This site is a blog for musicians and music industry people. It is a free educational resource and it is also the way I advertise my music consulting services. I am an entertainment professional with deep roots in the music industry. Throughout my music career I have been a major label A&R representative, a music supervisor, an artist manager, a reality show producer, a bass player and the head of a digital record label.
Record Deal – 2011
I wrote a half-baked post about getting a record deal 2009 thinking that it was a topic that would soon be irrelevant because no artist would want to be signed the way things seemed to be headed. How very wrong I was. I’m sure you have all seen the results of the ReverbNation and Digital Music News Survey that polled over 1800 artists a few months ago. They concluded that 75% of indie artists listed getting signed as one of their goals.
While the aforementioned poll pulls from what is likely to be a much more representative sample of aspiring and professional musicians it is interesting to note that the whispered promises of the digital DIY age do not seem to be panning out for the masses. The graph below was pulled from Google Insight on May 17th, 2011 and suggests that interest in record deals (or at least searching Google for “getting a record deal”) is actually on the rise in the last few years.
So what changed? Was there not enough tangible evidence in the public consciousness that people were making a living on their own using the new tools? Did we not have a modern day Ani Difranco to point to or were there perhaps too many mini success stories that didn’t add up to a full-blown music celebrity to make people believe that DIY was possible for anyone and everyone? Really all I can do is speculate since the data indicates nothing of people’s frame of mind or intentions.
All conjecture aside the answer to the question “How do I get a record deal” has not changed for decades. There is no single right answer of course, but what seems to be the most common is the willingness to build your own business and ensuring that if you are looking for a deal that the quest for being signed does not interfere with the quest for connecting with your existing fans and making new ones. What a bummer of an ending, huh? Sad but true: There is no silver bullet; there is no golden rule…just persistence and a lot of luck and good timing.
Ron Bienstock is an experienced attorney with Bienstock & Michael, P.C., a New-York-City-area-based firm that specializes in entertainment and intellectual property law and is currently celebrating its 25th year in business. Ron has worked with major artists including Billy Joel, Simple Plan, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree and many producers and instrument and music equipment manufacturers. He is also a skilled bassist who still performs regularly.
Recently, I sat down with Ron to revisit a topic we discussed in 2009: the current state of the music industry, and how the modern artist can carve a successful career within it.
Thanks for taking time to talk to me, Ron. I thought of doing this second interview with you because I’d just rerun an interview I did with you in 2009, when we discussed what artists should do when they are just starting out. And when I mentioned that to you recently, you said, “Boy, how things have changed since then.” What exactly has changed?
RB:
First of all, thanks for giving me a Part II. What has changed fundamentally is that many artists have decided that they are going to be in their own business and have begun to pursue the organization of their business as an entity – meaning, as an LLC, subchapter “S,” as a “C” corporation, etc. They’ve begun to look at controlling their own destiny by not aligning themselves with a lot of independents or majors who have really ensconced themselves in a form of having a 360 deal as an entrée, which is the agreement most labels are looking for now. Even if the 360 deal isn’t what a label is looking for entirely, they’re looking for some form of that deal. Many managers and artists together are saying, “We really can’t afford a net participation in all of these income streams.” I’ve always organized these income streams into four separate categories: live income; merchandise income; publishing income; income from masters/recordings. If a company is going to participate in all four, there may not be enough room for everybody to have a way to make a living. That’s ultimately what everybody wants to do, and that should be the goal: to make a living as an artist.
So, in the past 18 months, you’ve really seen people set out in greater numbers to start their own businesses, incorporate and really do the DIY thing?
