James Moore's Blog, page 87

Why No One Has Any Clue What’s Going On In The Music Industry

So yeah – this is the brutal truth that we all need to wrap our heads around. It’s one of those things that I don’t think any of us fully grasp until we are faced with it in someone we admire. In a multi-billion dollar industry that markets to just about everyone on the planet, it would seem odd that no one really seems to fully understand what’s going on. But, somehow, this is the case. I’m not really sure why it happened, beyond the fact that music industry degrees are a bunch of crap and lead to people getting jobs with no real experience to back them up. So yeah – despite what so many of us want to think – no one really knows what’s going on in the music industry.

I feel like everyone who has been around the block a few times can clearly remember the first time they realized this. The notion that ‘Oh hey, if I just answer emails in a timely manner, do what I’m told, and don’t lie, I’m a step up above everyone around me’ seems like it should be obvious but was one of the first indications to me that there was a veil of illusion in the music industry. Managers I know are regularly pleased to find out that the labels they work with love them because they can give well written and timely feedback. Other bands will find out that much to their surprise, by merely asking for a guarantee they can just end up getting one. Hell, even big name companies will cement massive deals with nothing more than a handshake. Shaky legal ground? (Ba dum tss) Yes. But apparently it’s enough to base an entire industry off of. There are a lot of reasons for this, but ultimately though I think it can be boiled down to two key factors.

First off – people are trying to be cool, and the general ethos seems to be ‘Well if we’re just cool why don’t you just shake my hand and call it a deal?’ this is all well and good on the underground scene, but if I were you I would get a little antsy when people try to play this off in bigger contexts. As lame as contracts are, a good one protects everyone’s interests. Don’t get me wrong though, people who hand wave away contracts aren’t all bad – in many case they are actually better, they care about the spirit of the art not the legalities. You just need to make sure that whoevers hand you’re shaking happens to be a trustworthy individual.

The second factor is the lack of education. The people who tend to be the most ‘real’ either didn’t get a degree at all, or got one in a totally unrelated field to the music industry. This means that they learned everything by doing it, which is great, just limiting in regards to things like contract and setting up non-DIY tours. This general lack of education leads to people just guessing and hoping for optimal results, and also a weird sort of rift. Those who are educated tend not to have the DIY cred that the people who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps do – but the educated ones, who rarely understand the underground, also have access to the big money. Finding a balance within this is one of the hardest things that you are going to have to learn how to do in the music industry.

Finding balance between these two worlds is the single hardest part of surviving in the music industry. Some labels, like Relapse or Season of Mist have a really good handle on this, and this has led to decades of success. Others, oftentimes the majors or wannabe majors, don’t grasp this quite as much and this leads to some very negative repercussions. When finding a label you are going to want to find one with people who can straddle the divide. You need an A&R guy who’s down with the kids, but a legal team who can embrace Donald Passman when they see him at industry parties. If you can find this balance in your own career then you are even better off. It’s rare to see, but still doable that you get a band who crossover like that, able to play basements and then turn around, put on suits and hobnob with major label executives.

It’s not impossible for individuals to find this balance. It’s just that people tend to be awful. Folks think they know everything all the time. Why? Because music industry people are artists, and artists have a tendency for megalomania. It’s one of those fundamental things that makes this entire industry a nightmare. If people could properly bridge the gap then maybe record labels wouldn’t be in as bad a place, but they can’t. So you’ve got crust punks like me, whining about jerks at major distribution companies impacting labels trying to do exciting stuff. It’s all cut off and nightmarish, handling the storm is the real struggle.

It’s important that you, as a growing individual in this industry realize these factors impacting every deal you try to make. This is why it’s important to try and bond with people on a personal level. The more that you understand about their backgrounds, the more easily you will be able to deal with them. No one has any clue what’s going on because almost no one has been able to have the breadth of experience necessary to juggle all possible worlds. Nowadays we have an industry where the underground and majors are more separated than ever, but the underground has a bigger impact than any other time in the industry’s history. If you can handle this, manipulate the meeting of worlds and shake hands with everyone you are on track for great things.

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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Vinyl Sales Surpassed Revenue From Ad Based Streaming: Here’s What That Means For You

“Well, this is interesting” I thought as I quietly skimmed through the sure to be controversial Digital Music News article. Vinyl sales have outpaced sales from ad based streaming. This is frankly kind of amazing. I mean – it should be a little obvious too, but it’s an interesting result from the RIAA announcing their sales for 2015 and I think it gives us a lot of stuff to unpack. It leaves us with a lot of lessons about the state of the music industry today and has me wondering where this whole ad based streaming thing is going to have to go next, especially now that people become increasingly aware of how close to piracy it actually is.

There’s a couple of points that need to be made right off the bat though about data manipulation. Primarily – it needs to be emphasized that we are talking purely about the revenue from free streaming, paid streaming systems actually dominated both vinyl and ad based streaming. Furthermore, the gap between vinyl and ad based streaming is probably a far sight greater than reported by the RIAA because not all vinyl sales go through them. For example – pretty much every vinyl you buy at a show is not going to be registered unless you are buying from a major band. That creates a rather impressive additional revenue. Furthermore, pretty much every signed artist (and many unsigned ones) have ad based streaming – bands with vinyl are a MUCH smaller segment of the music selling population. In other words – the gap is bigger than even the RIAA might suggest.

