the little things that keep a tour going smoothly, be it anything from enough sleep to enough food, and if you can pay a little extra to make those things work for you then more power to ya.

Other, perhaps more realistic things it might make sense for a low level touring band to shell out on is stuff like proper boxes for merch, not just the cardboard that you get from your t shirt printer. One of the disadvantages of trailers is that stuff gets knocked around and this can wreak havoc on boxes. The bands who use proper plastic bins end up having a better time, largely because it means things stay started a little better and its not always a question of trying to find new boxes at venues when yours fall apart. Merch racks are another great bit to cash in on, they serve as an easy way to quickly showcase your merchandise, especially on days when you don’t have a ton of time to soundcheck and people are already coming in, curious to see what you have to sell. If you’re really committed to having a good time on tour then you need to be willing to absorb some up front costs, but in my experience it’s almost always worth it.

Initial investments manifest themselves a little more intangibly sometimes though. For example – just look at things like PR and radio play. These are things that drive every major tour and you need to be open to pay them if you want your tour to work at all. Tours with no PR basically are doomed to be unattended and will never get any real coverage. Radio play, while a little less important, can be a great driving factor for fans who have never previously heard your band. It can sometimes be tricky to balance these things out – you obviously don’t want your upfront costs to be too high if you’re not expecting to make too much money on tour, but the more money that you spend upfront the more comfort you are going to have on an extended run and that is almost always worth it – especially for the long runs when you find yourself getting a little bit too intimate with your peers in the band you are touring with.

As always, consult with your friends in more established bands, figure out the best way forward for you personally and grow from there. Just because you spend a ton of money doesn’t mean you will be comfortable, but if you spend a decent amount of money then the odds are you will have a little more freedom and be a little more comfortable on the road which can mean better performances and more fun. You need to analyze why you are doing music and embrace it for what it is. Realize that if you are in it for the money yo are probably going to hut, so instead just embrace the stupidity of it all and smile, if you’re not having a good time all the time then why even bother?

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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The Romance Of The Music Industry

When I was 15-16 and first started really hanging out with touring bands I wanted nothing more than to be one of those guys who steps out of the van at one of the countless truck stops in North America, beard scruffy, hair blowing in the wind, wearing cowboy boots and yells “Hey brother!” and walks into an embrace from a similar looking gentleman. As it happens I have become one of those people and while I definitely love it it has also made me analyze the romance of the industry. I mean there is a certain magic to it. Disappearing from home for a month to go make out with a bunch of random women and play shows all over the country has a certain mystique. So does flying to new and exciting cities, getting drinks with strangers you’d only previously had phone calls with and finding yourself in the hippest and most exclusive VIP parties. It’s all a good time and I get why people do it. I’m sitting here watching a Texas sunset as we blaze onto the next show and loving it. But you need to be aware that a lot of it, and I do mean a lot of it, is bullcrap.

I’m not just talking about the weird puffery of the industry either – although I do want to take a moment for that. It’s easy to forget that a plane flight to pretty much anywhere in the country is only a few hundred dollars, and in the grand scheme of things a few hundred dollars isn’t that much. If you see people popping around the country that’s not necessarily because they are doing well – maybe they just have a solid source of income and enjoy traveling. Odds are they are doing just as much for ego as they are for work. It’s the same with tons of red carpet events. What are they really other than bland corporate circle jerks that don’t actually help you out in the long run? While it’s certainly important to do things for appearances in this industry you also have to realize that a lot of it is the same sort of self masturbatory madness that has led to things like vanity labels, stroking egos but not getting any real work done.

The real crap I’m talking about is the punishing realizations this industry can force you into. It’s the nights of empty rooms after having played a sold out tour only a little while prior. It’s the crippling suffering brought on by having slept exclusively in a van for a month and the back pain that is such a well known symptom of that. It’s your buddy not showing up to a show even though you haven’t seen him in a year, put him on the list and you know he lives only a few minutes away. You wonder why things are this way when you did everything right, and why you’re having so much difficulty when you worked so hard to make it right, and that’s when you start to realize that this isn’t an industry of lies, but rather one that really forces you to work for your money. It’s stuff like this that teaches you one of the most important lessons in the entire music industry – no one gives a damn.

