Tag Archives: Music Business

A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Unsung Heroes

How Can You Jam Together With Different Goals and Different Viewpoints?

The nucleus of my first band was together was for about three years. After that, it was more unstable. My second band lasted two years, my third band made four years and my fourth band made two years. So when they all fizzled out in arguments, I was always answering questions to my doubters as to why the latest band I was in never made it.

My answer was always the same, “Each musician had a different goal and a different definition of success and because of those differing viewpoints we didn’t have a lot of time together and we never really gelled as a band”.

So I was surprised and heartened to hear Mike Inez say something similar. He made a few good points about the Seattle scene and the LA scene towards the end of the Eighties and the dawn of the Nineties. There are lessons to be learnt here.

“Soundgarden was a band for 10 years before they got signed to a major label. So they had a lot of time to get together and gel as a band. Even all the bands like Nirvana and Alice in Chains in their early days and Pearl Jam, Mother Love Bone – they had a lot of time to jam together before they released their music to the world. So I think that was very important. Where here in Los Angeles, they were just trying to mix and match bands by ‘Oh, we need a bass player with long, blonde hair,’ or ‘We need a singer with curly hair.’ They were just trying to do that. So the music started lacking, I think.”

I always say it. What people might see as an overnight success is a long time in the making.

I am currently reading the Stephen Pearcy book and like many other rock star books, there is a process involved of building your brand and developing your sound. That process involves a few key figures. In the case of RATT, the version that started off as Mickey Ratt is not the one that recorded the classic “Out Of The Cellar” album. As they continued to gel as a band, as they spent their time jamming together, the musicians that didn’t have the goods or the drive would fall by the wayside.

And throughout it all, there is always the main driver. In RATT’s case it was Stephen Pearcy. In Kiss’s case it was Paul Stanley. Hell, the most famous song that Gene Simmons is known for is “God Of Thunder” and it is penned by Stanley. In Motley Crue’s case it was Nikki Sixx. For Soundgarden it was Chris Cornell and Kim Thayill. For Alice In Chains it was Jerry Cantrell.

In Whitesnake it was Dave Coverdale. He kept the flame burning until John Sykes came on the scene to assist in the creation of the classic 87 album. In Deep Purple it was Richie Blackmore. Don’t believe me, then tell me all the albums without Richie Blackmore?

And for me, I didn’t have the drive to deal with anymore egos and bullshit. One of the bands I was in was exactly the same as what Ozzy said recently. When I said to the drummer lets jam and see where it takes us, he was like, “WHY. That is time wasting.” He wanted a song to be written out with melodies before he sat down to drum to it.

And that is why I am sitting behind a keyboard and writing this.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy

Music Overload, Fans And Platinum Albums

Back in the past there used to be about a thousand metal and rock releases a year and from those releases only a few got traction and if an artist didn’t get traction or press they were doomed. Now there are thousands upon thousands of metal and rock releases. And they are all online and unless someone that we trust verifies their quality or a track becomes a viral phenomenon, we don’t care and suddenly most people don’t care, and then that album that the artist worked on for two years is gone.

The days of multi-platinum sales are over. Have you seen the latest report on the state of the recording industry?

The sales model is dead. No artist-album released in 2014 has gone platinum in the major U.S market. Sure, bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Five Finger Death Punch and Volbeat are pushing close to the GOLD mark however their albums came out in 2013. And yes Metallica’s self-titled album is pushing closer to 20 million in sales however that was released back in 1991.

The RIAA began certifying American platinum records in 1976. A long time ago and since then 345 albums have received the award.

Think about that for a second and do the math. Even when the record labels controlled the distribution and set the price, only 345 albums achieved platinum status over the last 38 years. 345 albums out of 40,000 plus albums. It comes to about 1%.

And of course, the record labels and the misguided artists will be quick to blame piracy and simply forget about streaming, the outdated albums format, the quality of the music released or the fact that fans of music prefer access over ownership.

Things change.

And one of the big changes is the shift in consumer behaviour. It seems that a lot of people don’t miss owning music. We have put our trust in the internet and the speeds they offer. Sort of like flicking a light switch. We have faith that the lights will switch on.

And bands that are still writing long players. You end up putting them online to be cherry-picked. It doesn’t make sense.