What this means though is important. Vinyl are usually sold around $20-25 and the sales of only 17 million has managed to outstrip a service that is nearly ubiquitous these days. I think that tells us a lot about where the music industry is. 17 million sales? There were individual ALBUMS in the 80s that did better than that. I’m not trying to be an old fart bellyaching about the state of the industry, but I think it’s important to think about the implications of that particular statistic. Def Leppard actually have two records that have cleared the 10 million sales mark. Think about that. Sure, the vinyl resurgence is real, and actually a really good thing for everyone because of the higher margins involved, but if a mere 17 million sales can outpace all of ad based streaming, then maybe we need to reconsider how ad based streaming is supposed to work.

We’ve discussed before on this blog how the entire streaming industry is messed up and how the larger the audience the more it costs streaming services, the majority of whom, it bears mentioning, are still in the red. The vast majority of artists income streams is from paid users and I think an argument could be made that piracy actually helped individual artists more than ad based streaming ever will. At least piracy, in its heyday was ubiquitous and could be directly tied to increased merchandise sales. Ad based streaming is almost more insidious because even though it essentially boils down to the same thing, people still seem to think that it’s morally justified.

Don’t get me wrong – I think a based streaming is great, I prefer to piracy by a longshot. I just think we all need to remember the long term implications that ad based streaming can have. It’s not a super sustainable model and it isn’t going to get any better until the laws change, and we all know how slow Congress can move. Ad based streaming is only a stop gap and until we can either move more people to paying for streaming or find another solution entirely then margins are going to continue to diminish in the music industry. It’s a brutal reality that so many of us (Myself included) just want to use Spotify to ignore.

Statistical variance and accusations of piracy aside, I think it’s also important to realize that, holy crap you guys, vinyl is actually a thing again, and not only that, it’s a very important part of the modern industry. Things look like they are only going to be getting better for vinyl too. From what I understand audiophiles complaining about vinyl not having enough low end will very soon be sated by high tech vinyl that has even better audio quality, on par with its peers in the world of FLAC and similar high quality audio files. This will help win over the last of the naysayers and increase the gap we are already seeing as ad based streaming revenues decrease and there becomes less of an excuse than ever not to buy vinyl.

Nevertheless – everyone’s salary is down and the new industry is going to take a lot of time to get used to. Streaming was a part of the solution, and it’s strangely comforting to see a shadow from the past coming up to be another key aspect to our future. We need to take vinyl sales into consideration, realize the accessibility costs and then manipulate it into something greater. There’s a lot of potential out there by combining these services and emphasizing the importance of helping artists. We are on the way to changing the world – we just need to take these weird little twists and turns in stride.

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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Using The Tools Given To You: A Guide For Indie Bands

As you advance in the music industry you are going to be offered invitations into a lot of different programs that are going to claim to be able to make you money. Now – how many of these actually do is up to two factors. The first is if the resource is legitimate. There are a ton of illegitimate resources out there on the internet and they are only going to limit your career and take away your rights, but you already knew that. The second is if you are willing to actually put in the time and effort to make the tools presented work for you. There are a lot of really powerful tools that can be obtained for free, or almost free out there, especially if you join artist programs. Unfortunately, far too many people just let them languish without exploiting them to their fullest potential.

Here’s the thing – a lot of these people genuinely want to help you and they genuinely get results, you just need to jump through hoops for them. Now you might ask ‘Well if I’m making both of us money then why shouldn’t they be jumping through hoops for me?’ Well – asides from that being a kind of narcissistic, unrealistic view of the modern music industry, it simply isn’t possible. They can expect you to put in an hour of work for one of your artists because you’re probably only handling a relatively small pool of talent. Meanwhile – many of these organizations are trying to handle ten thousand or more artists alongside . I think you see why an issue might rise up. They only want to have to work with serious people who will help make their projects flow smoothly for everyone involved. If you can’t show the modicum of respect that comes with properly setting up an account, then all of these badass services, from sync programs to distribution companies aren’t going to do anything for you.

In the music industry, in the twenty first century, the focus is increasingly on time spent rather than money. You don’t need a lot of money to go far these days, but you do need a lot of time to make any of this work. That’s why there are people like me who can make decent amounts of money essentially by whoring out our time to provide a myriad of services. I’m good at the meetings and wining and dining side of things but most of my time is spent reading contracts, filling out forms and making sure the back end is taken care of. That’s why god gave us interns (Except you probably don’t want an intern pouring over your contracts.) but now, as unpaid internships are getting some much deserved stigma we have to go back to the way things used to be – people have to spend their own time if they want to get stuff done and make sure it is done well.

The tools that you find online, from Sonic Bids to Audio Rokit can be very powerful and helpful. That doesn’t mean all of them are, and some of them you can dump hours into before you get any sort of results (Or end up with no results at all) That’s the thing about the music industry – it’s a pain pretty much all the time. That’s why so many people end up dropping out of it – there is almost nothing harder than driving your head against a wall to only have that wall get harder and more impenetrable. The point I’m trying to make is that these tools are exactly that – tools. So if you use one without really knowing how, well then of course you aren’t going to get far. But if you invest time and energy into understanding them then you will probably end up with a fair bit more success.

The music industry is complicated thing and from what I understand the more tendrils you can reach out the better off you are going to be – guaranteed. The problem is that nowadays to properly reach out these tendrils you need to dedicate a lot of time. Or maybe you don’t. I wasn’t around in the 70s and 80s when you had to mail a bunch of stuff physically and hope desperately that you got a reply. Who am I to judge? What matters though is that a large part of the industry is getting your ducks in a row and if you aren’t willing to do that to engage in the products that you have been offered then you have no right to complain that said products aren’t helping you out.