RB:
Yes. And they’re doing it in interesting ways. Some bands have actually taken out loans out from relatives, investors or have found ways to fund themselves in that regard. I’ve seen that begin to take place much more commonly. We’ve been making distribution deals for people who have done just that. We can make distribution deals with any of the arms of the major distributors, for example, Sony/Red, etc. And we’ve put people into their own business where they are distributing their own product. This is done often through a virtual label person; you hire someone to basically run your label for you. They may take a small percentage of your net income. But that may be very worthwhile because most of the artists find they don’t have staff to do that with, so they hire someone to provide those services. They hire an independent promo company, or find they can use an in-house company at some of the distributors. They find themselves in the position of putting hard product – CDs – into stores (the stores that are left), making digital distribution agreements. They are touring behind it; they know when they go to specific towns, they’ve made the arrangements and have talked about where retail outlets are and have made sure that those retail outlets have the record. They can sell CDs in addition to that at shows and are getting people to at least buy the music. That is often the hardest job of all. Also, at the shows, they may even have additional merchandise that they can make into a premium package for coming to see them or any variation on that theme. They’re putting themselves into business. The idea is that if you are able to sell 20,000 records and some other merchandise, and continue to make a fair amount of money playing shows, you’re going to establish yourselves.
Has the law changed very much in the past 18 months? Has anything significant shifted in terms of royalty rates, etc.?
RB:
Unfortunately, no. We don’t really have anybody leading the charge when it comes to what the majors are doing with unpaid royalties the way Elliot Spitzer was when he was governor. One of the major changes has been simply that the major labels are effectively all making massive changes. They are either up for sale or there’s been a migration of top executives from one place to another. For example, Warner is up for sale, and there’s been a migration between Sony and Universal in terms of top executives. And I think there’s a very good chance that Capitol/EMI is going to be sold of piecemeal in terms of rights to various masters. But that remains to be seen. Still, with all these companies in a state of flux, what is very different now is that high-level deals – those over $1 million, which would’ve never been shocking before – now have go through CEOs and finance people, which is a very new thing. Our firm is currently celebrating its 25th year and I can tell you personally that in 25-plus years, I’ve never spoken to a finance person about a large deal. In the past three or four years, there have been moments where I’ve spoken to corporate because it was a very high-level deal, and we got corporate involved. But then, we were talking about $5 or $10 million issues. A million dollars or thereabouts becomes something that now goes to the very top person at a company.
Does this mean that deals are taking longer to close too?
RB:
Yes. High-level deals are taking much longer to close. Re-negotiations at the higher levels are also taking much longer. There’s a reluctance to do them anyway because of the potential sale of the company. Conversely, it puts a chilling effect on the artist in their negotiation process. The artist thinks, “Who’s going to be there? If I make this deal, you want me to stay. But will you be there?”
Let’s give an example. The artist says to the label, “I’m the artist, and you want me to stay. I’d like to stay, because I have a good run of success with you as a label, and that’s why you want me to stay. But my option on this next record is my last option, and you have to give me $1 million or more.” And the label says, “We’d love to give you something, but we don’t want to give you $1 million, because that means it has to go to the head of the label, and it’s going to take a while to get a decision. In the meantime, I’d like you to give us something for that. Even though contractually, we’re obligated to give you the $1 million, I’d like you to give us some more options. I’d like you to give us two options.” And the artist thinks, “We’re having conversations about something the label is obligated to give me, but the label wants something for it. But now when I talk to the label about it, they say, ‘I really can’t tell you what that will be worth, how much it’s going to be or what it’s all about because we’re in a state of flux.’”
This is something people just don’t know about. There is still a heavy wave of artists who believe that a record deal is what they’re after. And in many cases, it still is something they have to pursue – for example, if they’re a pop act or a hip hop act. Many times people feel they have to get the promotional weight of a company to really make something happen for themselves. And many times, they’re right. The question is, where are the companies right now? They’re not the same companies that were there five years ago, let alone ten years ago.
And in some cases, not the same companies they were two years ago.
RB:
As someone that talks to all the majors pretty regularly, that’s correct. These are huge issues, and this is something the average artist really is unaware of with the major labels. Hopefully the publishers will be okay, but remember, the major publishers are just divisions of the major record companies. There’s an impact on everybody involved in high-level deals. I’m sure there will be somebody reading this that might think, “Well, my deal won’t be such a high-level deal.” Well, but then you’re talking about a basic 360 deal. This is where we’re at two years after you and I spoke about this the last time.