No matter how well you do on a given tour there is no guarantee that the next tour will be even half as good. I know that sounds brutal but unfortunately it’s just like that sometimes. While a lot of the time you do see bands with a solid upward trajectory, most hard touring bands will tell you of relentless ups and downs with killer tours and thousands of dollars in merch sales followed up by a big ol’ bowl of nothing. The music industry is a hard thing and you need to remind yourself of that, especially the days you’re on the road. The people you are out with are brothers and you are going to fight and yell but also laugh together and learn to love each other. It’s all part of the silliness and unique brand of despair that is tour life. Sometimes you just need to realize that the road decided not to be kind to you this particular time around and you should just embrace it, take in the sights and move on.

I guess that’s the best way to view it – the only romance there is in the music industry is that which you let yourself feel. Don’t become enamored with it because it will hurt you, but also be sure to use it to your advantage every now and then, use it so you can appreciate what you’ve been given, so that you can look out on to that Texas sunset and smile. You may not be one of those hard, booted men yet, and you may not be trying to be one of them, but you probably are trying to see America and that’s a hard thing. It’s the sort of thing that is easy to get swept up in if you’re not careful and the kind of thing that could hurt you more than it helps. That’s not your fault – it’s just how the music industry is, it’s how it really always has been, and people trying to tell you otherwise are probably just bullshitting. This isn’t an easy life for any of us, but if we can realize that it’s all an illusion, but a fun one, then it’s probably worth making the effort to fight your way forward and figure out exactly where you fit into it all.

I’m not sure what it is about these flat Texas deserts that make me want to write introspective articles like this but I hope that it allows you to glean some small measure of truth. The truth being that in this industry you can’t always win. In this industry a lot of the time you are basically a traveling t shirt salesman meets long haul trucker – but guess what, we love it just the same. If you’re not ready to be a traveling t shirt salesman meets long haul trucker then maybe you aren’t ready for this. Or maybe you should go get a cushy record label job with the knowledge that until you get a few DIY tours under your belt it will be hard for folks to take you seriously. Ah screw it, I think it’s time to stop at another truck stop.

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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Exclusive Interview: Chase H. Mason of GATECREEPER

I meet Chase H. Mason, growler for GATECREEPER, a few blocks from the Nile Theater in Mesa, Arizona where the group’s upcoming tour will end at the one-day fest, Within These Walls. It’s early September and in about a month on October 7, the metal band’s debut full-length album, Sonoran Depravation, will be released on Relapse Records. Until then, they’ll be on tour with Skeletonwitch, Iron Reagan and Oathbreaker, gutting through the South and back.

We discuss the origins of GATECREEPER, the evolution of their songwriting, life on the road, the sweltering sun of Arizona, the artwork for Sonoran Depravation and some other shit. Read on.

Chase H. Mason, singer of GATECREEPER. Photo by Hayley Rippy.

Independent Music Promotions:  GATECREEPER came alive in September 2013. How did it all begin? 

Chase H. Mason:  Our drummer, [Metal] Matt, was playing with this band, Territory. The first time I met him we went down to Tucson to see Cannibal Corpse and Napalm Death. Pretty soon after that I saw him at a show up here—Rotten Sound at Rhythm Room [in Phoenix]. We just started talking about death metal and shit like that and discovered we had similar tastes. And I’d been wanting to start a band. I hadn’t been playing music for the past couple years and had just came out of my life problems. I was ready to do something. He was living in Tucson. I was living in Phoenix. We kept in touch and shot ideas back and forth. At the time our guitar player, Eric [Wagner], lived with him and they had done a couple projects together. Eric got involved and we just started writing. I met him for the first time and then we started writing together.

IMP:  Right there on the spot, huh?

CHM:  Yeah. Both of them were in Tucson, but I didn’t have a car. So, one of them would come pick me up and I would hang out for a couple days and just jam and write. We recorded the [self-titled] EP before we’d ever played live. And it was just us three.

IMP:  Did you record it on your own?

CHM:  We have a friend, Ryan Bram, [who] has a studio in Tucson. He plays guitars in Territory. We recorded everything that we ever put out with him.

IMP:  Was that self-released?

CHM:  We released it on Bandcamp [in] April 2014.

IMP:  Then it was put out on vinyl the following October. 

CHM:  Exactly. We didn’t know what we were gonna do with it. When we were jamming we were, like, “let’s record these songs.” We weren’t sure if it was gonna be a demo, but we were like, “this is better than a demo.” If we called it a demo it’s not gonna be taken as seriously, so let’s call it an EP. We put it up online and it took off from there. Some websites picked it up really quickly. Then, the label that ended up putting out the vinyl, Kings of Monsters, is from Arizona. I sent it to [them] and I didn’t really hear back, but after a couple months [they] reached out and asked if we wanted to do it on vinyl.