We live in a world where what was a hot news item in the morning is forgotten by days end.

Hell, with everything at our fingertips, we gravitate to the few that break through. We only want the very best all the time and therefore it takes an incredible effort to penetrate our consciousness and stay there. Furthermore, the more successful something is, the more it continues to grow, reinforcing its success. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Digital downloads were once hailed as the saviour, however they only provided a bridge between the CD and streaming. And the whole issue about money. Just because you released a song or an album it doesn’t entitle you to be paid. As the Metal Sucks piece notes,

“Nowhere is it written that rock stars should be well-off — the only reason it worked for the 50-year period between 1950 and 2000 is because of a market inefficiency whereby distribution was completely monopolized by the rights holders.”

And here is where the misguided and out of touch people talk about the cost of production, the years of blood, sweat and tears and the entitlement that all of that deserves our attention and our money.

Rubbish.

And yes, music is hard. Writing a great song is hard. The new Five Finger Death Punch double albums for me have four definitive tracks. “Lift Me Up”, “The Wrong Side Of Heaven”, “A Day In The Life” and “Watch You Bleed”. On the Avenged Sevenfold album, “Shepherd Of Fire”, “Hail To The King” and “Coming Home” are the definitive tracks.

So as we move forward, more than ever, it depends on the hit. And with so many of us listening to music in different places no one knows how to aggregate all of that data. And because of that the onus is on the fans. That’s right, the fans make and promote the hits. Once the fans find you, you need to feed them and that doesn’t mean one song a month or one song a week, or an album every two years.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Unsung Heroes

Thinking Out Loud About Music

MUSIC OVER MONEY

Everybody wants to get paid. But if money is your primary desire, you’re not an artist.

First and foremost an artists want to create and have their creations experienced by as large an audience as possible. There is a local Australian artist called Ricki-Lee Coulter who is in the pop market game. She has spent the last two years making her fourth album. This process has involved her funding a three-month stint in New York to work with American songwriters and producers, paying rent there as well as back in Australia. Then there was a self-funded trip to LA to work with more American writers, aware of the need for an ‘international’ sound to compete on radio. Then she flew an LA-based writer called Brian Lee to Australia for a ten-day workshop to co-write three songs. She paid for his flights and accommodation. And this is how she sums it up;

“Over the last ten years if I added it all up I could have totally bought a really nice house with what I’ve spent on my career. But sitting in a big house with empty dreams? I’d always be wanting more. I always pay for my songwriting trips overseas. I don’t want to be reliant on anybody or answer to anyone. I want to have the freedom to do things the way I want, not the way someone else does because they’re paying for it. I don’t want to take away from the support I get from my record label, but if I want something I want it. Sometimes it’s me that has to suck it up and pay for it and that’s fine, because I don’t want to have any regrets. Record labels aren’t an endless source of money. I’m lucky with the opportunities I’ve been given and I’m not left wanting. But if I wanted to be a billionaire I wouldn’t be doing music in Australia. There’s plenty of other jobs where you can work as hard as you do in music and make a whole lot more money. But I don’t do it for dollars and cents, it’s who I am. I’d feel empty if I didn’t do it.”

If you are not investing in yourself how do you expect others to do so.

CREATE

An artist creates constantly. That’s their job. You’ve got to keep doing it because you love it. You need to be trying to create something that connects all by itself and you have the fans spreading its greatness, not some marketing campaign.

TRUTH

How many Googles are there? How many Apples are there? How many Facebooks are there or Amazons?

The answer is ONE Major player. So why do you think that musical fans have time for thousands of bands.

POINT OF VIEW

Robb Flynn puts it out there with his journals and it is a great way to keep in touch with the fan base. It is him also creating art. His recounting of the “Through The Ashes Of Empires” album making off was brilliant.

LIKES vs MUSIC

Keep the likes for social media. They have nothing to do with music. Music has an edge and as an artist if you rub off all of those rough edges that make you unique, then no one will care about you.

CHANGE

People will try to change you. There are a million ways to screw an artist financially and career wise. Don’t change.