What about independent record deals? Are those more prevalent seen them grabbing for more 360 rights?
RB:
There’s been a real movement with independents to 360. And that can be troublesome because some of the independents don’t have any track record whatsoever of working with publishing catalogues or merchandise. But they want to participate. Also, most of those companies that want a 360 deal are working with their own publishing, and that’s to gather up copyrights and flip them over to a major or an investment group that’s buying a catalogue.
And there are a lot of Investment groups rolling publishing companies up right now.
RB:
In the last two years, we’ve seen a bunch – and many that are well funded. In buying a catalogue, generally, you’re talking about a catalogue that has at least one substantial LP with hopefully at least one major hit coming off that LP. But some have just had one hit. And if it’s a prevalent – a constantly-licensed song, a “classic” or a “legacy track” from a legacy artist – those can be very valuable.
Are you seeing publishing deals changing a lot as well? What do those look like now?
RB:
They’re very different in some ways, because of the same state of flux. There’s been a large changeover in staff at certainly two of the major publishers. And in some cases, your creative person may not still be there. You then have to wonder if that deal going to be what you expected and what you went to that publisher for. Previously, you went to the publisher so they could really work film and television. You’re really looking for covers and to make the introduction for co-writes with other writers. But there’s less staff to work and less staff to do it now.
Where does this put your parting words of advice for an artist?
RB:
There’s a bit of a fork in the road. You can turn towards working with a third-party label, whether independent or major – and I don’t dispute there is tremendous value for certain artists, and they will not get where they want to go without that. But a lot of people are making that right-hand turn and saying, “I’m going to do this myself, and hopefully when a label approaches me, I’ll have that clout to make myself a better deal. And because I’ve already established myself, I might increase my chances and the likelihood of success with this company.” I think a lot of the groundwork is really being done entirely by the artist right now.
What do record label advances look like right now for brand new, baby bands?
RB:
I think it’s less than people think it is. Baby bands are not necessarily the most attractive to a major right now for obvious reasons – because they have less staff, and you really need to work hard to break a new act. Those are going to be 360 deals, with not really substantial advances.
I do find it funny that some people are upset about the way this has turned, because this is the way other businesses have operated forever. If you went looking for a raise for your business, you knew businesses in the black got better deals. It makes perfect sense to me. But I can see how it could be tricky. It’s easy to be nefarious, especially when artists don’t know which rights they’re signing away.
RB:
Well, this relates to one more point about what I’ve seen change in the past two years: I’ve seen a dramatic rise in “the con.” I’ve seen a dramatic rise in companies and individuals that are not as expert as they say they are providing services for payment on a monthly, weekly basis to provide some services for artists, even when we all know some of those services cannot really do what those people say they can do. It’s very difficult to enhance your career by paying for some promotional service when you have no product and you just have one single. And if the single is not available to be purchased or downloaded in some capacity, you’re not creating something for yourself. It seems like “the con” happens much more often now than ever before.
And in spite of all the information out there, artists don’t seem to be any more well informed?
RB:
No. And that is unfortunate. The web has become the place where people go to do business as well as get their information. And sometimes, the information has been put on the web by the very people who are looking to get their business. I know people can sometimes not afford to talk to people who charge for their services, but a little bit of due diligence on who you’re going to work with is a good thing.
To learn more about Ron Bienstock and the work he does, visit the Bienstock & Michael, P.C. website. Please also check out my previous interview with him from August, 2009, A Music Lawyer’s Point of View.
This article is the third part of a three part series I wrote about putting together a team for your music career. The first part can be seen on MusicianWages.com and discusses how to get an entertainment lawyer. The second installment is about how to find a manager and what they are looking for in a potential client. It appears on the Musician section of About.com. I would like to send a special thanks to Heather McDonald from About.com and Cameron Mizell and David Hahn of Musician Wages. This is the last part of this series and it is about how to find a booking agent for your project.