This might seem like a rant but it really isn’t. It’s more of an exhortation to go out and develop a brighter future for everything you happen to be involved in. It’s better to fully exploit a handful of services than to be registered but not doing anything with a hundred. I know as well as anyone that this requires a ton of research and can be exceptionally stressful – but that’s what you signed up for isn’t it? It’s easy to overlook very powerful tools or simply miss out on their potential because you were focused on other things that could have made you money more immediately. You need to be willing to think long term in order to establish a lasting career.

At the end of the day what do I know? All that really matters is that the music industry has fundamentally shifted and as we all know the individual has far more power than ever before. Yet this power requires a huge investment of energy an if you’re not ready to dive into that then you need to reevaluate things. Every label that wants to really be something needs a staff these days. You need to be constantly checking these programs and offers. Yes there’s email to centralize it but honestly things are getting so spread out these days that it’s going to take increasingly more time until you can properly figure out what the best income streams are for your particular case. So go out – read articles, make friends, and for God’s sake exploit all your resources to the max. That’s the only way to really do it anymore.

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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Budgeting And Your Indie Band

Budgeting should really be any independent bands primary concern. Figuring out how to divvy up the money at the end of a gig and then deciding how you are going to reinvest that can, in and of itself decide the future of your band. Of course – there are pretty much as many ways to do this as there are bands and to talk about all of them would obviously be to granular. Instead, I want to talk about a couple of ideas that allow you to get an idea for the kind of spending you need to be looking at and how you need to consider be budgeting in your band, especially as you prepare to go on tour and take the world by storm.

The first thing you need to realize is that your first and most important expense should always be your merchandise. Unless you’re on tour and gas is becoming an issue you always need to be willing to shell out for merch, even before you eat. This is the lifeblood of your band – it grows your brand it makes you the best margins and it is what is paying for that gas to get from venue to venue. In other words – if you’re not working hard on the merchandise side of things then you might as well stop being a band trying to make money. There is simply no other way to do it, unless of course you are selling hundreds of thousands of records.

From that you need to realize that yeah, your touring vehicle is going to be a money sink and that you need to cover costs for that too. Whether you need to buy one or not is a legitimate issue that really is a case by case thing (Though ultimately I would encourage almost every band to buy a van) You need to be willing to budget around $100 just for your vehicle when on the road, assuming you are renting, but again – this is the kind of thing that your merch earnings should be covering. Guarantees can also help with this sort of thing – but that’s not something you can expect at lower levels anyway. In most case you’ll be looking only at your merch sales and maybe gas money provided by the venue. Now that we’ve talked about your two biggest costs let’s figure out how we should be dividing up our money.

There are two main ways that I have seen bands divide up the money and they seem to work equally well – it really just depends on the personalities in the band and the specific situation. The first is to simply give everyone a percentage cut of all of the money and then reinvest from everyone’s personal finances when it comes time to purchase new merchandise, gas, etc. This can be good because it requires a lot less paperwork. However the main drawback is if not everyone is getting an equal share of the cash and isn’t making an equal share of investments everyone needs to kind of keep an eye on everyone else to make sure that things are going to be okay. Depending on how friendly band members are this can potentially be very stressful. In cases like this it’s easy for one band member to take their share of the money and then drop off the radar when it comes time to reinvest.

 

 

The other way is to simply put all of the money into a band fund, maybe giving band members some scratch from that, but primarily reinvesting everything back into the music. Though this usually can require contracts and an extremely well trusted party to handle the money this can also create a much more efficient system of investment into the band. It means that people don’t have to worry about their personal finances when it comes to the music and allows you to have a perpetually growing (Well hopefully growing) band fund that you can much more easily tap into when it comes time to buy plane flights, a touring van, or make any other major band purchase.

Of course between these two options lies a whole spectrum of payout ideas – from percentage deals where the majority goes into the bank, to salaries overseen by the bands manager. Like I said – this is largely a case by case thing, it depends on how much you are pulling in and how much you are looking to invest in your band. I personally believe that letting the manager kind of oversee everything is the best way to do it – but then again I manage bands, so I’m obviously biased (Although I will guarantee almost every big band does it that way) As is though, this is something that requires a lot of thought from everybody involved. People get touchy over money, and rightfully so – we don’t want people getting hurt because of it.

Not everyone will be super responsible about money either – that’s part of why it’s good to have a manager who is good at handling this sort of thing. Almost every band has at least one member who isn’t fully tuned into the financial situation. That’s okay though – they don’t necessarily need to be. What they need though is a manager who will make sure that they are compensated fairly. The music industry isn’t a place for people who are willing to spend money willy-nilly. So if you are not comfortable with money you may want to do some research on your own to help make sure you’re not negatively impacting your career or your band.

At the end of the day – talking about money with your friends in your band really sucks and can make it a hard time for everyone involved. The best attitude to have is that you won’t be making any money off of the music industry and you just need to be at peace with that before going in. You need to be aware that gas can cost a whole hell of a lot and that a single van accident can screw up any salary you thought you were going to be getting. Be smart and gracious as you work out your personal money issues without having it impact the music – your bandmates and partners will be grateful for it.

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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What Endorsement Deals Mean For Your Independent Band

One of the most fascinating aspects of the music industry to me is how much free stuff is readily available. And yet, despite this, no one seems to take it. Asides from the fact that many bands eat and drink for free for most of their touring lives, one thing that gets to frequently overlooked is the endorsement. “Those are only for big bands” you say? Not true. I’m here to tell you that even a minor musician with just a little bit of gumption and wherewithal can get a sponsorship and see free goods come in worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Here’s where that underground cred rears its head once more – this is exactly the kind of narrative creating branding opportunity that you need to be taking advantage of if you want to survive.

