You Are Viewing music as a career

Jill Sobule

For those that don’t know Jill Sobule is a gifted singer-songwriter who is probably best known for her 1995 Singles “I kissed a girl” and “Supermodel”.  Jill has released seven albums full length albums and several EPs and has released records on MCA, Atlantic, Beyond and Artemis records.  Jill’s most recent album was a self release that was funded entirely by her fans.  I met Jill when working at Atlantic and she remains the kind and gracious person I remember from almost fifteen years ago.  She was kind enough to give me some of her time by phone before the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Musician Coaching:

I know a lot of people know your name, but even though we worked together, I don’t know the earlier parts of your story or about what you initially did to build a following and first get picked up at MCA.

JS:

In those days, before there was social networking, how did you get followings? I suppose, I played shows a lot; and I remember I had a bit of a following in Denver, and then I moved to New York, and then I met someone who was a publisher out of Nashville, and he saw me at my last show in Denver before I moved to New York. He was interested in non-country acts, and he put me up at the Nashville Extravaganza. It was like the South by Southwest of Nashville. The A&R people from New York and the west coast came to Nashville, and they saw me and signed me. At first they thought it was very cool that I was this pop act from Nashville, so I let them think I was from Nashville for a while. That was the days of getting discovered. That’s how I got on MCA, though a little bit before that I was in New York. Remember those pre-YouTube Days? What you did was you played and played out. I think maybe people are coming back to this too, I hope.

Musician Coaching:

You did the MCA thing for a while and had some decent success with “I Kissed a Girl” and with “Super Model” during the Atlantic years. Tell me about life after major labels.

JS:

After the album that had “I Kissed a Girl,” I did another one – “Happy Town” – and it was always my reaction to do something different and weird. I don’t think the label knew what to do with me after “I Kissed a Girl,” because, was I a novelty act? What was I? There was nothing else like “I Kissed a Girl.” It was one of those songs that was added last minute as a goofball song. I didn’t know that would be a single. It was kind of my curse and my blessing. I think when the second record happened, they still didn’t know what to do, and I was dropped. Then I was on a record label called Beyond Records, and that was another one of those where it went belly up. Then I joined Artemis with Danny Goldberg for the album after that.

Musician Coaching:

I had no idea you were with so many labels subsequently.

JS:

Oh yeah. And then Danny Goldberg signed me and then went to Air America afterwards, and he was my guy. So nothing really happened after that. And then they went under. My last two before this one were on indie labels that went under. It’s not very good luck, I must say.

Musician Coaching:

I wish that were an exceptional story, but it does seem to be the rule rather than the exception now.

JS:

I don’t feel special. The only thing I would like is to have all those records back. That’s my only disappointment – my only one that carries on now. There are a few of them I’d like to have back. I’d bootleg them now anyway.

Musician Coaching:

After Artemis, what happened then?

JS:

After Artemis, I thought, “Enough,” for a while, and I was just playing around and gather songs, creating songs. I had a three-year gig doing music for a show for Nickelodeon called “Unfabulous.” It was the first and last time I’ve ever had a job. I scored the show for three years. It was a live action with Emma Roberts, and it was really fun. I learned so much. I remember when I was trying to get the gig – it was a friend who was creating it, and I think she knew I was lying – and I said, “Oh yes, I’ve done this before,” even though I’d never showed her my resume that had nothing on it. And it was one of those things where I said, “Okay, here’s the first show, and I have 50 cues I have to make. What do I do?” At first you’re bullshitting, and then you realize, “No, I’m doing it!” It was really kind of great. I did that, and it takes up a whole lot of time. Since I’m not savvy at the computers and my Pro Tools, I had another friend – one in New York and one in L.A. – work with me on it, because I was always between the two towns. Then, I thought, “I’ve got this collection of songs.” Throughout this all, my following was growing, even before there was Facebook. I had newsgroups, and I was really, really good at communicating with fans. I had a really good relationship.

About six months before I did this jillsnextrecord.com, I said, “Hey, what would you guys think? There’s no point in going to another label. What’s the point, and why would they have me?” I said, “Would you guys contribute to my next record?” And it was overwhelmingly great response. In the meantime, I kept playing a lot. I played in New York a lot. And I do this thing called “The Jill and Julia Show.” I do this thing with Julia Sweeney from Saturday Night Live, and we’re still doing it. She tells a story and I sing. In the meantime, I’ve been completely active and actually touring a lot. In a way, it’s like Old Time and New Time. On one hand, you build a fan base online and on the other hand, you work Old Time and hit the road. I actually came up with an idea – jillsnextrecord.com – where fans, at first just my fans on my newsletter would help me make a record. And I didn’t want them to just give me money, so I developed different levels of contribution in return for different gifts and services. For $25, you get the first CD before it’s released. I didn’t know how I was going to release it, but … everything from free concert tickets, to “I’m going to put you in the thank you’s,” to “In my last song I’m going to mention your name,” to house concerts, to weapons-grade plutonium. The weapons-grade plutonium was a total joke; for $10,000, a person could sing on my record. Someone actually did it. It was so much fun, and the great thing and scary thing about it was, I thought, “This could’ve just been my mother and a few fans.”

Musician Coaching:

Were you hopeful this would really get funded? That’s such a leap of faith in so many ways.

JS:

I tried to figure out how much it would cost to record the record, and I tried to figure out, “What do labels do?” I figured out how much it would cost to market it, hire a publicist, tour. I put together some arbitrary number that seemed like even for a label that would be an indie would be a budget. And if I would’ve gotten $10,000 that would’ve been fine, I would’ve done that too. I ended up in less than two months getting that, and I had to stop it, because people kept putting more in.

Musician Coaching:

Wow. It’s just so flattering.

JS:

I know, it’s crazy. And a lot of that was just presales too.

Musician Coaching:

You’re an artist that’s been around the block – on the majors and the indies, doing it yourself. What did you do to put out this record? My understanding is it’s done pretty well.

JS:

Well, I don’t know how well it’s done. I don’t know who buys records. I sell a lot of them online and at the shows. What I did was I had a manager at the time when I first did it, who I knew was so wrong. He was a nice guy, but he was so wrong. I remember he came to the studio when I recorded it, and we were finally at the end. He said, “This is great. I can’t wait to have a CD. Burn me a CD so we can start shopping this.” And I said, “No! People would kill me.” So I found someone that felt the same way I did, even though I don’t think even he knew how much work and what a pain in the ass it was. I just hired someone for distribution and a publicist. There were a few items where I probably wasted money; like people working with “new media.” “We’re going to help with your brand.” What is that?

Musician Coaching:

It can be very vague unless you get someone to detail a plan for you.

JS:

Exactly. I think I had some losers. That’s what I did. It seems like the last thing I had were some stores, and you can get it – like Barnes and Noble. Who knows if the next time it will ever be hard copies. I think the only reason to have hard copies is that it shows; people can have a souvenir.

Musician Coaching:

How have you found the touring changing in the last few years? Have you found the kind of access fans have and the reach you have with fans has changed that for you?

JS:

Well, I’m not at the level where my tickets are really expensive, and because of the economy they can’t come to my shows.

Musician Coaching:

I guess I mean reaching out before you get to a region.

JS:

Oh yeah, well, that’s fantastic. Today on my Facebook, I say, “Going to Denver. Who wants my extra drink tickets? Who wants a backstage pass?” I’m still at a level where it can be pretty personal. And maybe someday it will grow so fast, but right now it’s at a place that suits me. There are certain artists that want to have a wall between them and their audience. But I like feeling like I’m just in someone’s living room.

Musician Coaching:

That’s really nice.

JS:

It takes up a lot of time though. I spent a lot of time on the internet. I went over my 5,000 friend limit on Facebook.