ONE TO MANY

The tech game is all about how can I go from one to many. In other words how can I produce something so good that it sells itself.  It used to be the musical game however it hasn’t been that way in a long while. You will never make money from recordings if you don’t have hit songs. I don’t mean a Billboard Number 1 style of hit,I mean a Paranoid, Live Wire, Holy Diver, Lick It Up, Darkness Within style of hit. Apple as we know it today was built upon the iPod. That was their hit.

VINYL/CD’s

It’s a niche market selling these musical artifacts. Now, more than ever before, your success depends upon your music. The traditional recording sales revenue may have tanked, that does not mean new opportunities have not arisen.

STREAMING

Streaming is just too easy, and on streaming services everything is available. You need great music to rise above.

TOURING

Recordings keep your career alive. Spend too much time on the road or leave large gaps in your recorded output then you are moving in the direction or being irrelevant.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit, Unsung Heroes

THE CCC!! Capitalist Copyright Crap And How The New Breed Of Artist Will End Up Making More Than The Old Breed Of Artist

We live in a capitalist society. The wealthy dominate us and anyone who gets in the way gets their dues. Don’t believe me, then tell my why copyright laws are at their most protective.

Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, the copyright length was set at 14 years with an option to renew it for another 14 years after which the work falls into the public domain. This was enough incentive for the people of that era to enjoy the profits from sales of their works and be encouraged to write more. What was made clear back then was that the ultimate beneficiary in all of this was the public. Then copyright was expanded to 42 years, then 56 years, then life plus 50 years and now it is life plus 70 years. Throughout all of the copyright term extensions, each passing was heavily supported by the ones that held the power, like book publishers, film studios and record labels.

“I worked half of my life for free. I didn’t really think about that one way or the other, until the masters of the record industry kept complaining that I wasn’t making them any money…. As I learned when I hit 30 +, and realized I was penniless, and almost unable to get my music released, music had become an industrial art and it was the people who excelled at the industry who got to make the art. I had to sell most of my future rights to keep making records to keep going.”
Iggy Pop – John Peel Lecture 2014

So what went wrong with copyright.

MONEY is what went wrong.

When people in the recording/entertainment business got very rich for doing absolutely nothing, they decided that they needed to pay their local politician a visit, send them some money and get laws enacted that helped to protect their monopolistic business models.

Don’t you just love how the powerful lobby groups like the RIAA and their stooges talk about “piracy” and how “piracy corroded the livelihoods of musicians who put blood, sweat and tears in creating those works”.

Don’t you just love how they seem to forget how the labels employed creative accounting to ensure that almost no album ever recouped.

And isn’t it funny how the RIAA and their stooges don’t want to talk about the antiquated recording contracts that the labels still get artists to sign. Maybe back in the day it was okay for record companies to keep 80% of the revenues as it was a costly exercise to produce, distribute and promote their fledgling talent’s works. But in 2014, especially with all of the different ways that music is monetized, aren’t these old contracts really out of touch with the real world.

So while the old breed of artists like the top 1% who accounted for at least 80% of the recording business revenue bemoan the new recording industry, the new modern breed of artists understand that online music is essentially a promotional vehicle for live performances. I also predict that these modern breed of artists will end up making more money than their heroes.

I seriously believe bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Shinedown, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, In This Moment, Halestorm and so on, will make more money in the long run than Metallica, Motley Crue, Kiss and so on.

Why?

The new breeds have leaner organisations than their counterparts and they are more knowledgeable than their counterparts.

What I mean by this is that the new breed of artists don’t have to deal with expensive recording budgets like the artists of old. They don’t have to deal with distribution and breakage costs like the artists of old. They have a better understanding of economics and accounting principles. The new breed is more diversified. Their business is not all about recording and touring. They are branching out into different industries and they are finding interesting and innovating ways to connect with their audiences.

So watch out for the new breeds.

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Unsung Heroes

The Paul Stanley Article

The Article
Paul Stanley reckons that if KISS started today they wouldn’t stand a chance because the music industry as it exists today isn’t even an industry, it’s just shambles.

KISS didn’t really blow up until “ALIVE” came out. So in today’s standards or even the late eighties standards they wouldn’t stand a chance to reach their fourth or fifth album. The thing with Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons is that they base a lot of their decisions on what piracy and peer-to-peer downloading has done to the industry.