People are a lot more willing to give musicians free stuff rather than to give them money – even if the free stuff is worth more than they would ever give for a CD. It’s one of those weird things about the human psyche I haven’t quite figured out. It’s a lot easier to ask a company for a drum case than the $300 to buy said case. I get that their only real cost is parts – but even then, companies are always much more willing to shell out a free case and take the $50 loss than give a musician $50.. After all, this way they know their product is being promoted. Even as you are constructing your own narrative be aware that gear companies are constructing stories of their own and you need to help them to see where you fit into that.

As a side note – you need to be aware you’re not always going to get stuff purely for free. At lower levels companies will often give musicians just an artist discount, or ask for the money for parts. These types of deals are still beneficial (And save you money) you just need to be sure to have all your ducks in a row when it comes time to sign that contract. You don’t want a company using your image whilst they give you a $5 discount on a $600 product. Most companies handing out endorsement companies have artist relations people and aren’t trying to screw over musicians, but this is the music industry and you can never be too careful.

Ultimately companies don’t want to give you free stuff because of your skills or even your longtime support of their brand. That’s not what really matters to them. What they care about is finding musicians who help to make them look like the kind of brand musicians want to work with. They want people to show up and say ‘Hey – the drummer of X band works with you. I dig his sound.’ You’re not going to get a commission for that – let’s be real, that sort of situation rarely if ever happens. It pays for these companies though to have a healthy roster of artists though since it paints them as noble caretakers of a scene that we are all beholden to.

You need to take advantage of this. fact You don’t really need to be a big name musician at all to score some free gear. Obviously you need to be in a band and have at least some credits to your name (IE: Opening for bigger bands, about to join a bigger band, a few tours under your belt) but once you’ve got those fairly basic details covered, you are pretty much good to go. What seems to matter most is having a well written bio and some professional shots of you playing. It helps evidence that you are serious. If you seem like just a pretender you won’t get any endorsement deals – but if you can qualify yourself as a capable individual with a very real shot at progressing then the odds are at least one company would be willing to take a risk on you.

Remember, at the end of the day, the people making gear also love music, just as much, if not more than you. They know what it means to play in a tiny unsigned band, pour all your energy into it and come outwith no money to show for it. They understand the fundamental struggles of this generation of musicians and guess what – they are here to help guide you through even as you struggle. That has always been their role. You need to approach them in this way – make them realize that while you are an asset, and you are doing them a favor, you still represent the potent history of the underground. You help them to justify their oftentimes huge profit margins because they are still supporting their scene in perhaps the only way they know how. You are helping them to cultivate an image that they never want to have to let go of.

So yeah – endorsement deals are amazing. Everyone benefits, but companies are never going to reach out to you. They already get hundreds of submissions week – why should they want to email you about giving you free stuff? You need to step up and make sure you come off as sufficiently professional and prepared for this kind of opportunity. The best part – these things stack, the more deals you get the easier it becomes and the more people are willing to work with you. Then you can bring your friends in and really get the ball rolling. So get ready to dive off the deep end and into the world of endorsements – send out roughly a million bio’s and embrace the change it could represent for you.

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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Why Being In A Hardcore Band Will Save Your Music Career

I’ve been saying this a lot lately but I stand behind it – every future career musician should play in a hardcore band in high school. That’s not just because I love Ceremony and enjoy listening to bands that worship them, but because hardcore teaches you a lot, and is going to teach you lessons that set you up for future success in the music industry. Many of our heroes, even the mainstream ones like Fall Out Boy, Rage Against The Machine and The Eagles Of Death Metal had originally made a name for themselves in different hardcore bands – and I don’t think it would be out of place to say that those hardcore ideals went on to inform their careers.

The thing about hardcore is that it teaches you to do this only for the love. It forces you to have low standards and expect nothing. You learn that even having three kids at your show is a wonderfully empowering thing. On the underground level all hardcore really is, is making music for your close friends. While some of these bands have professional ambitions by and large the main motivation seems to be to just get the rage out. I don’t think that there are a lot of young hardcore frontmen out there trying to be HR from Bad Brains when they grow up. Instead they know that this is just a part of their lives that adds to their personalities and experiences – but there are rarely real career aspirations at hand here.

That’s the point though – if you go into this rock and roll thing with career aspirations it almost certainly isn’t going to work out. You need to be willing to pay your dues and grind it out for years with no real expectation of even covering your costs. Hardcore teaches you to drive six hours to play a show to fifteen people and be happy because one of the kids decided to sing along to your most recognizable song. This is important. This shows us that it’s the small things that make the music worthwhile. People in music too often expect the world handed to them on a platter – sometimes you just need to grin and bear it.

In a world where margins continue to shrink and fewer people than ever are able to make money off of music it’s sometimes good to back and visit a place where there never were margins to begin with. Hardcore has a certain primal appeal because it reflects a time in our lives when nothing mattered outside of being loud, depressed and angry – and fundamentally – being loud, depressed and angry has been the source of an entire generation of music. Hardcore changes you, not musically necessarily, but certainly spiritually. I mean – just watch videos of Zach De La Rocha performing with Inside Out after joining Rage Against The Machine. He could have been playing stadiums exclusively but he decided to go back on a club tour in order to support a cause he believed in. If that’s not true to the spirit of hardcore, and indicative of how the music can alter you, I don’t know what is.