Musician Coaching:

I know, I got an e-mail about that. I was mortally offended. (joking)

JS:

I know, I feel so bad. What can I do? I wish I could just have one. It’s a pain in the ass, because I have my Twitter, my Facebook, my Facebook musician page and my Website. I haven’t looked at Myspace in ages.

Musician Coaching:

There are just too many places to be present online now.

JS:

That’s the hard thing. I’m constantly learning right now. I feel like after I get back from tour, it’s back to the chalk board. I have to figure out what my next adventure will be and how to do it.

Musician Coaching:

Are you going to be doing another record?

JS: I have this idea that in the meantime I’m going to do a bunch of little EP’s and put them on my web page – songs that are special event songs, like a Valentine’s song. I’m thinking about the most depressing Valentine’s song, or just really sad songs. I’m going to have themes for my EP’s.

Musician Coaching:

Do you have any advice – things that have been really effective for you in terms of online activity and maybe any words of caution for artists?

JS: I have a couple things. The pluses and minuses – like you said – if people want to be my friends on Facebook, for example I spent a lot of time emailing them back, trying to be as personal as I can, saying, “Hey, join my musician page, because this is over the friend limit.” But it takes up a lot of time. I feel like with each one, whether it’s true or not, you’re building up a new fan. And that’s really good because they’re the Man now instead of the label, but it takes up a lot of time when you could be writing songs. On one hand, I really missed having a label doing all this stuff for me. I haven’t written a song in a long time, and I’m ready. I would say – I won’t completely bash the label thing. First of all, it gave me money to record a record that never sold anything and I’ll never recoup, but I didn’t owe anything. With this record, there were extra expenses. I didn’t know it was going to cost this. There are wonderful things and downsides to it too.

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Check out more about Jill Sobule

Gabe Roth is the bass player, producer, main writer and founding member of Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and the head of their label Daptone records.  Gabe also recently won a Grammy award for engineering the Amy Winehouse record “Back to Black”.  I was lucky enough to be in a band with Gabe in college back when he was a drummer.  He is one of those enviable musicians who can pick up any instrument and make it look effortless.

Musician Coaching:

You founded Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and the Daptone Label and have been able to sell thousands and thousands of records and tour the world – how did you get to this point?

GR:

I think it was probably a little luck, just like with anyone else. Mostly I think I was in a unique situation because I was not that interested in being part of the music industry. I think that gave me a perspective and a pig-headedness. It was one of those things where I was too stupid to do things the way I was supposed to do them, and it ended up working out well. I never followed a lot of the paths and things that we were supposed to be doing to make, record and market records. We really relied on a lot of grassroots stuff and slowly built up an audience.

Musician Coaching:

There was no real scene for retro soul prior to the predecessor to Daptone (a label Gabe founded with a Partner called Desco Records). You were the architect of bringing these people together, right?

GR:

It’s probably true, because there wasn’t really a scene then. It’s a strange perception and an inside-outside thing. You don’t realize there’s enough going on around you to consider it a “scene” until someone says, “Hey, where did this scene come from?” It’s like a spontaneous party on a subway platform. We never really architected it, planned it or anticipated it. I think by not trying to concentrate on what people were going to listen to and instead of concentrating on what kind of records we were going to make, we ended up making a bunch of records that people wanted to listen to.

Musician Coaching:

You wound up collaborating and producing with tons of different people over the last ten years ago. Was that the plan or was that just what you did to get by?

GR:

It was mostly just what we had to do to make ends. The Amy Winehouse stuff and working with Mark Ronson (Producer – Amy Winehouse) didn’t open up the kind of doors that are perceived from the outside. For example, when we’d go on tour with the band and go play Madison, Wisconsin or some city where we’ve played for many years, and we went from 30 people, to 50 people, to 100 people to 200 people, to 800 people, to 1,000 and 1,500 people, we’d see this curve from our point of view that was based on going out and playing music and selling 45’s – a very grassroots, organic approach. But part of the timing of that Amy Winehouse project was the door that it opened. It was not that people listened to that record and came to us. There were really very few consumers and fans that we got from this record. At these shows, I’d go and ask people, “Where did you hear about the band?” The overwhelmingly most popular answer was “Terry Gross, Fresh Air.” Doing an NPR show is for an independent artist is twenty times more important than doing David Letterman or Conan O’Brien.

The thing about doing those kind of established shows and working with Amy Winehouse and doing these major label, major production things is that those things give a different perspective on who you are to the music industry, music writers and people like that. After the Amy Winehouse thing, there were countless writers that contacted us for interviews:  Sharon; myself or anyone else at the label. They would tell us that they had been fans of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings or the label for years. They would tell us they’d been buying our stuff since the Desco days. But they could never go to Entertainment Weekly who they worked for and tell them they were going to write a story about us, other than some tiny little preview in the back. But the Amy Winehouse thing allowed them to go to the editor and say, “This is why this is a big deal.” It’s a little enigmatic – the Amy Winehouse effect, the Conan O’Brien appearance or having Sharon Jones in that Great Debaters movie. It wasn’t a direct marketing effect. It wasn’t that people saw those things and came to us as listeners or consumers. It was just that it opened the door and gave us a strange leverage with print editors and A&R people at major labels. It gave us a very strange clout that opened up different doors. Like you said, in a lot of interviews, especially after the 100 Days record, people would ask me, “How are you dealing with this overnight success?” For us it seems very bizarre. I couldn’t think of anything less sudden. We’ve been doing the exact same thing for fifteen years and very slowly record by record, ticket by ticket, people have been telling their friends and very slowly have been coming up. And then we finally breached a certain ceiling. It’s not the big ceiling – we’re not up there with Madonna or Britney Spears anything. But we breached a ceiling that acknowledged us as major independent artists. I don’t know where you’d file us – not as rock stars or major celebrities. But all of a sudden certain people said, “Where did you come from?” And we thought, “Are you kidding me? Where did you come from?”

Musician Coaching:

How on earth did you just take playing around NYC with a bunch of guys living in Brooklyn into an international experience?

GR:

Firstly, we did no promotional gigs. I never played for exposure. We never played in exchange for exposure or to meet somebody. We actually do it more now than we ever did then. We played for cash and valued what we did. In this market there are too many people that are too hungry, and you can’t rely on marketing yourself. You have to rely on having something people want. We really tried to concentrate on creating demand by having something people wanted. We spent our energy thinking about how we could make the show better, not how we could get more people there, and let the people figure out how to tell their friends how good the show was. It took a lot longer. If you’re a major label, and it’s 1989 and you’re putting out a new Pearl Jam record, this is an irrelevant approach. But right now, the approach they had is also kind of irrelevant. It’s a different time and a different structure. The whole game has changed.

A lot of majors are complaining about the CD market shrinking, sales going down and the sky falling, but we’ve experienced a really successful time. It’s because the basis of our business is very conservative and value based. It’s based on the idea that the reason why somebody is going to buy a Sharon Jones record is not because they saw it in a Best Buy sampler or free with a can of Coke or saw it in a Disney cartoon. The reason people are going to buy it is because someone said, “Have you heard this record? It’s great,”  “I saw the show” or “My local college record DJ played this.” It’s an old school, traditional record marketing technique. Most of what we’ve done that has been successful hasn’t been innovative.  It’s been really, really conservative and old school – the way people promoted records years ago. It’s “Get on the road, get on the bus, talk to the DJ’s, talk to the record store clerks, keep everything on a grassroots level and try to connect with people directly.” We’ve stayed away from hype and big marketing schemes, big marketing money and the types of things that endanger our business and livelihood. We tried to sell records the way someone would sell ice cream or paint at the local store. We tried to cater to the customers and not think about, “How are we going to become bigger?” By staying away from that, we’ve kept ourselves safe, secure and stable in a time that has been very volatile for a lot of companies.

Musician Coaching:

You were self booked, put together the label you signed and produced records on, didn’t have a manager until six or seven years ago. How did you go about breaking a second market? Who did you call?