Now if you search the RIAA database for the band KISS, you will see that “Destroyer” is 2x Multi-Platinum and that happened in September 2011. Two other KISS albums have been certified 2x Multi-Platinum and they are “Smashes, Thrashes and Hits” and “Alive II”.

They don’t have an official album that has been certified more than 2x Multi-Platinum and piracy has been around since 1999. So even in the heyday of record label control, KISS were not large sellers of recorded music as they would like you to believe. Especially when you compare them to Pink Floyd, Eagles, Bon Jovi, Metallica and Motley Crue. It wasn’t until the KISS Reunion in the late nineties that KISS finally went from playing to 10,000 people to 40,000 people. Credit Doc McGhee with the vision to make that happen.

As for Stanley’s comments on file sharing, it just shows how out of touch he is.

“File sharing is just a fancy way of saying stealing. You can’t share what you don’t own. It’s like me saying, ‘transportation borrowing,’ and I steal your car.”

If a person illegally shares or downloads the song “Lick It Up” what that person has done is infringe on the copyright of the song. The song is still available on iTunes for downloading. The song is still available on Spotify for streaming. The song is still available on YouTube for listening. The song is still available on the “Lick It Up” album that is gathering dust in the record store waiting to be purchased. No one has stolen anything.

Paul Stanley also reckons like Yngwie Malmsteen, Kirk Hammet and Gene Simmons that younger bands don’t have a chance in hell of ever getting that pot of gold.

What about Five Finger Death Punch, Shinedown, In This Moment, Bullet For My Valentine, Skillet, Red, Trivium, Halestorm, Black Veil Brides and many more others that are releasing albums and going from success to success.

What about musicians/bands who have been doing the rounds since the eighties and nineties who have all seen an upswing in recognition and success like Slash with Myles Kennedy, Godsmack, Stryper, Volbeat, In Flames, Machine Head, 10 Years, Coheed and Cambria, Lamb Of God, Avenged Sevenfold and Killswitch Engage.

Now, Ed Sheeran has nothing to do with heavy metal or hard rock music however the work ethic and ideas that he exhibits should be noted. His current tour of Australia has one ticket price at $99. All of his fans will have the chance to sit in the front row.

This in a way takes out the elitist tickets. It makes it affordable for people with rich parents and not rich parents. This is in contrast to say Kiss who sell front row tickets for a premium of around $2000 for some shows. In Ed Sheeran’s case he keeps the front row tickets and gives them out on the day. He and his team try to find fans outside of the venue of fans in the nosebleed seats and give them front row tickets. And what an artist to fan connection he is establishing.

And for hard work, Ed Sheeran is up there. It took two years to sell two million copies of the first album through constant touring and intimate acoustic gigs and now it’s taken 14 weeks for his new album “X” to do the same.

This more or less proves the piracy argument decimating the music business is invalid. People still purchase albums along with streaming and downloading the songs. The great thing about musicians being worldwide right away is that if a song’s not successful in one country like Australia it usually is in another. Different countries have different tastes. You can always have a hit somewhere. But Paul Stanley doesn’t get that. Which is a shame.

I actually finished reading his book Face The Music last week and the impression I got from it was an out of touch and sheltered rock star. Guess his comments sum it up.

And the thing is Kiss’s best song in the last fifteen years has been “Hell Or Hallelujah”. So how about coming up with more songs like that instead of the other garbage that has done the rounds.

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Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity

The Yngwie Malmsteen Article

THE MALMSTEEN ARTICLE

Yngwie Malmsteen released four good albums in “Rising Force” (1984), “Marching Out” (1985), “Trilogy” (1986), “Odyssey” (1988) and two average albums in “Eclipse” (1990) and the big budget “Fire & Ice” (1992) released on the Elektra label which Malmsteen switched too from Polydor and after one album on Elektra he was dropped. All other releases since then have been garbage. And it is this money machine that Malmsteen wants to come back.

Malmsteen reckons that people love heavy metal, rock and roll and guitar players, but since there is no money in the recording business there is nothing new coming out. Malmsteen believes that the new groups starting off are not going to get exposed and the fans are not going to get new music.