Now I’m not even trying to argue for the supremacy of hardcore. I simply have found over my years of hanging out with big name musicians that a lot of them can trace their origins in live music to loud basement shows with a bunch of their friends. It’s a common thread that unites the highest and lowest levels of musicians. It shows us that despite everything, a band like Minor Threat can remain hugely influential. Before people learned to play, before they decided to make money, most of your musical heroes were just out of place alternative kids in high schools that didn’t meet their needs. So instead of whining about it like their modern compeers they got up off their feet and learned to love it loud.

I know that this ‘no expectations’ story is also the inception of many a great hardcore band and we need to consider that. Remember that when I say these bands have no expectations I’m not saying they are lazy. Oftentimes hardcore bands are among the hardest working bands out there, going deep into their own pockets to fund their passion with the bitter realization that in all likelihood they are only going to lose money. After all – they drive all over the country to play empty shows in tiny VFW halls. But guess what? That helps to build a global community and a work ethic that isn’t going to be dissuaded at the first sign of strife.

Ultimately – hardcore is not going anywhere – it’s going to stay a constant in the music world whether you like it or not. It provides absolution to the masses and also allows countless industry figures their introduction to the scene. This is a place where even from a young age you can have an impact and kids understand that. In a world where youth are constantly marketed to it’s the thing that isn’t marketing to them that they are going to gravitate towards – in other words – hardcore is only going to grow. As for now – if you’re young and want to do this, get out, listen to Ceremony and get ready to get your butt whipped – it’s good for you.

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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“Play music, it’s good for the soul!” An Interview With Hyena Kill

Hyena Kill are one of the most exciting heavy bands on the UK scene today. This duo is taking the promise of bands like Queens Of The Stone Age and Deaftones and bringing it to the underground. Wonderfully abrasive and fully aware of their own bombast their upcoming record Atomised is a testament to all that makes this type of music great. I got a chance to Skype with their very open and friendly drummer, the fabulous Lorna Blundell and talk about just about everything.

Find them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehyenakill/

How the hell are you?

Really good thank you! I’ve just been jamming all day by myself since Steve left to get his amp serviced.

All day?

Since like 11 yeah!

And you said before the interview you were rehearsing tomorrow.

Yes – but that’s just because we’re about to go on tour.

So it’s normally not this hectic?

It’s pretty hectic at the moment. We’ve got a lot going on with the album coming out. I’m spending a lot of time on social media which I don’t know how I feel about! (Laughter)

What’s your social media strategy?

We do our best with it but Steve and I aren’t internet savvy -we are mainly musicians. Sometimes we get frustrated with the amount of effort we have to put in. It’s amazing how you can interact with fans and people. It’s only our friends who get stuff straight from us. We try to update every day. There’s always something new going on.

I haven’t had a chance to hear the new record yet, but how was that experience? How was it an evolution on previous stuff?

It was an amazing experience. We wrote a really heavy album because people kept telling us to write more catchy songs and me and Steve were like ‘that’s not what we do’. So we kind of subconsciously rebelled against it and wrote a very heavy record. It’s not a heavy metal record, when people ask me what it sounds like I refer to it as ‘Tool meets QOTSA meets Deaftones’. I was listening to our old EP last night, which I don’t do often at all, but I saw the progression we made and how we’ve matured was awesome. We also put a bit more money into it getting it mastered at Abbey Road. We were a lot more serious. The producer knew exactly what to do and what we were after and we smashed it.

What inspired you to take it to the next level like this?

There’s only so much you can do with EP’s. We did consider doing another EP. It’s not a massive album though, it’s only eight tracks. We just wanted a body of work we could be really proud of that could represent all that we have done in the last four years. Me and Steve are really proud of it an as musicians we have had to up our game and Steve’s vocals are incredible on the album. The producer wouldn’t let him do a shit take.

You said it’s a ‘heavy record’ but not a ‘heavy metal record’ wherein lies the difference?

We have quite a bit of groove. I listened to a lot of nu metal and hip hop growing up and I’m not a huge heavy metal fan. We take influence from it but we also listen to a lot of pop. Steve is a massive Nirvana fan so the way we structure our songs is quite poppy. From a drumming point of view I don’t use a double bass pedal which keeps it groove based. It does get a bit nasty and raucous so it does verge on metal now and again. When we first heard the record back though, we didn’t realize how heavy we had made it – but it wasn’t heavy metal as in like the crazy stuff. It’s just really thick sounding. It’s massive. If you’ve heard our latest single – it’s similar to that.

What makes something heavy for you?

For me personally – a lot of screaming and guitars. I think heavy is like massive drums and stuff. WE do do heavy but I wouldn’t class us as heavy metal – not solely. I think when people describe us on our behalf we do get put in the heavy metal category. I have called us a heavy rock band though. That would be my description – heavy rock.

In that heavy rock/metal/fuzz scene we are seeing a lot of duos coming like Conan, The Body or Eagle Twin – why do you think that is?

That’s a question we get asked every now and again. We forget that we’re a two piece because we had a bass player initially, years ago, and he decided to leave. We didn’t get another bass player because we practice so much and had so many gigs coming up that we couldn’t find a bass player. So Steve got an octave pedal and started playing through a bass amp and we unknowingly kind of developed this sound that didn’t accommodate a bass player. That became our personal experience and made us into a two piece. There were a few other two pieces knocking around at the time too which influenced us. I think a lot of two pieces do it for convenience – it helps communication. It also helps for touring.