GR:

The call I was making was to better musicians. I wasn’t staying up all night trying to figure out how to get people to shows. I was staying up trying to write a better horn chart.  It was all value based. I never spent a lot of time trying to hustle friends and family down to shows. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but I have family and friends that come into town and ask to come to shows, and it was the same way before. They’re not calling me because I’m their buddy; they’re calling me because it’s a good show.

Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of tips other than that. I think concentrating on the music and putting a lot of heart into it is important. To be fair, I think a big advantage I had is I didn’t have a lot of illusions about or aspirations in this industry. That was a huge advantage. I think a lot of people have this itching in the back of their head:  “How am I going to make it? How am I going to break this record? How am I going to break this band and take over the world?” Those things work against you and make a lot of people fall victim to predators in this business. There are a lot of people that make their living off artists giving things away. Artists are so hungry to make ten million dollars that they’ll never make $1,000. If you concentrate on making $100, next thing you know you’ll make $1,000, $10,000 and $100,000. But if you’re walking around the streets with your demo trying to think about breaking a record or being a pop sensation all you’re going to do is give yourself away for nothing. And if anyone makes money, it’s not going to be you, it’s going to be somebody else.

When you look at the whole American Idol picture of the music industry, you have a bunch of people signing the worst contracts you could imagine, because they want something so badly that it puts them at a horrible disadvantage negotiating wise. And you can say, “Okay, that’s kind of a far out hypothetical when you’re talking about a TV show and people coming from all over the world and signing a contract with the biggest label for a million dollars.” It’s an extreme situation, but I think it exemplifies the same psychology that goes on when a band drives from South Carolina to New York and plays a gig for nothing. The reason they’re playing a gig for nothing is because they think that’s going to make them bigger. If they were thinking, “How can we make $50?” they wouldn’t play a gig for nothing. Maybe they wouldn’t come to New York, but if they didn’t come to New York, the demand for bands would be higher. The club owner in New York could not be expecting bands to play for nothing. It really drives down the value of music when there are that many people out there that are that hungry and that anxious to give their stuff away.

That’s one of the problems in the CD market as a whole on a different scale. It has to do with devaluing music and trying to mass-market music. The only way you’re going to be able to sell a million of anything is to give it away. But that’s not a great strategy if you’re on the corner selling lemonade. It’s stupid to sit there on the corner selling lemonade for 25 cents and say, “I’m going to give this away for free for a couple days to people that look like they might want to buy lemonade, because in the future they’re going to want to buy lemonade.” It doesn’t make sense. Take the 25 cents and go make some better lemonade and keep going.  I was patient enough to take those organic steps and it’s put me in a situation where I’m very secure and not depending on anyone for anything and it is because we were very patient and we didn’t take those huge leaps to try to make ourselves bigger. We tried to keep the business focused inward.

Musician Coaching:

You did make certain bets. You borrowed money. You invested in your career but not in such a way that you couldn’t hope to pay it back without a huge titanic success. I clearly remember times you telling me your credit cards were maxed.

GR:

Yes, but they were my credit cards. They had a stake in my ass, but they didn’t have a stake in my music. There are a lot of perspectives on credit card money, especially now. But I built a career out of it. I built businesses that makes a lot of money off credit cards because that’s all I had. I borrowed money from people in my family and credit cards, and none of them have any interest in my business now. I was able to pay them back in full, and now I own everything completely. I’m not recommending that, but that was the only option I had. The other option would’ve been to try to find somebody who will invest money in my career.  I never went that route, and I had a lot of opportunities. Since then, every day we have offers on the table to buy the label. If we wanted to sell the label and become an imprint of one of the majors, I’m sure we wouldn’t have problems doing that. We could get a lot of cash, and we wouldn’t have to worry about a lot of things, but in the long term we would lose interest. I think the other thing is I was never set on being wealthy. I want to have money and take care of my family, but if I can go to work every day and do something I love and own what I write and record and record exactly the way I want and live my life the way I want to, I’m going to be a lot happier than if I’m making ten times as much money but not doing something I enjoy. I definitely couldn’t stomach the music industry if I had to be part of it in that way. I don’t have the constitution for it.

A lot of times you find the things that are profitable are not necessarily the most fun.  I’m no monk, we do a lot of things I don’t like doing. But there are some things that come out funny. For example, Chase commercials. When we got approached to do replay music for Chase commercials, it was very distasteful because I hate Chase. You go in there, and they’re assholes. They charge you too much, and it’s not a company I want to help promote in any way. But musically what they asked us to do was so unbelievably rewarding for me. They were asking us to replay Stevie Wonder songs. And what that meant was for me to go into the studio in one day and go soup-to-nuts rhythm section through background singers and strings and mixes and everything and try to recreate Motown masters. I learned more in those couple days doing that than I learned in years of engineering school. It was really going to school. It was a very humbling experience getting inside those masters in that way. It turned out to be a very enjoyable thing and it paid well.  Of course, there have been other things I didn’t enjoy.

Musician Coaching:

Any words of caution or mistakes you made along the way that you’d advise people to avoid?

GR:

The first thing I would say – and it seems little, but it crushes me every day – is that at Dap-Tone we get piles of demos and packages with full glossy photos and DVD’s, press clippings, CD’s with full artwork and digi-packs. I would tell people not to send anything unsolicited, because that’s a lot of money you’re spending. If you’re trying to make a living as an artist, you have to look at it as a business. You can’t be banking on selling a million records. You have to look at it and think, “How can I make $4,000?” The first way is, don’t spend $4,000 making and sending demos to labels that didn’t ask for them. It seems stupid, but it’s the first thing everybody does. If you’re looking at what you do as a career, it doesn’t make any sense. It is another thing driven by an illusion – that something like that is going to give you your big break. If somebody’s looking for a huge break, I don’t have any advice, because I never got one. If you’re looking to really do something like I did – more conservatively create your own business and market – you have to really watch your pennies and spend your money on things that are important like rent and food and paying good musicians – things that are going to make you survive and do this for a long time.

There are a lot of people that end up giving up on music because they feel like they fell on their faces, but I think a lot of times their energies are misdirected. Instead of looking inward and local and trying to create something small that they can build from and concentrating on their music and their craft and relating to people on a direct level, they’re shooting for stars. It’s like playing the lottery. It’s fun, and if you win it’s amazing, but it’s not a business plan. You don’t say, “Okay, we want to start a business and want $500,000. The first thing we’re going to do is buy $4,000 worth of scratcher tickets.” It’s kind of the same thing when you start sending demos around. If you have $4,000, don’t press up full CD’s and glossy pictures and sent them to me, especially if you haven’t done any research to find out if I’m into that music or I could be slightly into that music or you’ve never made any contact with me. I’m not saying people shouldn’t make demos or connections, because they should. But I think trying to make meaningful contact is much more important than any kind of shotgun approach.

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Please check out Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and their label Daptone Records.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings  “Let Them Knock” LIVE @ 89.3 the Current

Duane Lundy is a touring musician, songwriter and producer based in Lexington, KY.  Duane has worked with producers like Daniel Lanois and Eddie Kramer and members of the band My Morning Jacket.  He currently divides his time producing records and touring with his group Chico Fellini.

(Overhearing me butchering his bio into the recorder he adds)

DL:

I’ve only worked with Jim James from My Morning Jacket. My favorite stuff I’ve done over the years is the score work for Universal from “Cirque du Freak:  The Vampire’s Assistant,” and that was with the musical director Stephen Trask, who I absolutely adore and have learned a ton from. He wrote “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.”

Musician Coaching:

Tell me how you got started.