IMP:  Were there any expectations for the EP?

CHM: Not at all. Not at all.

IMP:  You guys were just tooling around at the time, throwing riffs at each other?

CHM:  We hadn’t played a show yet. We didn’t play our first show until July. Since it wasn’t a full band we had to get the rest of the band filled out. We didn’t have any expectation. I knew after we recorded it–maybe even while we were recording–we were like, “fuck, this is something.” We knew we had something special.

GATECREEPER by Hayley Rippy.

IMP:  Then you released the song “Poisoned Mind” on a split 7’’ with Take Over And Destroy, also from Arizona, and toured the West Coast. How did that turn out?

CHM:  We did that split and around the time [it] came out we did that tour. It was with a band from Boston called Fuming Mouth. It was weird because it was our first tour. It was pretty much Fuming Mouth’s first tour. They flew out here from Boston. We were all in the same van and they were using all of our equipment. It was interesting to do that for our first tour ever, but it was really fun. We didn’t know what to expect. But, the shows were cool. Luckily, thanks to the Internet, people knew who we were. 

IMP:  Trusty Internet. Then you toured the East Coast the following summer.

CHM:  That one we didn’t tour with another band. We just went out on our own. We played with a couple bands, like, Outer Heaven, who we ended up doing a four-way split with. We played with Fuming Mouth out there. We played two or three shows with Primitive Man on their own tour. We played in Baltimore for our friend’s birthday party. It was cool.

IMP:  Have you picked up on any differences between the metal crowds on the East Coast versus the West Coast?

CHM:   I don’t know ’cause when we’re out on our own, it could be more of a hardcore crowd. It could be a metal crowd. It could be playing a punk house basement. On that tour we did an after show for This is Hardcore which is probably the biggest hardcore music festival in the country. We played with a bunch of other metal bands. There’s some other bands like, Genocide Pact, Outer Heaven, that kind of fit into that same category that played. Some of the people from Relapse came to that show. But, they didn’t say anything. They bought our record, watched us play and left.

IMP:  How did Relapse get involved with Sonoran Depravation?

CHM:  Right before we did that tour we recorded the song “Carved Into Stone” for the four-way split with Homewrecker, Outer Heaven and Scorched. [On] the East Coast tour we met up with Dom [Romeo] who runs the label, A389. He put out records for Full Of Hell. We played at Baltimore and he watched us. We talked to him and he said he wants to put out our record.

IMP:  Your first, totally unwritten, full-length album?

CHM:  Yeah. For A389. We ended up putting up the money for our recording. We got Kurt Ballou to mix it. The plan was to put it out with Dom. Once it was done I sent it to him. He was just like, “wow. This is really good. I don’t think I’m gonna have the time to put into it that it deserves. I’m gonna send it to Relapse.” I’d been following Relapse since I got into heavy music and I know Dom had built a relationship with them. Some other bands, like, Noisem and Ilsa, Seven Sisters of Sleep, all had records on A389 that had gone onto Relapse. So, he sent it and a couple days later I got an email from Dom introducing me to one of the label managers at Relapse. That’s when they told me, “we’ve seen you before. We came to your show.”

IMP:  What artists do you listen to off Relapse?

CHM:  Current bands that I really like: Incantation, they had records in the past with them and now they’re with them again. Obituary’s on Relapse now. Weekend Nachos, they just put out their record. Magrudergrind, Lycus; they put out Amorphous in the past. They do a lot of stuff. When I was first starting to get into Relapse, around that time, it was Dillinger Escape Plan, Pig Destroyer, Mastodon. That was the mid-2000s when I was first aware of it and I’ve just followed it ever since.

IMP:  What did you learn from the process of recording the self-titled EP that you brought to the sessions for Sonoran Depravation?

CHM:  I go back and listen to the EP and still think it’s pretty solid. We’ve been in the studio [since] ’cause we did those splits. We’d go back and it was different. The first EP was just the three of us. And then “Poisoned Mind” we did, there was other people involved. The four-way split was the first song we recorded [as a] full band [for] “Carved into Stone.” We’ve had different experiences in the studio. We were learning how to play together. Not only just playing, recording in the studio, but also playing live. Learning as we go. We’re learning what works and what doesn’t. Should we do scratch tracks this way? Should we play to a metronome? Just learning anywhere from the vibe of it to the technical. And just songwriting. The dynamic has changed.