It’s a catch 22 though because we also had to pay out of pocket for this album and that was expensive for two people whereas for a four piece it would have been a lot easier. I think people are just experimenting with sound though. The two pieces I’ve been exposed too are quite different. No two are the same. With two people you have to fill a void. When our bass player left my drumming had to get a lot better because we had to fill out the sound. If we wanted a bass player now it would be difficult because Steve’s sound is so massive. I don’t know if it’s a fad but there’s a lot of them. Sometimes Steve and I forget.

I wasn’t trying to imply it was part of a phase – it definitely makes sense…

It’s fine! I think a lot of them popped up in Manchester almost overnight. At one point we were on a bill with all two pieces. It’s not really a fad I just think it’s easier to jam with two people. I’ve met bands with ten members and I have no idea how they all get in the rehearsal room. It’s convenient really. It’s a lot cheaper in terms of touring.

Do you think that two piece bands are the future?

I’m not sure. Two piece bands have been around for a long time. Obviously the classic example is theWhite Stripes who we get compared to a lot – I don’t think we sound anything like them – maybe its just the girl boy combo. I’m not sure about the future – that would be cool.

On your band page you would bill yourselves as ‘proud cows on acid’ I feel like there is a story there.

When we first started the band we couldn’t decide on a band name and it was when we still had a bass player. We just started putting words together and one of the names was Proud Cow. It was a party phase for us all, we’ve grown up now. I wanted to call the band Proud Cow and I got outnumbered. Steve came up with Hyena Kill which was great because there were no other bands out there with that name – although initially we had to fight a lot of wildlife videos on Youtube! But we originally called ourselves Proud Cow and the ‘on acid’ I think just came from messing around. When we were typing p our Facebook bio I think we put it for my amusement and never took it down.

In regards to ‘on acid’ how much did psychedelics impact the early phases of the band?

Not at all actually. Steve would be better at answering this. It was just a joke. We call our record label Proud Cow Records. We weren’t that messed up – we were just drinking a lot at the time. It’s something Idon’t think about though – no one has asked in years.

You mentioned having to cut back on alcohol what happened there?

This was four years ago now. We just loved to party. When the band started to get places we were like… ‘Well…’. Don;t get me wrong – we like to have a few beers, we’re English after all – but rock and roll as it is going on tour and drinking a lot is exhausting. I started to go to the gym and looking after myself. At first we really did fulfill the stereotype of being grungy messy kids. We were a lot younger then. When the band started to do something we had to sort ourselves out.

To head towards the end, what do you feel your place is on the UK scene?

That’s a good question – it’s funny because we don’t fit into a set genre. I feel like we could fit on a lot of different bills, metal, grunge, heavy rock whatever. We are quite accessible. A lot of people will say ‘This isn’t our type of thing but I really enjoyed that.’ I think people are impressed by the intensity and volume driven by just two people. As far as where we are on the scene we are still very underground and hugely DIY. We’ve only just recently started to get a team of people behind us which we are really grateful for because it means we can focus on the music more. It seems to be getting every year though. With every hometown shows the venue gets bigger. We sell out a lot of shows in Manchester. In the UK we are still working on making a name for ourselves. People get in touch saying they enjoy it every day though. I just had some guy knock on our practice room door who heard us play yesterday and who plays drums down the hall. He didn’t realize what we did and he had already heard of us. That always takes me by surprise. We are slowly getting there even if we are massively underground.

What do you love so much about music?

It’s become my life! I’m not quite sure what I would be doing without it. I love listening to it as much as I love playing it. I think it’s really important for me to listen to variety of music. I don’t want to just listen to rock, I listen to a lot of things that suit my mood. It helps me get through life. If I could make some sort of existence off it I think I would be very happy.

Do you have any final words of wisdom for me?

Play music, it’s good for the soul!

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Is Pop Punk The New Rock and Roll?

This week I was lucky enough to see the State Champs and Neck Deep co-headlining world tour twice. It was a very interesting experience and not just because the musicians were great and a lot of fun to watch. These shows showed me a world I never really got to partake in. It reminded me of why I fell in love with music in the first place. There were hundreds of kids, on both nights, singing along loudly to music that spoke to them. Maybe this generation won’t have its own Iron Maiden or Metallica, but it certainly has Modern Baseball – and given the existential angst of millennials ‘caught between my adolescent safety net and where the world wants me to be’ then maybe this is what they need for absolution.

The thing that I think draws so many of these kids to this music is the very thing alienates the adult world – the sense of youthful pain. This isn’t the pop punk of Green Day that left a bad taste in the mouth’s of the masses. This is something much different and much more profound. One thing that struck me at these shows was that for the first time in years I actually wasn’t the youngest person at the show. An album title like “Maybe This Place Is The Same And We’re Just Changing” that Real Friends put out in 2014, hints at a sort of pain that is really only going to be relevant to a pretty specific subset of the population. Yet – the best pop punk is able to take these fundamentally high school concepts and turn it into something larger that reflects on the general darkness of a world that we are all suffering through. Somewhere in the late aughts and early 2010’s, pop punk went through a fundamental shift – bringing in emo touches to make the music much darker and full of existential pain.

That’s not what struck me though – kids have always been listening to sad music – that’s kind of the point of being young. What struck me was that for the first time in years I was in a jam packed venue of youths singing along loudly and moshing to high paced rock music. Sure it’s not as brutal as some of the stuff that I listen too on a regular basis, but there was just as much energy in the audience as when I saw Cannibal Corpse at the same venue back in 2014. Pop punk has both the mass appeal and energy that pure rock music has lacked for years now and I’m wondering if this is the long sought after way forward.