Umm,what about Five Finger Death Punch, a band that recorded their debut album on their own budget and then was signed in 2007 when peer-to-peer downloading was at its highest peak. And guess what, they have gone on to achieve way more than what Malmsteen has achieved in relation to sales and recognition and they did all of this competing with free.

Malmsteen’s song “Rising Force” from the Odyssey album is his highest streamed song at 1,086,887 streams. Compare that to Five Finger Death Punch’s “Coming Home” that has 12,498,946 streams.

Guess that Malmsteen hasn’t heard of Shinedown who is another band signed at the height of the piracy epidemic that also went on to platinum sales, high box office returns on the live circuit and good streaming metrics on YouTube and Spotify.  The song “Call Me” has 18,423,889 streams and it wasn’t even a single.

Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine are both bands that have a similar set up. Trivium’s first album came out in 2003 and Bullet For My Valentine’s first album came out in 2005. “Tears Don’t Fall” from Bullet For My Valentine has 25,608,159 streams and “In Waves” from Trivium has 4,995,977 streams.

Volbeat is another band that is going from strength to strength in sales, streams, YouTube views and concert attendances and like Five Finger Death Punch they are another band that got signed when peer-to-peer downloading was at its highest. “Still Counting” has 29,094,090 streams.

Chevelle got a big breakthrough in 2003 which was another year of high piracy and since then have continued to be a proven performer. “The Red” has 5,492,196 streams.

In This Moment arrived in our lives in 2007 and Halestorm in 2009, with both bands going from strength to strength with each release. In This Moment even locked in a major label deal for their fifth album. The song “Whore” from In This Moment has 5,431,527 streams while “I Miss The Misery” from Halestorm has 10,263,136 streams.

There are many others like Killswitch Engage, Coheed and Cambria, Avenged Sevenfold, Alter Bridge and 10 Years that have all grown in popularity during the reign of piracy.

The band Heartist started online. They built their following online. They built a buzz online. They organised to play a gig online. It sold out. The buzz generated attracted record label interest. The buzz generated attracted prospective managers. And after that gig, the band was signed to Roadrunner Records.

Malmsteen also thinks that new bands cannot get on a tour bus or an opening act slot because there is no money machine there to invest in them.

The band Digital Summer is all DIY. They don’t have a label however their history and successes is better than bands that have been on major labels. They are constantly on decent tours. Art Of Dying is another DIY band that got a good label deal with Eleven Seven Music. Protest The Hero had the money machine behind them and then when they got dropped they finally came into some money. There are many other new bands with label support like “Nothing More”, “H.E.A.T”, “Black Veil Brides”, “TesseracT”, “Periphery”, “The Kindred”, “Black Stone Cherry”, “Red” and many more that I just can’t remember right now as I type this.

Malmsteen thinks that the biggest reason for the surge in record sales in Seventies and Eighties bands is because there’s nothing new. The truth is varied and one of the reasons is piracy and streaming services. The self-titled Black album from Metallica is available for free on streaming services, however it still sells on average 2,000 copies a week. Looks like people still want to buy what they like.

So what’s next.

Watch out for Yngwie Malmsteen asking Spotify/Daniel Ek for a pay rise or demanding that Spotify charges more for access because he is the fury.

Watch out for Yngwie Malmsteen campaigning for the return of the telegram and gated releases.

What he should focus on is creating great music again. It is a shame that his mouth gets more press than his actual music these days.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Some Thoughts On The Music Business

YouTube

YouTube allows you to go directly to your audience whenever they want and you get paid in the process. It might be small now, however it will grow with time. And surely that is better than having your video on MTV and getting squat.

Longevity

The truth is you get wiser as you get older. You learn from experience and life. Artists done need to tell us how great they are or how great the new album is. The fans are smart enough to decide what is great and what isn’t. In the end, you need to have stayed in the game long enough to win.

Music Is Not Scarce Anymore

The days of growing up at the record store and budgeting what album to buy are gone and have been for a long time. Today our favourite artists release new music and we check it out. If we like it we give it a few more spins and then move on. If we don’t like it, we move on straight away. If we really like it, we commit to it.

Back in the day, music was a commitment. After having laid down our cash on a record, we took it home, dropped the needle and spent months digesting it. But today, music is everywhere.