Album artwork for self-titled EP released in 2014.

IMP:  When you set out to write a metal record where does the initial intent start? Are there concepts or ideas that are sought after? Lyrically and sonically?

CHM:  For us, it’s definitely about the riffs first and foremost. One of the songs on the record was one of the first songs we ever wrote. [After] the EP, we had to write more songs before our first show so we would have a full set. So, it’s a span of writing [Sonoran Depravation] for at least two years. Some of the songs we’ve been playing live on almost every show we’ve played. And there’s songs we never played live ever before we recorded. [So], as far as the concept of it, it’s a little bit different than what our next record will be. But, I think we’ve always had a clear vision and understanding of what we wanna sound like. The song, “Desperation,” that we did the video for, it’s a short one and it’s probably the fastest more punk influenced song we’ve had. That was a conscious decision. As far as lyrical themes, that really comes last for me. I don’t really do a concept as far as the whole album. For me, it’s more about the riffs. It’s about getting every part of the song to be memorable and catchy and I feel like if I wasn’t paying attention to that first, then there’d be filler parts. Every single part—before the lyrics or vocals even come into play—every single part, just instrumental[ly], has to be cool. There has to be good riffs. It has to be memorable. Everything else gets cut out.

IMP:  Once the song finally start to become concrete, do you then write lyrics in response to the sound?

CHM:  It depends. On our first EP half of the songs were about drug abuse and stuff I had gone through and the feelings I experienced through that. I had just came out of a lot of stuff that I had been involved in for years. So, that was pretty fresh, pretty potent. Since then I’ve been trying to experiment, doing more role playing stuff, based on fiction, based on reality. Eric, he’s been doing this thing where he’ll send me a picture or a YouTube video—a war video or it could be just a picture. Or an old video on YouTube of a World War II dog fight, you know. Planes dropping bombs and he’s like, “This is what the song’s about.” We have an understanding.

IMP:  Talk about the title, Sonoran Depravation, and how much living in Arizona has been an inspiration, for good or ill.

CHM:  We’d been fortunate ’cause we can call Phoenix and Tucson our home town. So, we have twice the local fan base than a normal band. We had a shirt that said Sonoran Desert Death Metal on it. I think people related to that a lot. It kinda stuck. That shirt we did two years ago, but it’s probably one of [our] top selling things as far as shirts and shit. We didn’t go into the record with that title, [but] it’s definitely repping AZ. The Sonoran Desert reaches other places, but it’s primarily Arizona. Phoenix is the biggest city in the Sonoran Desert. I do think people from Arizona, people in the desert, I think it makes us unique. I think that maybe our brains are fried a little bit.

IMP:  There’s some pent-up aggression always lingering. 

CHM:  You know, bands from Scandinavia and black metal bands from where it’s just fucking miserable and snowy all the time–it’s kind of the opposite of that. It’s miserable and hot. It’s an excuse to be inside and writing riffs in the air conditioning.

GATECREEPER by Hayley Rippy.

IMP:  The artwork for the album shows this scorched mountaintop under a bleeding sky. Where is that from?

CHM:  The album art was something we spent a while looking around and who we wanted to do it. The EP was black and white and the other stuff that we do, the merch or fliers or the visual stuff, is black and white, [too]. We wanted our first full-length to be colorful and eye-catching. We wanted it to be an actual painting. We didn’t want it to be digital. We wanted something unique. We found this guy that’s done a couple of record covers that we liked; his name’s Adam Burke. We lined up for him to do the art before we recorded and by the time it was mastered and the ink was still fresh with Relapse, we got the album art back and it was exactly what we wanted.
IMP:  So he painted it just for the album?

CHM:  It’s specifically for the record. We gave him the direction. We just told him we don’t want any sort of figures or any sort of central—oh, there’s a guy that’s holding a knife or anything like that. We just want it to be landscaped, fucked up and we gave him some references, like, old death metal covers by Dancing Grave and he was totally on board. The visual aspect of everything we do is something we’ve made a priority. It’s a lost detail now with everything so consumable. It’s easy to record something on your own and just put together some artwork. Find some old painting and just take it. Just fucking crop it, put your logo on it and throw it up online.