In a way it makes sense. Naysayers can’t really claim that it’s not as technical as typical rock music, just listen to the melodic content that goes into your average State Champs song. These guys are a cut above their punk predecessors. In fact, on any given song it is far more common to hear the impact of The Cure rather than the Sex Pistols. That being said – there is oftentimes a strong tie back to the hardcore scene with even massive headliners occasionally breaking out a hardcore tune or a death growl to emphasize a point. It gives kids a clear jumping off point into the world of independent music which is more important than ever in a world of niche marketing and fragmented taste.

Who can’t identify with a bit of youthful angst anyway? I mean yeah, some of the bands on the scene like Knuckle Puck come off as overtly pretentious millennials who don’t fully grasp the meaning of the word ‘preachy’. But as a general rule, it seems like pop punk provides catharsis for a generation of teens. Rock music is no longer dead, it’s merely shifted. Sure, the bluesy roots are by and large forgotten, but that doesn’t mean that the bands are afraid to show the influence of a more traditional band like The Killers. We are seeing a crew of youth who grew up on My Chemical Romance, actually learned their instruments and ended up writing some great songs.

There might be something of a sampling error though. As one merch guy put it “For half of these kids this is probably their first show” When you look at more underground segments of the rock and roll world with people attending literally hundreds of concerts year it should be obvious why they don’t have as much energy to contribute. Perhaps pop punk really is just going to be a short lived flame – but maybe it can grow into something greater. What I do know is that the next few years are going to be crucial for its development and evolution.

The scene is still young and maturing. A lot of bands still need to find where they fit into the big picture – but it’s the same with every scene. It takes time to grow. That’s fine though, you need to expect that if you’re trying to craft something greater that has real staying power. I think we just need to be happy that there are rock bands out there who are appealing to young people and making money off of it. I’m not saying that you need to go and start a pop punk band to pay your bills, but merely that there is some hope out there and we aren’t going to end up stuck in a haze of EDM for all time – there is still good stuff for the kids to connect with.

Long story short – maybe it’s nothing – just a phase. But when you see hundreds, if not thousands of kids getting together to honor some of their scenes biggest bands and proudly cultivating a massive underground you have to start to take notice. There is something special going on here, and sold out show after sold out show on the State Champs/Neck Deep world tour is proving that the kids know what they want. Hell – even the relatively low level Like Pacific who they had opening had dozens of kids singing along loudly to their music. Pop punk kids clearly love watching people playing instruments and having a good time on stage. Maybe just maybe electronic music will have to take a backseat again, because slowly, somehow, rock is coming back on top.

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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Wikipedia And What It Means For Your Indie Band

Lately I’ve been working on building a Wikipedia page for a client, it’s my first one and I’ve been at it for a few days now. It’s a strenuous process and one I’m not entirely sure that I like. It certainly isn’t for everyone – it requires a tenacity that I rarely have to tap in to. I’ve been grinding away at the subject pretty hard this week and having none too easy a time doing it. Wikipedia has posed a unique challenge for me because it represents one of those things I have always tried to avoid – light programming language. And though the Wikipedia cheat sheet is pretty darn helpful and they feature some JavaScript plug ins to make the process easier, that doesn’t help the fact that making Wikipedia pages can be utterly brutal.

For example, one of the things I had to set up for this particular client was a table with the awards he has won and been nominated for. After an hour or two of filling out the table, making sure everything would be color coded and non stop googling I clicked the ominous ‘preview’ button only to find that all of my tables were out of wack. It was like the school project from hell. I was eventually able to correct this, but it just illustrates the fact that making a Wikipedia page is not a very smooth or encouraging process.

Now, before we really dig into this, I want to make one thing absolutely clear. Under no circumstances should you create your own Wikipedia page for you or our band. People have done it and gotten away with it, but it’s rare and rarely worth the hassle of grinding it all out only to be turned down. The Wikipedia editors can pretty easily tell when you’re using the page for self promotion (After all – Wikipedia is a GREAT tool for that) and they WILL shut you down. It makes sense after all – it would totally devalue the ethos that the site was founded on. However, paying someone to do the job for you is always going to be a good idea, not just because then you can ensure it will be well written, but professionals can make sure that it actually gets published.

Wikipedia pages do raise your profile significantly by the way. While most of the big labels probably wouldn’t care to admit it, I can fairly confidently say that they have people setting up pages for them. Meeting the notability requirements is the easy part – as long as you have a record out and a handful of reviews it’s pretty easy to take care of that sort of thing. It allows you to grow your brand in a healthy, friendly and organic way. And after all – giving money to a local writer is always a good thing in my book (Please hire me to write for you, I am so poor)

The cost of a Wikipedia page (It usually runs around $150) is totally justified by the way. We talk a lot about the importance of constructing a narrative on this blog and getting a Wikipedia page will make you look a lot more professional. Wikipedia has come to adopt a weird place in the cultural landscape – it’s become a sort of fount of all knowledge and definitive in a way that no other publication has ever reached. So being a part of its legacy is obviously an enviable position, it makes you a part of something greater than yourself and shows that you or your band belong to the human condition. If you don’t want that to be a part of your brand, I don’t know why you’re reading this blog.