DL:

I was in a band in the late 90’s early 2000’s named Gold Tooth Display, which was a throwback rock band in the classic rock vein. I’m in Lexington, KY, and there aren’t a ton of recording studios around here and the digital stuff was starting to rear its head, and I’d been recording on quarter inch reel to reel with a romantic vision of recording.  At same time I was in that band, we decided I’d be the one to do the recording and some of the production. So that kicked off my interest in recording and I started doing more on my own about ten years ago. Through the popularity of the band, the recording and some industry interest, other people in the area caught wind of it, and I started recording people’s demos and lower-budget albums by unsigned bands in the area. One of those people that was a really close friends of mine was Bill Meadows, and he was kind enough when he became the music supervisor at Crispin Porter, to send me some scoring work and remix work so I was able to do things on a slightly larger scale. I spent quite a bit of time doing scoring and remixing and a little bit of production, but I was uncertain as to whether that was even a career for me at all.

When Nuendo, ProTools and those particulars came along, the affordability of putting together a boutique studio became a viable option. You no longer needed to have a 9G SSL with 200 channels and deal with the ridiculous costs that went along with that. I just started collecting vintage consoles and sidecars and pre-amps and EQ’s and compressors and microphones. In 2004 I did an album with a band from here called the Apparitions; they had some nice success in college radio and AAA. Through that I started getting calls from radio promoters. A guy from a small radio promotion company in Minneapolis had really liked what I’d dong and was coming into a lot of contact with artists that had what he considered compromised material, but were good bands. A lot of his connections had been spending a lot of money going to Nashville and Minneapolis and getting pretty literal, clinical recordings out of it. He heard what I had done and thought, “I’ll send you some work.” That really kicked off me producing acts and doing artist production on a full-time basis.

Musician Coaching:

Does producing represent most of your income?

Producing and mixing are how I make my money for the most part now. On the artist side of things, I still do some score work, production work and engineering work. Recently I did some of the engineering, mixing, scoring and production work on “Cirque du Freak” as I mentioned before.

Musician Coaching: I know you wound up working on some big acts as an engineer. How did that filter into your education process?

DL:

Quite a bit. I had done some assisting here and there with some producers, though more engineers than producers. I got to sit in with Eddie Kramer and a guy named Tony Lash. He’d done some Elliot Smith and Dandy Warhols and Death Cab for Cutie. I don’t know if I picked up any of their habits through that, but I picked up a lot of confidence. It had always seemed a little smoke and mirrors to me. I don’t come out of the commercial side. I didn’t go to the Recording Workshop or start in the major market way where you go to the Hit Factory and are a key boy or runner and work your way to assistant engineer and then engineer or producer. I didn’t do that, so for me I didn’t know at all how it went. I didn’t know the habits or the process at all. I was reading a lot and watching videos. I remember watching a video about the Red Hot Chili Peppers about making “BloodSugarSexMagic” called “Funky Monks.” And it had Rick Rubin and Brendan O’Brien. I just picked up on that stuff a lot. Through watching some of those other guys and talking to people like Daniel Lanois and I got a fair amount of guidance in a very short period of time from him. I just sussed out who I liked and what they did and applied that to the theories I’d already been working on. I’m probably more of a theorist than a clinical engineer. I’m not the guy that’s going to take apart the console and solder this to that. I don’t have that background on the tech side as much as I do the more of a textural and arrangement type of productions. I really became a producer because people started asking me my advice on things.

Musician Coaching:

Sounds like you fulfilled a need in your hometown and your home region.

DL:

Pretty much. I don’t work with a ton of bands from around here anymore because a lot of my work comes from a label or 360 deals, management company or industry people that have been around for a while. I get a lot of my work from people I networked and established a relationship where there’s some element of trust. Then I talk to the artist and we share views and make sure everyone’s on the same page, and then we go.

Musician Coaching:

What are some pitfalls you see artists fall into?

DL:

I think the main pitfall that any artist falls into is that someone is going to have the magic key to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – that there’s going to be one connection or one producer, one management element that gives them the keys to the whole thing and that it’s all going to happen. The artists often don’t tend to agree philosophically with that entity, but because they’ve had some element of success, or they have a story that they use to sell the artist, then the artist mortgages their existence to have a relationship with somebody because of their connections. That never seems to really be. I’m sure there are instances where that’s worked, but with the artists I’ve worked with, my relationship comes because we agree on the music and taste and creative side, and through that the success comes because people are magnetically drawn to the music. The industry now as I see it is probably not any different from what it was 50 years ago. I think you have to write a great song, be really good live, give somebody something substantial to listen to, be it CD or whichever way you decide to package your media in a way that’s compelling or interesting and will hold up to many listens and will have a critical ear on it. And get in the van and go play. Those simple blue collar-type approaches to the business of what you’re doing as an artist inevitably will pay off.

Is it easy? No, it’s really, really, really difficult. But if you’ve aligned yourself with people that are of like mind and will work with and for you aggressively, and everybody’s in a situation where what they’re trying to do – however righteous or pretentious it may sound – if you do those things I think people will be drawn to it. As an example, if I were to take a piece of work that we’d worked on, and were to pitch it to someone like yourself when you were Atlantic, and we did it just because we thought that’s what you would like and that’s the way it was done, as opposed to the artist and the producer and people involved having a total belief in it, I think people like you sniff that out and say, “These people are just skirt chasers” or “star chasers” and “they don’t really believe in what they’re doing.” I think it has to be very real. There’s that one percent of the market that deals with highbrow pop, highly commercialized music that sort of sways everybody’s thinking as to how it’s really done. I approach it a bit like a mom and pop business or a boutique situation. By doing such, you’re sort of in control of your destiny a little bit more. A major pitfall with artists is that they end up apologizing so much for what they’ve done in the past. “I’m not really into this anymore. We did this with this guy because he said this.” People spend a lot of money doing things that they don’t believe in, and I think that’s the major pitfall for most artists.

Musician Coaching:

More specifically, when somebody shows up on your doorstep, what are some of the things they should or shouldn’t have done to prepare? What are the pitfalls of actually recording?

DL:

A lot of times I think they don’t have enough material. What tends to happen is that they get to the point of being married to ten or twelve songs and think, “Okay, we’re ready to make an album.” And they don’t have enough material. I think if you’re trying to make an album, they should have a good 15-20 songs to choose from so there’s some wiggle room as to what is going to be on the album. I cannot stand if a band is overly demoed. There’s not a lot for me to do as a producer if they’ve demoed the hell out of stuff and have already made their opinions about what they want to do before they come in. I think a band needs to be as prolific as they possibly can.

Musician Coaching:

As an artist, what kind of conversation do you need to have with somebody who is producing your EP, demo, etc. so you don’t run into problems?

DL:

I think it’s a taste issue. What is the artist listening to? What are they listening to? What is their background? What do they really, really like about music – not only their own music but music in general? Does the producer share that same vision and same background? You see people chasing other people’s credentials around. You see this all the time in Nashville and L.A. especially. You might have a guy who’s a Zeppelin fan, and I wouldn’t put WolfMother with John Shanks, a producer who’s done predominantly female artists and pop rock. I think that marriage tends to not work. Producers have a process and taste and a particular way they envision music. That’s not going to change a great deal from artist to artist. When you get on board with a producer, you need to have a shared history even if you’ve never met. You need to have similar listening tastes, similar textural elements. I’m not going to be the guy you bring in to do a commercial country album, because I like things dirtier and with texture and subtext, things that make you go back and listen for a 20^th time. I think commercial pop for the most part or modern country is a more literal type of music. It doesn’t have that subtext. Let’s say my band Chico Fellini was looking for an outside producer – someone besides me. There are people I’m going to be immediately drawn to because not only of their discography but their philosophy and what they’re into and the textures they’re into and their style.

Musician Coaching:

There’s nothing that’s going to replace having a detailed conversation.

DL:

Absolutely. You have to have quite a few conversations.

Musician Coaching:

How do you navigate the issue of artist control and the creative process?

