The New Model for Independent Artists

A musician's route to success in the industry has become especially treacherous over the last decade or so. Primarily because the topography of the map keep changing and your rations seem to be increasing and depleting simultaneously like in that box where Schrodeger kept his cats. The path for independent musicians has always a little more obscured than those dead-set on playing stadiums and falling back on reality television appearances as a retirement plan. The independent artist generally carries a reputation for being apathetic, unapologetic, lazy, principled, flighty, etc...and all of these qualities have been considered endearing to enough people that it has continued this was for some time. But the rules are changing. There are now things that even independent artist HAVE to do, and have to STOP doing. For example, while it is impressive when someone can act as their own full band, engineer, producer, booking agent, and record label, the average musician who attempts this is overextending themselves and will most likely fail at everything. Independent artists also need to drop their ego. As talented as you might be, the band who shares your practice space and only pays Pearl Jam covers think just as highly of themselves as you do and to someone who isn't familiar with either of you, you might as well be the same band.

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No One Wants to Hear Your Songs...Yet

Very few songwriters have dreamt of achieving stardom by playing someone else’s song. Even when the song speaks to you and you put your own spin on it, it just isn’t the same. The only glaring exceptions to this are American Idol (or equivalent) contestants and folk singers prior to 1976 or so. But you should know already that perhaps the most important and often first ingredient for delicious success is doing something that you don’t want to do. In psychology there is a phenomenon called the mere-exposure effect, suggesting that people are drawn to and generally prefer what they are already familiar with. It’s a little disheartening if you think about it too much, but all you have to do is stop thinking about it as a shortcoming of society and start thinking about how to use it to your advantage. Playing cover songs bypasses the hard work of convincing someone a song is good, it is automatically memorable because they’ve already heard it, and the combination of these factors greatly increases your potential to go viral. 

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How to Get the Money You Already (Technically) Have

So how awesome is it that bands can make money from Spotify? Follow up question; how lame is it that you haven’t seen a penny and can think of nothing to do but either blame it on a), yourself for sucking, b) the industry for ripping you off, c) the ignoramuses using spotify wouldn’t know a great song from a limerick about anyone-from-anywhere's fortunate or unfortunate endowment. The answer is probably a combination of a little of each and something else entirely. You also need to register with a ‘middle-man’ like CD Baby, SoundExchange, or the ASCAP to take care of the publishing end of things and pass the royalties on to you. 

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Hey Mr. Postman

With all the emphasis and prestige that comes with quantified success such as Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers, it’s easy to forget about good ol’ email. Building a strong email list is one of the most important ways your band can harness the power of the Internet and it is much more likely to yield substantial results. Even if you already have this, you need to think about whether or not you’re doing it correctly. For example, if you’ve been sending email blasts for months but it hasn’t seemed to make a shred of difference, you may not be using a proper platform. Yahoo or Gmail will likely mark you as SPAM. Look into Mailchimp or Constant Contact. They exist solely for this reason. If you’re having trouble getting people’s email address, try offering an incentive. Offering a free track for download or early access to stream a new album are fairly standard ideas, but the more creativity and personality you can show, the better of you’ll be.

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The Sound & The Story

If your band has reached that particularly coveted threshold when the press suddenly cares about you, be ready for your first interview because if it doesn’t go well, there might not be many more. You need to show a side of yourselves that can’t (easily) be heard in your music. People like knowing/telling the stories behind bands they like and Radiohead were probably the last band to get away with the old “We met in high school” line, and it’s only interesting because they are still playing together. Everybody loves an origin story and consciously or not, they will look for it in their favorite music. As long as the story is either true-enough, insanely boring but told extremely well, or 100% unverifiable, you have a chance to give your music value beyond the sounds you make.

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A Music Video Can't Live on YouTube Alone

So you’re a musician with a developing career….good. And you’re active on social media, or Facebook at the very least…also good. And you’ve made a video what you think is your best/most accessible/most popular song and put it up on YouTube or Vimeo…even good-er. But is anyone watching it? My guess is not nearly as many as you’d like to be.

Rather than crossing your fingers and posting dinky, boring and desperate links on your wall until people start de-Friending/un-Following you, put just a little more work into it. Like everything you do with your music, this requires some lite marketing to get the results you need. The three most basic things you can do are create a Facebook page solely for your video, create a Facebook event leading up to the release of your video and take out a series of Facebook ads for your video. All of these actions will cultivate and optimize fan-engagement, excitement, and exposure.