You Survive On Your Audience

You want to be in their consciousness 24/7 and the majority of albums today just don’t hang around long enough. Sure there are exceptions to the rule. Volbeat has been selling their new album since April 2013. Yep, that is almost 20 months ago. Avenged Sevenfold and Five Finger Death Punch are in the same league. Bands like Trivium and Dream Theater had albums that came, got lapped up by the core audience and then disappeared from the conversation. The audience wants to always talk about you, so give them a reason to talk about you.

Information Overload

People are overloaded with information so they’ve only got time for the best and they want more and more of it on a regular basis.

Start With Your friends

They actually know and care about you. If you’re good, they’ll tell their friends, and some of them will eventually be friends/trusted filters of others and people will hear about it that way.

Overnight Sensations

Overnight sensations are a decade plus in the making.

Timing

The timing was right for metal and rock acts to go multi-platinum in the Eighties. MTV was rising. The disenfranchised youths were looking for a voice, something to attach too. They found it in “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, “I Wanna Rock”, “Shout At The Devil” and so on.

Rock Bands Were Never Supposed To Last

The Beatles had about eight years before going solo. Led Zeppelin had about 12 years before calling it quits after the death of John Bonham. Kiss’s original line up had about 8 years before they ended. Motley Crue had 10 years before they fired Vince. Twisted Sister had about 8 years from when the core line up was formed. Rage Against The Machine had 9 years before they split. Soundgarden had about 12 years before calling it quits. That is about the average of a band keeping its original line up in tact before other life events impact the dynamics.

Promote The Why and Not the What

Evergrey went all “why” for the promotion of the “Hymns For The Broken” album. We know the story about how the band was almost over and how the return of two former members gave Englund a new belief to continue. And the fans resonated with this belief.

Protest The Hero sold the why. That is why they the fans pledged over $300,000 to them for “Volition”. We understand as fans why they needed to go down the fan funding route. We understood how the record labels had ripped them off. We believed in their story and wanted to be a part of it.

People will do the things that prove what they believe. We don’t don’t buy what our artists do, we buy why they do it.

Personality

The truth is long-term careers are based on being unique and staying true to who you are.

What seems to happen is that artists try to appeal to everybody and in doing so they rub off their rough edges which is the X factor that makes them unique.

We don’t want fake heroes to believe in. We want real heroes with real personalities.

That is why rock and metal took off in the early Eighties. They represented the working class and the youth that lived under iron fists. The metal and rock got all polished up and all of its uniqueness was planed off.

That is why grunge and alternative took off in the early Nineties. They trail blazed their own path by not sounding just like everybody else. While the metal and rock acts lost their edge and started to sound the same towards the end of the Eighties, the Seattle scene was not afraid to go their own way. They didn’t care if radio didn’t play them and they didn’t care if the media wouldn’t write about them. They forged their own path and made everyone follow them in the process.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories

Success

Creators Don’t Have A Clear Definition Of Success

On one hand, Nirvana sold 7 million copies of “Nevermind” in the US. By December 1992, all the band members had to show was a house. The rest of the monies went on fees, lawyers, accountants, managers, record labels and miscellaneous expenses.

While on the other hand, Tommy Emmanuel has a career in the music business. He releases new music frequently, tours frequently, runs master classes, works as a session guitarist and songwriter. He doesn’t have the 7 million multi-platinum sales on the board however he has been in the music business since the mid Seventies.

What is your definition of success?

Define that first.

Creators Are Not Sure On What To Focus

There you are, in your room, writing and demoing away the killer song that will break you to the masses. Time goes by and suddenly you have created 5, then 10, then 15 songs. When do you say enough and start focusing on that one song and putting that out to market and seeing how it floats in the sea of twenty million unheard songs.

Then once the song is out what do you do. This is where you will need to focus on three things:

1. Are new people gravitating to your song
2. Put time frames in place and measure it and then compare the time frames.
3. Work and finish off the next song.

Creators Don’t Put Their Time Into Understanding Metrics

How is your song being used? How is it being listened too? Which musical platform is getting the most traction?

There are a few ways to do this. Talk to your fans. Create fan groups and give them ranks. Tell them to email you so that they can join one of those groups and talk about the songs released, the new songs in the pipework and so forth. You would be surprised how much goodwill and loyalty this fosters.