DL:

I’m extremely honest on the front end. If I can get people in person to the studio, it’s ideal. I work on a particular vibe. That vibe is an element of comfort. I don’t do a ton of work in commercial studios because I feel like it’s a bit clinical. I get somebody in my environment or get them on the phone for a long conversation and be really frank with them and say, “Here are the things that I bring to the table” and give them very to-the-point ideas on their music and see how they react to that. Nine times out of ten, they know what I’m getting into and I know what I’m getting into, and if there’s a friction or a rub, or just a general “not seeing the process eye-to-eye” it’s best to not do it. I’m a really frank, honest person on the front end and tell them, “This is what I think we should do.” That being said, I’m very artist friendly. I think the most important heroes of the moment are the people I’m working with. Those are the people I need to have a respect for, and they need to have a respect for me. And if we have that, I tend to find there to be very little friction, and the process is pretty steady-as-she-goes.

———–

Click for more info about Duane and his studio business or his group Chico Fellini

I was fortunate enough to meet with Jacob Slichter, the drummer from Semisonic and the Author of “So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star: How I Machine-Gunned a Roomful of Record Executives and Other True Tales from a Drummer’s Life”.  Jake is actually the first person I am interviewing that I didn’t know whatsoever before interviewing but I found his book so accurate and intriguing that I tracked him down.

Musician Coaching:

Jake, First of all thanks for your time.  I guess let’s start at the beginning or close to the beginning.  What was it like at the time getting the attention of label guys in 1993-94 for Semisonic?  What did you do correctly to get their attention?

JS: We (Dan and John) already knew them through Trip Shakespeare. Trip Shakespeare had been signed to A&M Records years earlier, so they had gone around and met A&R people from various labels, and so by the time Semisonic came along they knew a bunch of people who had all traded labels and were on the carousel of A&R people. So, number one, they already knew them.

Number two, we made really good-sounding tapes. I think also our biggest advantage was also our biggest disadvantage, which was that we were swimming against the tide at the time stylistically. Really at that time the landscape was dominated by Nirvana and then everything that was in that end of the spectrum – dark, angry, huge, amazing music that we were never going to be able to make. We weren’t interested in making it; it just wasn’t who we were, even though we were huge Nirvana fans.

Musician Coaching:

Talk to me about that. Did you feel like there was ever a temptation to say, “Hey, maybe we should knock that off”?

JS: We just never could’ve pulled it off. Never in a million years. It would just have been stupid to try. I think a lot of bands did try, and some of them did a fairly good job. There were a few bands that took the Nirvana direction and did great with it. We were never going to be that, and early on we realized that. I think when we were dealing with A&R people, ours were some of the few tapes that were bright pop music when all the A&R guys were looking for the next Nirvana. So our tapes stood out, and I think that helped us get attention. I think they were good tapes, and that was probably the main thing. Dan is just a really great songwriter, and I think we had pretty concise arrangements, and it sounded like radio-friendly music, so I think that also helped. I think the fact that we sounded as poppy as we did really made us unappealing to a number of labels, like Interscope. We had an A&R person there who really liked our tapes, but she knew it was really swimming against the tide of where the label was at. So she very wisely said, “Hey, this won’t be the place for you. If I sign you, you’ll just be buried.”  So we ended up really with two labels that were most interested in us – MCA and Elektra.

Musician Coaching: I guess that was a tough ride through that first album cycle. That must’ve been really difficult on your interpersonal relationships. I know a lot of bands break up over that first record, because they’re pushing you at breakneck speeds, etc.

JS: I don’t know that they were pushing us at a breakneck speed, but we were going around the country. It wasn’t a strain on band relations anymore than any kind of touring is. Just being on the road with people is stressful. You don’t have a lot of personal space, so that’s why it’s such a strain. The band felt pretty tight, personally I think after that first album. I was frustrated, but I think Dan and John were kind of used to this because they’d been through it with Trip Shakespeare. I was kind of on a learning curve about how disappointment works in the music business. I probably took it the hardest. Actually everyone probably took it hard in their own weird way. I took it hardest in the sense that I probably was the most believing that the first record was going to break through. I always thought FNT would’ve done it. That was always my thought, but we’ll never find out.

Dan had written a bunch of songs, and I think it’s natural to feel disappointed when it’s the music you write. And John had been on the road for years with Trip Shakespeare, so I know he felt disappointment after that. And we all really felt proud of the record.

Musician Coaching: You toured with a lot of bands, played with a lot of bands. You were on tour for about ten years.

JS:  On and off, sometimes 200 plus days out of the year.

Musician Coaching: Of the people you met, was there a defining or unifying quality of the ones who made it vs. the ones who didn’t?

JS: It’s hard to say. Not necessarily. There weren’t many bands that we toured with that I didn’t think were pretty damn talented on one level or another.

Musician Coaching:

Talent is an X factor but were there personal habits of successful artists?

JS: There were all different shapes and flavors in terms of personalities, etc. But there has to be a ruthlessness of commitment. You can be a very nice person on the outside and still have that. I think they all had that. It’s more than drive. It’s a belief on some level in your own intuition. That’s the hard thing about the music business. You can only really make good things if you are trusting your own intuition. But in the end it’s not your own intuition that matters, it’s someone else’s. So I think people get kind of hung up trying to tap into the intuition of the masses. It generally never produces great music. I think a lot of people think that massively popular music is made with the public in mind. I don’t think so. It’s made by people that have intuitions that are very much like what the public’s intuition is at the moment. But I don’t think you can do it by trying to guess where everyone else is at. I think you really have to commit to a belief. And if you’re lucky, the stars align and you make it. So that’s what I would say they have in common – a ruthless belief in their own intuitions. Some of them I was kind of amazed at how wrong they obviously were, and there might be some cases where eight months later that band was rocketing to the top of the charts or having some form of success come along.

Our first record sold 30-some thousand records, but in the universe of rock records it was pretty successful. It got written up in all kinds of places. So I think our whole experience was one that was a privileged existence in the world of rock.

Musician Coaching:

You got to take the ride while there was still a mechanism.

JS: They were putting money into it back then.

Musician Coaching:

What’s your philosophy on social networking?

JS: I don’t understand it. I’m a Facebook member. I don’t use Twitter, and I don’t understand why anyone would be interested in what I Twitter, and I am not really interested in what other people Twitter. I was interested in the Iranian uprising, reading the Twitters when you couldn’t get news coverage. But, “Hey everybody, I’m going to Colorado to go skiing” or “Hi everybody I just had stuffed grape leaves for lunch” … I think they’ll figure it out, and they probably already have. Twitter and Facebook, since I know about them can’t possibly be the cutting edge of where this stuff is. They’re always catching up. I don’t think it’s possible to say, “What would’ve happened with Semisonic if we had been around when Twitter was around?”  We would’ve been a different band.

Musician Coaching:

I was curious if you had used them extensively, but if you haven’t …

JS: I think the thing I would have to say there is, you have to have a really clear idea of who you are, and then you have to have a really clear idea of who you think wants to hear or read what you’re up to. The social networking just gets plugged into that knowledge. Even faking requires a bit of self knowledge and knowledge of who you’re faking out and what they want to be faked out about.

Musician Coaching:

Were you writing this book the whole time, or was this something you did completely in retrospect?

JS: I wasn’t thinking as I was writing the road diaries, some of which got incorporated into the book, “This could be a book.” All I was thinking was, “Well, if I can’t write as many songs as Dan, maybe I’ll write some road diaries and get my writing up in that way.” And then once we decided to press the pause button, I said, “OK, I have to write a book.  That will be my next thing.”

Musician Coaching:

What was the experience of re-purposing a musician’s skills to a different commodity?