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Making Your Music Video Matter

So you’re a musician with a developing career….good. And you’re active on social media, or Facebook at the very least…also good. And you’ve made a video what you think is your best/most accessible/most popular song and put it up on YouTube or Vimeo…even good-er. But is anyone watching it? My guess is not nearly as many as you’d like to be.

Rather than crossing your fingers and posting dinky, boring and desperate links on your wall until people start de-Friending/un-Following you, put just a little more work into it. Like everything you do with your music, this requires some lite marketing to get the results you need. The three most basic things you can do are create a Facebook page solely for your video, create a Facebook event leading up to the release of your video and take out a series of Facebook ads for your video. All of these actions will cultivate and optimize fan-engagement, excitement, and exposure.

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Will Work For Work

The subject of unpaid internships has been fiercely debated over the past few years. Those who oppose them generally do so on moral grounds, largely inspired by incidences of what many would consider abuse. While this does sometimes happen and in those cases is wrong, the fact is that it helps businesses in the music industry stay afloat by allowing them to make more informed decisions when they are looking to hire someone. For example, someone may be very charismatic and knowledgable in an interview but not able to deliver when it counts and if they were to make an irreparable mistake in the first week and the company loses its biggest client, the consequence could be catastrophic to the already seasoned employees. In an industry that so many are trying to break into, it stands to reason that only the best and brightest should be offered the opportunities. By taking in a reasonable sample size of interns, a company can hire the person (or people) with the most talent, ambition, and drive, which will help the company make more money down the road, and pay more money to the former interns who deserve it.

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Studio Musicians...Now With 90% Less Studio!

Some musicians dream of making it big with a band, others prefer the idea of going it alone. If you see yourself in the second category, there are a few things that you should think about if you haven’t already. Unless you are only interested in playing straight-acoustic gigs, you’ll need a backing band. Unless you’ve already been active for a significant amount of time, you need musicians who you can trust to understand and help you accomplish your vision. The website AirGigs.com offers a a number of services from virtual studio musicians to virtual producers to help you find the sounds you want to get out of your hired guns. This will help you discover what you want/need and help the musicians you are working with to fill those needs. 

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...Speaking of Apps...

One of the newest Apps to inject fresh marketing fuel into the budding careers of undiscovered bands is Bandsintown. Bandsintown is primarily built (or at least sold) for fans to stay on top of their favorite artists' touring schedule, but it also provides an avenue for undiscovered bands to become someone's favorite artist. The most obvious benefit is that it provides another place for people to find your touring schedule and alerts them when you're in town rather than relying on their memory or a Facebook notification. It can also be synced with Google and YouTube, adding yet semi-direct line between you and your potential/current fans.

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Going On the Record….

Most bands start developing recording studio fantasies from the moment they listen to their first GarageBand recording. Anyone who has already been there can tell you that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, and somehow far more. The first thing you have to do to make a successful recording (outside of the financial sense of the word) is to abandon pretty much all of your expectations. It won’t be like it is in movies the biopics VH1 shows on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. That is unless you’ve sprung Phil Spector out of jail, and in that case you might want to plan on abandoning a lot more than expectations. It won’t end up sounding much like the way you think it will/should, it will probably take a very longtime, and it probably won’t be very much fun at all. But assuming that you have successfully abandoned any Pet Sounds fueled ambition, if you can capture your best work, then you’ve succeeded. 

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A Band Cannot Live on Facebook Alone...

With all the social media outlets springing, any given young band feels like they’re fighting a war on seemingly infinite fronts. But let’s assume that you’ve taken some good advice and are working hard to keep your social media accounts active, your fans engaged, and your career inching forward. So what have you been forgetting? Have you checked in with mission control lately? In other words, have you been putting similar effort into your own website? It far less needy than your Twitter account but even more important to keep an eye on. You need plenty of impressive visuals to catch the eye but minimal clutter to keep that same from getting restless. You also want to keep your website relevant with blogs, pictures, and up–to-date information and really rub it in the site visitor’s face that your band exists. And just like any other business, you need a strong call to action to create a sense of urgency and really challenge your fans to prove they like your music more than any of their friends.

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