Creators Have No Budget

You need to invest in yourself to launch your music onto the world and after that is done, you still need investment in yourself to maintain it.

No Sign Of Life

In IT/Product launches, the actual creators of a new product get really scared right after their products launch because of the very typical “launch bump” and the eventual “pit of despair” when the press and social media stop caring about you.

So let’s take that analogy and apply it to music.

You create your song, record it, mix it, master it and then release it.

And nothing happens.

There is no sign of life that your song is even alive.

Maybe it wasn’t good enough for fans to like it enough that they couldn’t live without it.

Songs have a funny way of finding their way into people’s lives. The big difference today is that the get paid right now paradigm of the past is gone. That paradigm worked when the Record Labels had control of the distribution and acted as gatekeepers. Todays paradigm is different. A song released 5 to 10 years ago could connect with an audience right now. Are you still around to capitalise on this change of fortune. If you are in the music business for the right reasons you will be still around.

No Idea On How To Grow

I am sure that any business entity has come across the following three questions;

Why are we not growing?
Why is growth slowing?
Why are we shrinking?

In order to plan for growth businesses put someone in a position to build that plan, execute that plan and study the results so the next plan can be 20% better.

Apply that to music and ask any artist if they have a growth plan and how do they measure if they are growing.

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A to Z of Making It, Music, My Stories, Piracy

“Why Do You Do What You Do?” And Guess What! “Rock Is Not Dead”

Gene Simmons from KISS declared that “Rock is finally dead” which stirred up a lot of debate in the music industry. Dee Snider was one of the first to post a rebuttal. Then came Dave Grohl’s rebuttal and recently it was a diplomatic Slash. Basically everything that he said I more or less agree with.

“The music business itself is not catering to rock ‘n’ roll at all. And if you’re aspiring to be a guitarist or a drummer or a singer in a rock band and trying to make your way up the ladder, the obstacles are much bigger than they were when I first started.”

The music business does cater to rock’n’roll however it is the recording business that doesn’t cater that much to it. The majority of the labels monies are focused on the pop stars singing Max Martin songs.

“The rock ‘n’ roll audience is rabid. It’s huge and just as alive and kicking as it ever was.”

That’s god damn right. The audience for rock music is there. Also with so much rock music coming out right now, that is the evidence right there to prove that rock is very much alive and kicking.

And that is a biggy.

With so much rock music being released every day, how is the rabid rock audience going to find it and hear it. Apply simple supply and demand economics to the equation. When the record labels controlled the distribution, the music that was released and when it was release, the actual supply to the fans was limited even though demand was high. Now with all of those barriers of entry torn down, the supply of new music is constant. And even though demand is still high, our time is limited.

Another big difference is that the way we consume music. It is still a very fragmented marketplace. Think about it for a second.

There are the usual CD sales. Amazon is still a big player in this regard along with the record labels and the unique limited deluxe editions they offer. In addition the brick and mortar stores still exist that cater in sales. Then there is the sales of MP3’s. Apple is the big player here, while Amazon offers AutoRip features on CD’s sold.

Then there is streaming. You have Spotify type streaming and the radio style streaming of Pandora. Terrestrial Radio is still there as well. So as an artist it is a confusing time. Hell, even the cashed up labels are confused as to what needs to be done as they still rely on the nuclear bomb style of marketing to push new acts or new music from established artists.

“If you’re really passionate about the kind of music you wanna do and you’re not looking at it from a dollars and cents point of view, but you just want to create new music and somehow go out there and play live and get it out there, that passion has to be honed in and it has to be real.”

So what is your view of success?

Do you have a short-term view on measuring success or a long-term view? Is success your main motivator for creating music because if it is, there are risks in a short-term view of measuring success and there are risks in having success as your main motivator?

It comes down to the “Golden Circle” idea from Simon Sinek. “How” is in the centre, surrounded by the “Why” which is then surrounded by a larger circle called the “What”.

Apply those principles to a musician. A musician knows that what they do is to write and perform music. A musician knows how to write and perform music but do they know WHY they do it. If a musician’s “WHY” is solely to make money then they need to be reminded that their “WHY” is a “RESULT” of “WHAT” they do.