JS: What did I learn by being a musician that I applied to getting a book deal? It’s all the same stuff.  To get a non-fiction book deal you have to submit a book proposal. And a book proposal is very much like a demo – “Here are the things I’m going to be talking about, here’s a sample chapter, here’s my outline, here’s who I think I’m talking to,” etc.  It’s very similar to music because whether writing a book proposal or submitting a demo, they serve different purposes to different people.  For a band or an author, a book proposal or a demo is like a map – “Here’s where I’m going, here’s what I’m going to do.” If I feel like I’m getting lost, I’ll come back and consult this and think about what my original intent was and just try to stay on track with that idea.  For a publisher or a record company, these things serve a very commercial purpose – “How are we going to market this thing?” These are things most bands aren’t really thinking about.  I almost think you shouldn’t think about them. You should try to focus on making the clearest thing that is truest to your vision.

Musician Coaching:

More often than not now when I read about an artist I’m reading about their marketing and not their music.

JS: I think that’s the era we live in. Some people are really good at it, so if they are good at it, why shouldn’t they? But I think you do run the risk of getting off target.  That’s one reason I don’t really talk about what I’m writing. I don’t want to get into thinking about who’s going to read it and what their reactions are going to be.  I just have to sort of go away in my head and write it. It’s either going to be accepted or not, but I have to cross the finish line in my own mind along the path that I set out on, not someone else’s.  I know a lot of bands that say, “Here’s our marketing strategy.” If you’re marketing strategy is more interesting than your music, you’re really in pretty big trouble. And maybe you shouldn’t be a musician. Maybe your real gift is to be an A&R person.  There’s a kind of magic to that – how to put together musicians with people that are going to like the music. And figure out in the flow of the world, how is all this going to work? That’s an important decision. I get e-mails from a few bands that send out these really dazzling e-mails and have all these bells and whistles around their promotion, but the bottom line is, the music is just not that great. If I want really great bells and whistles about something, there are all kinds of fun Web sites where I can waste time. If I want music, I’m not so interested in how well a band markets itself. I’m only interested in the music. I think everybody else is pretty much the same.

Musician Coaching:

Would you say as Semisonic was winding down, the landscape had become competitive?

JS: No. We started out in the grunge era, and then there was a softening of the radio that happened right before “Closing Time” was released where there were things like “Bittersweet Symphony” by the Verve and “Brick” by Ben Folds 5. “Closing Time” sailed through that open moment. And then it got as soft as N’Sync and Backstreet Boys and then it took a hard turn back towards Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park and Korn – really loud impressive music. And our last record came out in that era, and it was not an alternative rock record. Our record company thought it was, and we were unclear ourselves. Regardless, I just don’t think it was the right time for that record. I really think that’s what it was about. I think we were lucky with “Closing Time” and our other two records had a lot of great songs on them, but just weren’t lined up with where people’s heads were.

Musician Coaching:

What changes have you noticed in the way the industry functions or in the way we consume media?

JS: One change I see is that people conceive of coming up with one great song as the arc of their band’s life. I think that’s a little more possible with YouTube. You make a cool YouTube thing, and you may not ever see another great YouTube from that same band, but that’s fine. People go on and make another one. I think that may be one thing we’re heading towards; instead of having an enduring band identity you break off and do other things.

Musician Coaching:

Some combination of the singles model vs. what movie studios do with other combinations of producers, directors and actors.

JS: One great thing about the music business now is that it’s so much cheaper to record that you don’t really need the studio. Most people don’t. They are at home, have their computers and are making recordings that 15 years ago would’ve cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. There’s probably a lot more music you can get to right away, but that makes your job harder as to how you’re going to weed through it. I think they’ll figure it out eventually. I don’t know how, but maybe someone with really cool tastes will gain followers and point out what’s good. I think one thing about the Internet is that it seems to me that there’s more impermanence. Things are more fleeting.

Musician Coaching:

So people will only get 15 seconds of fame rather than 15 minutes?

JS: I never bought the 15 minutes thing. Many people have been famous way longer than 15 minutes.

Musician Coaching:

What do you make of the fact that there hasn’t been anyone that has risen to icon status in the last decade or so?

JS: Give it time. I do think someone’s going to come along and think of the perfect way to think of the perfect way to exploit all the things the internet has to offer. It’s complicated, it’s tricky and it’s always changing. There are so many things you can do with it. That just makes it harder.

Musician Coaching:

What do you make of the pay-as-you-will Radiohead premium model?

JS: An important thing to consider in the case of Radiohead – I think it’s awesome they did it – is the way they got to it was in part by being a major label band. What I’d like to see is, who will be the first band that will rise up from the Internet with no label backing?

———

Please check out Jacob’s book “So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star: How I Machine-Gunned a Roomful of Record Executives and Other True Tales from a Drummer’s Life”

JJ Appleton is a successful singer / songwriter, producer and session player and has had a great deal of success getting his music placed and licensed.  JJ was signed to Universal records out of the UK several years ago and has toured extensively in the US and abroad.  For the majority of his career, he’s done these things completely on his own.

MUSICIAN COACHING:

Bring me back to the very beginning and tell me the things you did in your first band to build a following that worked and the things you saw them try that didn’t.

JJA: I’m definitely dating myself a little bit, because in my first band I was really young – I was 16.  But there wasn’t really any Internet.  E-mail was just sort of rearing its head. It was a lot of more in-person sort of promotion, which still works, and I’ve done a lot of this in bands over the years even when the Internet was really prevalent.  I just think if you’re going to other bands’ shows and you’re meeting people and letting people what you’re doing and when you’re playing, people will be curious when they’ve met you, and they’re going to want to know what your music is about.

MUSICIAN COACHING: So even today, you’re saying nothing really replaces that human connection?

JJA: I’ll give you an example.  Let’s say I go to my Myspace page, and I have 50 bands that have added me that day.  I decide what bands I’m going to band based on whether I like their name.  I don’t listen to them.  It doesn’t work.  There’s a glut.  So, in person definitely makes a difference.  It helps to have an outgoing personality, and there’s the fine line between saying, “Hey, come check out my band” and being a used car salesman about it.

MUSICIAN COACHING: How do you walk that line gracefully?

JJA: How do you walk that line?  I think especially with rock and roll and anything that has a little more of an organic feel, people can kind of smell it if you’re putting it on.  There’s a way of just turning people onto your music that’s about you being confident, positive and upbeat, but at the same time maybe being cocky is too far in the other direction, saying, “We’re the greatest band in the world.” I don’t know who’s going to buy that, especially these days.

MUSICIAN COACHING: Have you found that there are just endless amounts of bands, more so now than in years past?

JJA: Maybe there are or there aren’t, but we certainly see a lot more because of the Internet.  Unfortunately their shelf life in our minds is nanoseconds, unless you happen to listen and you really like them.  In my experiences, the combination of in-person promotion, touring, Internet, they all work very well together.  If you’re missing a piece of those – not touring, etc., not going to other people’s shows – it’s going to be a little harder.  But if you’re doing all three, you can generate a little buzz.  There’s no question about it, with some elbow grease.

MUSICIAN COACHING: You’ve done a fair amount of regional if not national touring.  How did you first go about making those connections to even leave your home city?

JJA: For me it was colleges.  I had friends who were going to school somewhere – maybe upstate New York, maybe New England – and they would tell me about being in a frat or they knew about the coffee house that had bands or the little pub on campus that had bands and they’d tell me about it and help me get gigs.  And some of those gigs actually would pay a little money so some expenses would be covered. So that would help get the touring going. If I got a decent college gig I could build other shows around that.  Obviously it’s great to break even and not lose money.  But I’ve had my fair share of all three scenarios where I’ve lost money, broken even or made a little money.

MUSICIAN COACHING: How have you been sustaining yourself as an artist?  You run a studio and do a lot of session work.  At what point did you realize you had to diversify your skill set in order to exist?