IMP:  It’s sad to see that part of it go by the wayside. What’s your favorite spot to play in Arizona or outside the desert?

CHM:  Favorite place to play in Arizona is in Tucson, Club Congress. We’ve played there a couple times. We shot that video [for “Desperation”] there, the live part of it. We’ve been getting in the habit of our tour kick-off shows starting in Tucson. It’s in the bottom of Hotel Congress, which is a historic hotel where John Dillinger was captured. It’s a cool room and small enough where you can pack it out really easily. The sound is really good. It’s just a cool vibe. Since I have to go two hours to go down I just stay at the hotel. The room right above where we played. That’s definitely my favorite place to play.

Album artwork for “Sonoran Depravation” is out October 7, 2016 on Relaspe Records.

IMP:  As the singer is there anything you do to get ready to perform?

CHM:  Yeah. There’s some warm-ups that I do.

IMP:  Do you just scream at the wall?

CHM:  I watched the Zen of Screaming [by Melissa Cross]. And I thought it was the corniest thing ever. But, I tried those warm-ups out and I was like, “wow, these actually really work.” So, I’ve taken a couple of those techniques. It’s almost more just stretching. I have been doing some of that, [but] I think the way I do vocals, it’s just bad in general. Probably bad technique. When we’re on tour, for the first couple shows I’ll be all right. Then, maybe four shows in, I’m completely shot. Then a couple days into that I get calloused almost. And then I’m good to go.

IMP:  Drink some hot glue or something.

CHM:  I think there is a sound, a tone to it that is your vocal chords actually being shredding, being fucked up. I’ll taste the taste of blood in my mouth and I’m like, “alright.” There is this tea I get that has honey in it and I try to drink a lot of water before we play. I’ve learned some stuff as I go, but it’s probably never gonna be perfect. Probably some long-term damage at some point. (LAUGHS)

IMP:  Do you have anything on your mind when you’re playing live or are you just focused word-to-word?

CHM:  I’m blacked out. Sometimes, if there’s lights on the stage, you can barely see in front of you. You can see that there’s people, but it’s so dark and you’re blinded by the light. But, even if I can see the crowd, I can’t really pay attention. I just kind of black it out. I don’t even know what’s going on in my head. Honestly, I go into a trance and by the time it’s done, it’s over.

IMP:  I’m sure it goes by real fast.

CHM:  And you’re head-banging and you’re dizzy.

IMP:  What’s your favorite song on the new record?

CHM:  (SIGHS) That’s a good one. I think my favorite song is probably…I’ll say the fourth song, “Rotting As One.” It’s one of the songs that surprised me. “Stronghold” [is] another one and “Desperation.” People that’ve heard the record, whether it’s us, people from the label, friends, everybody has a different favorite song. Which I think is a good sign.

IMP:  Which song do you think best represents GATECREEPER?

CHM:  I think probably the first track, “Craving Flesh.” [It] encompasses a lot of different styles: [the] slower, doomy part, there’s faster parts. It’s a good snapshot of the band. What was your favorite song?

IMP:  I definitely like the last two best. “Flamethrower” and I love the long fade-out of “Grotesque Operations.” “Patriarchal Grip,” too—the opening especially—but “Flamethrower” is probably my favorite right now.

CHM:  See, that’s cool. That’s not what I would put as mine, but that’s fucking cool to hear. Having the long song with the long fade-out was planned. I wanted that last song to feel like a funeral procession. You’re just being dragged out.

IMP:  It could fade out forever.

CHM:  That’s mainly an Eric creation, [but] having that last part fade-out, there’s something hypnotic about it.

IMP:  Especially on a metal record. It gives you this moment of—

CHM:  Let’s you down easy.

IMP:  The tour in support of Sonoran Depravation starts September 23 in Tucson and will take you through the Dirty South to Jacksonville, Florida. Who are you gonna be touring with?

CHM:  This is our first support packaged tour. There’s four bands on the tour. Three core bands, then us opening for more than half of it. Once we drop off Homewrecker takes our place and does the Northeast. We’ll see how it goes. One of the bands is on Relapse, Iron Reagan. It should be cool. We booked our own shows on the off dates. After we play Seattle, there’s an off-day; so we’re playing Boise on the way to Salt Lake.

IMP:  Then the tour ends at Within These Walls, a festival held at the Nile Theater in Mesa, Arizona on Saturday, October 29. GATECREEPER is on a line-up with over twenty other bands. When did the Nile start hosting festivals?