As Sinek explained, people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And if you don’t’ know why you do what you do, then how will you ever get someone to buy into it, and be loyal, or want to be a part of what it is that you do.

A perfect example of a simply WHY can be found in Zakk Wylde and Black Label Society. The WHY is to get dressed in your BLS Chapter colours, get together at the show and drink a lot of god damn beers. And guess what. People responded to that WHY in the thousands. They want to let their hair or goatees or beards down and down a few brewskis.

Protest The Hero focused on the WHY on their fan funding campaign for the “Volition” album. They told their fan base that their time with record labels has resulted in the labels telling the band that they have no fan base and that they are not a viable option for a label to support. The fans wanted to show that is not the case. And the best way was for the fans to be a part of what Protest The Hero wanted to do, which was to record an album, promote it and tour on the back of it. The fans didn’t care how they did it because we bought into the WHY they were doing it.

Claude Sanchez’s WHY for Coheed and Cambria is to tell the Amory Wars story and guess what, thousands upon thousands of people bought into it. Comics, Albums, Novels, T-Shirts, Deluxe Packages, Live Shows and Vinyl Re-Issues. You name it, we have supported it.

So ask yourself, why do you want to be  a musician?

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Attention, Affluence, Dominance and The Artist Is Somewhere There In Between. BUT WHY.

It irks me when a person that you are having an email conversation with CC’s in other people who really don’t need to be CC’d. Instead of coming back to the person they are originally communicating with on the email they reply back and CC a few more extra people in. It is like they are broadcasting something to someone. Maybe they want to CC in a Manager to show how great they are and how terrible I am. Maybe they just want to make me look bad. I do it as well however when I do CC in an extra person I tell the person that I am responding to why I am CC in that extra person in. I also tell the person that I is CC’d in why they are included with a question that seeks their point of view.

Maybe we all just want some attention. It seems we are all fighting for attention these days.

Guess how many people know who Kim Dotcom is?

According to the MPAA and the RIAA, he is the greatest money launderer the world has ever seen. They convinced the police force to send their SWAT teams to break down his door and arrest him in the early hours. And the funny thing is that he is virtually unknown to ordinary people. Even his companies MegaUpload and Mega are not known brands to a large portion of people. So how can this great criminal mastermind remain undetected to most ordinary people. Hell, I was in Eastern Europe and all the people who I spoke to didn’t even know who Kim Dotcom was.

This goes to show how the entertainment industries like the MPAA and the RIAA have used affluence to hijack proper due process in the courts. And that affluence doesn’t stop there. It is used to hijack many debates especially when it comes to legislation around copyright. It is unfortunate that the music industry as a whole seems to be interested in protecting their business models, dominance and control.

The biggest issue today is attention.

The record labels still believe that their affluence and their publicity campaigns will get people’s attention. But that is old school thinking. Real attention grows over time.

And attention is just part of the equation.

How do we compensate the artist themselves or the songwriters that wrote the song once they have received our attention. The Copyrights of the artists are held by the labels. The labels purchase these copyrights for a value that is far less than what they are worth. And that is a big problem between artist and label. Because the record label is using the copyrights that they have amassed over 80 years of dominance as bargaining chips in licensing deals.

Spotify pays the labels a license so that Spotify can have their music on the service. In addition Spotify also pays the labels when songs are streamed. Plus Spotify pays any profits it makes to its part owners. In the case of the US market, Spotify is partly owned by the labels. And all of this was possible because the labels amassed an arsenal of songs from the artists they signed. Did the artists receive any compensation in these corporate deals?

The environment that musicians operate in is changing all the time, and with that comes a requirement to be flexible and forward-thinking in their approach. In addition the expectations of musical fans about how they access music and how they wish to be serviced has changed dramatically over the past fifteen years. And the ones that are investing in innovation are the technological companies. The Record Labels did nothing except litigate. The artists just waited to see what transpired instead of thinking and planning their own innovation.

If you want to grow and prosper as an artist you need to be thinking ahead all the time. Not only do you need to keep pace with your fans’ expectations, but you also need to position yourself to identify and make the most of the opportunities when they arise.

Focus on “WHY” you create music rather than simply focusing on ‘WHAT’ music you deliver. This is an important message. The why is the message that your fans would connect with and follow. It is your vision. Your belief.

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