JJA: I was in bands and I had day jobs.  I was always getting fired because if I had a gig I would blow off work or try to get out of it. So I would actually lose my jobs a lot.  Really, it was just sort of luck that I bumped into a high school friend who worked at a company that did music for commercials – jingles, etc. – and she asked me to bring my band in to do a Diet Coke commercial.  It got picked up and, and it was before it was sort of hip to have your songs in commercials.  And we didn’t do one of our songs, we did their Diet Coke jingle.  And all of a sudden, I saw there was a potential to make money with that.  And then also just by having a studio – it doesn’t have to be Avatar – it can be a project studio with decent equipment.  I was trained by a record producer – a guy named Mike Thorne – he produced Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love.”  I worked for him for three years (that was actually one job I didn’t get fired from).  But I was actually working in the recording studio every day.  So learning from that I was able to start a little studio of my own. People would come in and bring in song demos and I would do a whole arrangement for them – soups to nuts.  I still do a lot of that, actually.  And then that led to other production work with artists and then a lot of co-writing that led to a lot of music licensing.  It’s a very good avenue to start generating revenue.  But then there’s always that fine line of if you’re an artist, there’s also that line you cross where you become a “jobber.”  All you’re doing is work for hire.  It’s not a bad thing, but it’s just that if you also want to be an artist, you have to find that balance between the two.

MUSICIAN COACHING: I’ve known a lot of people who have really done the cover circuit or the work for hire and then just never got around to doing the stuff that drew them to it in the first place.

JJA: The key is the writing.   You have to write every day.  Of course, I’m not perfect, I don’t write every day.  But I write something almost every day.  The book to get is the book by Stephen Pressfield called “The War of Art.”  If you are a songwriter – if that’s what you do, or a composer – that book could be really helpful for you in becoming disciplined to write every day.  And that can include all sorts of avenues – songs for yourself, for your band, could be for stuff for television, commercials, could be stuff for other artists.

MUSICIAN COACHING: What kind of impact have all these co-writes, work for hire and session gigs had on your personal art?

JJA: Mostly positive in that I’ve met amazing creative people through doing that.  Touring is also a doubled-edged sword as well.  It can be great to get paid and tour and make a little money, and then meet other musicians and play great songs.  The downside is if you’re an artist you’re taking time away from your own goals as an artist.  Balance is something I’m always trying to maintain.

MUSICIAN COACHING: You’ve had a string of successes getting your individual music as an artist placed in commercials and films, etc.  Tell me about that hustle.  What do you do right that you see other people NOT doing?

JJA: I think the key is you don’t wait around for other people to make connections for you. You go out and try to make them yourself.  For example, I’ve had music placed on Fox television shows, indie films – these are from connections actually I went and met in person with the people at Fox TV in Los Angeles.

MUSICIAN COACHING: How did you get in the door?

JJA: Well, it was interesting.  That came from a place I didn’t expect.  I worked with a guy who produced a couple of my albums named Stephen Lironi who’s possibly best known in the States for producing Hanson, their first album.  But he’s also produced a ton of other stuff.  I had a list of music executives at television companies. I sent cold e-mails and sent packages and just by following up via e-mail the woman at Fox recognized his name and said, “I used to work with him when I worked at Polydor.”  Also, I was going to be in L.A. because I was playing at a Triple A radio showcase in Palm Springs, and I flew my band out.  I was going to be out there anyway and I killed two birds with one stone.

MUSICIAN COACHING: I guess a lot of that had to do with the marketing materials and how you associated your name with your friend’s.

JJA: Yes.  You have to spell it out for people.  You can’t wait until you get them on the phone to tell them all the great stuff you’re doing.  You basically get one shot in front of most people.  These days that’s usually an e-mail or some sort of Web site.  It’s all got to be right in one place, telling people everything you’ve done.  And these things compound each other as your career goes on.  For me, I had a friend that was crazy about this one song that ended up being my single in England that came out on Universal. She hounded this friend of hers that was a manager to come see me  play, and he reluctantly took me on, and then over time, we actually developed a very good relationship.  He was able to use a lot of his strategic partnerships to garner me quite a few valuable thing for my career.  For example, I got sponsored by Budweiser for a year for touring, and they gave me $10,000 a year for two years towards the road. One request they had was that they had this Budweiser guitar, and they requested that we play it one song per show.  I thought this thing was hideous.  It was one of the ugliest guitars I’ve ever seen. So I made my guitar player play it for one song every show.  The point being, again, my friend who hustled to get me this manager believed in me because what I was doing was real and she could get behind it.  It comes down to the quality of music, which comes down to your work ethic.  Are you writing every day?  Are you listening to songwriters, etc. who have more experience than you?  You don’t have to agree with everything they say, but are you getting them to help you, either through a co-write or just feedback?

This manager was also able to use relationships he had from working at record labels.  As an indie artist, he really pushed for me very hard. He got me on “Last Call” with Carson Daley.  Once I got that and had that to show people, there’s nothing more valuable than television. People in my experience view you with a different sort of legitimacy if you are on television.  There may be bands that were way better and more deserving than my band at the time, but we got there.  And then it’s over very quick.  You can’t rest on your laurels forever. It has to be the next thing too.

MUSICIAN COACHING: Tell me about how you got signed to Universal?

JJA: Again, I had a chance meeting with an English guy who was a record executive and manager.  I met him on a beach.

MUSICIAN COACHING: You’re really not afraid to talk to anyone, are you?

JJA: Well, there you go.  I always think about if I hadn’t because I actually didn’t really want to talk to this guy.  I think we were actually put together on this boat, and it was sort of awkward and no one knew each other and no one really wanted to talk.  But once the ice was a little broken, it turned out to be one of the most fortunate meetings I probably had.  We got to know each other a little bit, and then I followed up with him (another key thing), but I didn’t hound him either.  But eventually it was the music that drew him in.  I’ll tell you one key thing I did – I never offered to play my music for him; I waited for him to ask.  And in certain cases – in this case – that was the right thing to do.  Because if you put yourself in the place of someone who is a record executive, how many people are coming at them daily?  I just knew that I had this guy – he’s on a beach – I can get to know him a little bit.  It ended up being a very fortunate thing.  He took me on as a manager, he got me sort of a small publishing situation with Universal and then that led to him taking me to a label that was distributed by Universal called All Around the World.  The idea was we took most of my second solo album and a little bit of the first and we made a new album.  And he got it released in the UK through All Around the World and then hired the best radio promotion team in the UK and brought the single to BBC Radio 2, which is probably the biggest listenership.  It took a while for it to get off the ground – maybe 6-8 months – and at the time I was living there.  Just as the single got played, the label All Around the World had some political shuffling. The people who had brought my album on left and just when it needed the push, unfortunately it didn’t get it.  The good news is, I kept the rights to my album in the United States territory, so I never gave that up . And I’ll get the album back in four years.

MUSICIAN COACHING: It seems to me that you spent a lot of time waiting.

JJA: They brought me over to do a couple showcases, some for BBC Radio and also some live stuff – I played at Ronnie Scott’s in London and the Borderline in London – and I was sort of traveling back and forth quite a bit, and then just through a certain set of circumstances basically I realized that actually relocating to London for a while would be a good idea.  To be there and with my management team, with the radio promotion team, with the label would get them fired up even more.  It was a career move and also just an adventure.  The thing is, it took a while for this to even get off the ground, or to even get started to get off the ground.  There’s so much.  I would wait around for a long time for the radio promotion team to call me up and say, “We have another showcase.”  A month would go by and I’d hear nothing.

MUSICIAN COACHING: What were you doing in the meantime?

JJA: I booked my own tours in England.  I put together my own backing band there.  I got busy.  All the while I was still writing music for television and commercials for here in the U.S., just from there.  These days you just e-mail the track in.  So I was keeping busy, but on the artist side, it was this great thing, because here was this label, and there was a promotion team and a management team and they were definitely excited about it, but it was also like starting over.  No one really knew me over there.  Fortunately I did fall in with a lot of good people, especially the musicians I met over there.  I was able to put together an amazing band.  I did the same thing over there that I did over here. I played at universities, I played at clubs, and I had a little bit of tour support, not a lot.  I tried to make it so it was at least a breaking even venture looking towards building towards a money-making venture.