CHM:  Within These Walls is a fest that [last happened] in 2011 and 2012. We tried to do a super diverse line-up. I was able to get some of my friends’ bands. Fuming Mouth are gonna come out from Boston. Of Feather and Bone, which we did our last tour with, they’re coming. There’s a lot of good local bands and some headlin[ers] like American Nightmare that haven’t played [Arizona] in a long time.

Within These Walls, October 29, 2016, Nile Theater, Mesa, Arizona.

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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Getting Blogs To Write About Your Band

So if PR is so hard – how do you get blogs to write about you? It’s just a question of reaching out to the right people. One of the fascinating sides of the music industry is how many niche blogs here are. Not only are there, for example, thrash metal blogs, but there are also thrash metal blogs targeting thrash metal from between the years 1986-1993. The internet is a weird place, one that encourages hyper specialization and music nerds are the sort of people who love to do crazy stuff like that. So it’s a meeting of a few relatively extreme groups and culminating in the very strange blogosphere that we benefit from today. For the record – I’m not entirely sure who reads these hyper niche blogs, but what are you gonna do? Coverage is coverage.

A good exercise, not just for PR purposes, is to figure out where exactly your band fits in your genre and subgenre and then what genres parallel to yours you might be able to find a place in. This helps you when you are trying to figure out the keywords you want to use when hunting down blogs. If you’re a pop punk act, then you can probably find blogs that would be interested in your band that cover pop punk, pop rock, indie, and even a few more open minded punk blogs. It’s always good to remember that a lot of these genres run parallel to each other. Think about how you got into your particular niche – you probably fell in love with a few other niches of music along the way. So consider those other niches that you fell in love with and take advantage of them in order to reach out and figure out where you think you can fit in.

Beyond that – finding blogs in your niche can be surprisingly easy if you’re really connected. For example – just by virtue of having spent years going to music festivals and shows I know bloggers from all over the world who are into the same sort of music that I love, and these people are willing to write reviews for me because they know me and know we love the same art. I got connected to them because we have hundreds of mutual friends – we are both folks who are super plugged in to our scene and it leads to a potent unification. It’s the sort of thing that you can generate just by being a friendly guy. That’s why it’s important to keep growing your network – because it can lead o the ability to craft out unique opportunities to help out your band. There are doubtless many blogs in your genre who would love to cover you – but if you don’t partake as an active member of the scene then you aren’t going to really find people who are interested.

You need to take advantage of your scene – but also make sure that you are giving back. There should be a reason for people to know you – you can’t just be in an unsigned band and expect tons of reviews to come in. I mean – that works to some degree, sending out mass emails to blogs in your genre definitely is one way to get reviews. Sure the turn around rate is usually pretty low, but at least it’s something. The real reviews though are going to come in when you are an active part of the community and are the kind of person who is always willing to buy a round of drinks, to critique a friends band, to produce a project for cheap. It’s a circle and if you expect to have your side of things respected and not get your just desserts then you are going to need to be a hard working and dedicated member of your particular music community.

I think what’s important to realize when reaching out to blogs is how many hundreds of submissions your average mid level blog gets every week. It’s easy to get lost in the madness. This is part of why it’s better to start off contacting more obscure blogs. Sure you might luck out and land a major placement – but the vast majority of the time it’s really only the obscure bargain basement blogs that are going to be interested. Once you start to gather a few of those it becomes easier to reach out to bigger blogs because press can lead to more and more opportunities and thus give blogs more desire to cover you. You need to showcase everything you have done in order to incentivize bloggers to write about you. You want to be hip and exciting band of the week because if you’re not you probably will be ignored. If you’re not showing off what you’ve been able to create people won’t care. I know that sounds bitter and tired but that’s just how it tends to be so often. I’ve done it I’ve tried to be the indie PR guy for my band and it is not an easy task.

Targeting the right blogs is a hard thing to do and being a friendly person and in the right part of the community is a crucial part of getting people to cover you. You need to realize that if you’re not targeting your hyper specific niche, at leas at first, you’re going to have a hard time getting coverage. You need to remain humble too – you can’t just expect the top publications in your genre to cover you right away. Instead you need to look at what you have to offer to the scene and go from there. This isn’t about you and your band, it’s about a greater collective and if you try to turn it around and make it all about you people will ignore you.

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