In a way getting a Wikipedia page is sort of a narrative for every other service in the music industry. It’s something that technically you can do on your own but which you probably should pay for – especially given its massive potential outreach. So yeah, you should NEVER quote your Wikipedia page for a press release, but you can still rest easy in the knowledge that fans will be directed to it simply by googling your name. Many a music advice site will tell you to register your band pretty much anywhere and everywhere that you can – and this is good advice. Few of them though advise shelling out for a Wikipedia page – but if you think you’re worth it then do it. You’ll know this somewhat instinctively too – if you’re ready to dump the $150 into it (Or however much it ends up costing) then you’ve probably got enough going on with your music to pass the notability requirements.

 

 

 

Before I wrap up I just want to add in a quick side note – there are some genre specific wikisites, the excellent Encyclopedia Metallum is the first example that leaps to mind. Sites like those are really great and often rather useful to be a part of, but DON’T pay for those. Those are usually layman driven and in all honesty with the vast majority of them it wouldn’t be untoward to set up your own page as long as you adhere to those traditional Wiki ideals of impartial and well referenced material. The entry requirements to those are much lower and you shouldn’t be afraid to take advantage of that.

So I sit here in a pop punk bands van writing advice about one of the next important steps in your career. This is the kind of thing that needs to come after a good PR campaign but hopefully before a major tour. Even if you can’t get the timing down that’s fine. Ultimately – Wikipedia is a great PR resource and you can’t avoid joining up with it after a point, it’s part of the power of the site. If you want people to immediately take you seriously and to embrace what you are a part of then you almost have no other choice than to buckle down, pay up and move everything forward in one of the best ways that I know how.

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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Why ARE There So Many PR Companies Anyway?

A good friend of mine posted a Facebook status the other day asking, “Since when did everyone and their mothers own a music promotion company?” This after all is an excellent question. With all of my music writing gigs around the webernets I get hundreds of records a week in my inbox and it feels like every few days a new PR company is getting in touch with me, not to mention all the bands hitting me up on a regular basis. So yeah, we have to eventually ask “Why ARE there so may PR companies?” and perhaps more importantly “What does this mean for your band?” because with a glut of PR companies there is going to be a lot more to worry about.

First, I think its important to address why there are so many PR companies out there. Nowadays there are more easy to use resources available than ever. Companies like Haulix and Mailchimp make it easy to send out hundreds of emails with everything a writer could need with just one click. You don’t even have to do the massive manual entering of addresses anymore. You have your database and you send away. That’s it. The point being, now more than ever when you are paying a promoter you are paying for their personal promo list and their personal contacts. Because PR companies aren’t sending anything concrete anymore (IE: CD’s, etc) it’s easier than ever to ignore them, that’s why you need a good PR person.

Now more than ever good PR relies on cultivating personal relationships. In fact most of what I write about comes from just a handful of labels and promoters who have actually gone through the bother of helping to cultivate a relationship with me. This isn’t because I’m a snob but rather because I have limited time and want to go with people I know and trust. The folks who just reply “Thanks.” aren’t winning themselves any favors, but the ones who have me as a Facebook friend and chat with me periodically get more attention. (I wonder why?) Before hiring a PR person you need to check if they have these kinds of relationships with writers. There’s a whole bunch of journalists who only want to produce fluff these days and who will just copy the press release wholesale, and while that’s good for your SEO it’s obviously better if you can get real writers generating real content about your work. Otherwise you’ll get cast aside as ‘just another stupid band’.

Note that just because you get with a good PR company doesn’t guarantee results, and getting with a bad one doesn’t mean that you will get nothing. While IMP is unique because you actually do get guaranteed results (And go well above and beyond the call of duty) many other PR companies refuse to give even a ballpark estimate. In all honesty that doesn’t upset me too much when I’m looking at other PR companies because sometimes it’s just not realistic,. It all depends on how their business model works. PR is a tricky game, but you should remember, assuming you do your research usually you get what you pay for. Sometimes a several thousand dollar a month PR company doesn’t guarantee results because they would rather give you three results and have those results be Rolling Stone, Time and CNN rather than three hundred from tiny blogs across the internet.

The best way to research if a PR company is going to be right for you is to look at their previous clients and then message them on Facebook. Most of these folks realize that we are all in this together and are willing to help you out if you ask politely. Googling can help to, but don’t look for reviews as positive reviews are generally paid for and negative ones are usually written by crazy people. Instead you should look for how much press these sites got for their clients. Be sure to check the dates and make sure that the press came out over a sustained period of time. It’s also always good to scan over the articles and make sure they aren’t just copy-pasted press releases. Though that CAN help a band after a fashion, it is generally pretty useless.

PR is one of the trickiest things that every band will have to deal with. It can lead to you being skyrocketed to popularity or just give you a handful of essentially useless reviews. It’s easy to see these things in a vacuum so be sure to check on what sites your favorite musicians are getting featured in. You want PR campaign that target them and help to grow your name. But like I said, if that doesn’t happen for your first, or even second or third albums you shouldn’t worry – you just need to make sure that there is a slow build happening that will allow you to construct your own narrative and build a better future for your band.

At the end of the day, music PR is something that really shouldn’t be done by everybody. There are only so many talented writers who have an actual voice and no one is really going to care unless you can land placements on a handful of tastemaker sites. You need to make sure that whatever PR company you end up going with can reliably get you on some of these tastemaker sites and will help to grow your name in a way that will generate word of mouth press. There is no real advantage to being on hundreds of sites no one reads outside of it boosting you on Google. PR is essential and folks are starting to realize that – now you just need to be a savvy consumer and double check before spending your hard earned cash.

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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