MUSICIAN COACHING: This was done on your own with the occasional backing from your new team?

JJA: My management team wanted nothing to do with booking of clubs and universities and anything like that.  To be fair, my manager was always bringing booking agents down, and had the single taken off, we would’ve easily gotten a booking agent.  But because there was no booking agent, who’s going to do it?  Me.  I know that it’s a mistake not to be playing.  If I’m just waiting for my single to show up on the radio, I want to be playing and I want to be getting the word out.  And I was able to do that.  Of course I would’ve loved for my record to take off and the single to be a big success, but just because it didn’t doesn’t mean I didn’t get to do some amazing things. 

MUSICIAN COACHING: You made the best of the situation.

JJA: It wasn’t the intended outcome. But you can’t control the outcome.  What did I do?  Once I knew this record was dead, I immediately went into the studio with Steven Mulroney(?) and recorded the “Black and White Matinee” LP.  I didn’t wait.  What am I going to do, sit there and lick my wounds?  Once I got off my ass and quit feeling sorry for myself, it ended up being great.  I made one of my favorite recordings I’ve made.  It wasn’t a losing situation. It was actually a great situation in the end.

MUSICIAN COACHING: What would you do differently if you knew then what you know now?

JJA: There are a lot of things. I would worry a lot less about ego-related things:  how many people are in the audience on any given night; what bad review said what about my album; etc.  I definitely have a thick skin, but if I could’ve I would’ve developed it much sooner.  Hopefully someone will read this and realize that’s not the stuff that matters.  The stuff that matters is the creativity, the art, the songs, the recordings, the shows – that’s what’s important.  The rest is just all the stuff that happens to go along with it.

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If you want to check out JJ’s music or are in need of a gifted producer please check him out at JJ Appleton

Tim Latham is a Grammy award winning producer, engineer and Mixer.  He has worked with Lou Reed, Brittney Spears, the Black Eyed Peas, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, the Fun Loving Criminals and countless other artists.  He has been doing mostly mixing projects of late and was kind enough to take some time to speak to me after a overseeing the mastering of one of his latest projects while at Sterling Sound.

Musician Coaching:

Tim thanks again for your time.  As someone who has been in the business as long as you have been I was hoping you could tell me what you wish more artists would do before asking you to mix a record and then hopefully find out a bit more about how you have built the career you have today.

TL: Well, for recording purposes, hire an engineer.  Always.  Don’t let your friend who knows how to use Pro Tools be the engineer.  You can find someone in engineering school for $20 an hour, even on a budget.  It is money wisely-spent even if it’s going to be recorded on an M Box. You need a set of ears there.

Musician Coaching:

You get a lot of files that are poorly recorded?

TL: Often everything needs to be replaced, and I have to re-do the drums.  Any beginning band should spend money making their demo or record- it’s worth it.

Musician Coaching:

Did you start out as an artist?

TL: I started off as an engineer and gopher.

Musician Coaching:

What was it that got you sitting in front of the board eventually?

TL: I have no idea.  You make your luck and create your breaks.  It’s just a matter of how you take advantage of them when you get there.

Musician Coaching:

You were at Battery when you started doing records?

TL:

I first started working in the studio in 1986 in Boston as a gopher guy.  I didn’t know anything about anything. While I going to school, I was engineering in the studios trying to figure out what I was going to do.  I graduated knowing that I know nothing, which I think was my greatest strength – being aware of how little I knew.

Musician Coaching:

So how are you sourcing new clients lately?  In your situation I am guessing the records you have made are like business cards?

TL: It is tight right now. It’s tough for everyone.  I am relying on long-term clients and the other producers I’ve worked with for years.  For all of us, the bulk of what we do – all our records are business cards.  Most of my clients now are international.

Musician Coaching:

And you’re doing mostly mixing?

TL: I’m about 95% mixing.  I have no interest in production.  We did a couple records with Fun Loving Criminals and now, I feel like you kind of set yourself up wearing every hat like that, if you’re a producer, engineer and mixer.  If there’s something wrong with the record, there’s only one guy to blame.  The engineer can blame the producer or the producer can blame the mixer, but when you’re wearing all three hats, if the record doesn’t sell, it’s your fault and you’ve got a Scarlet Letter.  It’s very taxing.  It’s a left brain/right brain struggle.

Musician Coaching:

What is your advice before getting into the studio?  How much pre-production do you recommend a band do before working on their record?

TL: As much as you can possibly get away with.  I’ve seen more time wasted in the studio.  The majority of time – about 80% — I spent in the studio was a waste of time.  I’ve seen having pre-production meetings in the studio, bands not having their crap together before they get there, sometimes they get overwhelmed by being in the studio for the first time, which is understandable, but you need to make practice runs.  Go to the local studio first. Be prepared.

Musician Coaching:

Do you find that people with home recording gear and some recording experience are better prepared?

TL: I think they can speak the language.  Sometimes it’s actually more hurtful than helpful.  A little knowledge in the wrong hands is dangerous.  You just get questions every step of the way. I’ve been doing it for 23 or 24 years, and this person has had a home studio for a week. 

Musician Coaching: Any advice picking producers, engineers and mixers?

TL: Listen to your favorite records, even older records.  Listen to your mom and dad’s records.  If there’s something about those records you like – you may not even be able to articulate what it is – but you like those records.  That’s how I thought as an engineer.  I listened to records that I liked and asked myself, “How on earth did this record come together like that?”  It’s not just about the songs, it’s the record itself.  That’s what really piqued my interest in it.  You can draw from all of those, but listen to the bands you kind of sound like.  It’s kind of that easy.  Don’t go with the first choice or the guys who sold the most records.  Go with the records you like the most.

I also have A&R people just come out and say, “My God, the records that you worked on sold so many records.”  I could sit here and try to take credit for that, but it’s impossible.  I mean, I had something to do with it, because it wouldn’t be the same record if I did not work on it.  The songs would be the same, and the artists would still be the same but it still wouldn’t be the same record.  But to say I’m responsible for this record selling X number of records is just ridiculous.

I take what I do very seriously, but I don’t take myself too seriously.  Coming up assisting and interning, seeing miserable heaps, I wondered who would possibly want to spend all this money being around a miserable heap like this?  I said, “This is ridiculous.  You’re getting invited into people’s dreams and you’re a miserable heap.”  I wouldn’t want to sit next to some of them on a bus.  If you become a good “knob jockey,” what separates you is how you get along with people.

Musician Coaching:

Do you have a Web site?

TL: It’s in the works.  More people find me through All Music and stuff like that.  I have set up links on my Myspace for now.

Musician Coaching:

Do you have any general artist advice?  Are there other mistakes you’re still seeing?

TL: I don’t want to sound corny, but it is the new frontier.  The old way doesn’t fit anymore.  The mistakes people make are not knowing their inabilities and not having the right people around them to steer them in the right direction.  I’ve seen plenty of times where younger bands have a best friend’s friend that has a business degree and is going to be their manager without having any clue as to how the music industry works.  And he’s just making mistake after mistake after mistake.  And I’m not saying that going with one of the larger management firms is by any means exponentially better, but it’s definitely better than having somebody who is completely inexperienced with the industry.

If you’re not properly represented, nobody will ever take you seriously, or even if they do take YOU seriously and they take the music seriously, if you have somebody who is representing you who is an inexperienced person, you’ll never get over the hurdle.  The money is harder to get to.  The people who are easy to deal with are the ones that are going to get the money, the contacts and get their music placed in a movie, music, in advertising or in a video game. If you are being represented by someone who has zero you are making it really difficult on yourself.
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If you need your record mixed, you can contact Tim Latham