One of the most common questions I get asked by developing artists is “How can I find a booking agent?” I wish the answer to this question would earn me more favor with the musician community but sadly this one is more cut and dry than finding a manager. A manager usually makes between 10-20% of all of an artists income so for a manager a band that doesn’t sell a ton of tickets can still do well in song placement or selling recorded music and be a good client. Agencies make a percentage of what their clients make in ticket sales so the most important thing to an agent is hands down how well you draw and how many tickets you are already selling.
Not too long ago I interviewed a booking agent named Dave Galea from the Agency Group about what he looks for in potential clients. For Dave it came down to performance indicators including existing ticket sales that could be verified by a promoter, plays on MySpace and the way he was approached by a potential client over email.
That is not to say that artists who haven’t built a following for their live show don’t get signed to big agencies. Whenever I mention that you have to build it on your own someone always pipes up with an example of a complete unknown getting picked up by a major agency. This does happen but it is the exception and not the rule and there is usually another strategic partner already in the picture who has leveraged his or her relationships to make this happen. What many people fail to realize is that an agent (no matter how great they are) can get you in several rooms in several different markets but they can’t keep doing so forever without people starting to show up. Many times groups with agents do wind up playing shows in new markets but with very little turn out. A good agent is worth his or her weight in gold but once again – they are not miracle workers.
Like many parts of building your career (or building any business career for that matter) most people start with limited resources and therefore wind up doing everything themselves. While it is usually a strain on any artist just to stay afloat financially while consistently creating great music and marketing themselves- I think it is hugely important that every artist try their hand at booking (and the other roles filled by strategic partners) if for no other reason than to have an understanding of what the job entails so they can ask the right questions when they get to the point of hiring or selecting people to fill these roles. When I have tried my hand at various roles for my business and failed I was always able to make a better decision about who I could partner with because I knew exactly the skill set I was lacking and was better able to communicate that to a potential business partner.
Because the answer to finding a booking agent for most people seems to be selling tickets and getting warm bodies to your show and exposing your music to audiences as efficiently as possible I thought I would include some commonly employed tactics to get people to your shows and building a following.
Gig Swap – can’t get into a new market but do well in your hometown? Trade a show with a band in a neighboring market. Don’t know any bands in the town over? You have every social network to comb through for this – no more excuses. Having trouble finding someone good? Welcome to the music business life – remember this is why gatekeepers (agents, publishers, labels, promoters etc) aren’t always thrilled to meet a new musician. They have been conditioned to expect something less than stellar – it’s not personal. Someone once told me that being an entrepreneur is mostly about separating the wheat from the chaff. Sadly there is some really crappy sounding chaff out there for all of us to dig through.
The more you interact and connect with the acts you play with the better.
I have said from stage to a bunch of retreating bar patrons “be sure and stick around for our friends the next band…” and have watched the same thing happen when I was a member of the opening act. Do your best to overcome this for your sake and the other act’s sake.
How about trying the following:
*Write a song with another band and have both acts perform it live together in between sets or at least getting everyone on stage for a cover song
*A Band Vs. Band set. Share equipment and do a double show where you alternate every other song with another band or artist.
*At the very least make playing a show with another band a co-branding opportunity. Cross promote the show to both mailing lists and give your fan base a reason that they should see this other project. I think we’ve all heard “stick around for the next band” far too often and it just falls on deaf ears.
——
R
Alex Stern is the manager of up-and-coming DIY rap artist Sam Adams and owner of the flourishing clothing company Eighties Babies USA. Originally from Massachusetts, Alex launched his clothing company while he was attending the University of Colorado as a studio art/graphic design major and began to focus on promoting his brand successfully through social media and networking. While at Boulder, he also decided to combine his love for Hip Hop with his marketing and business savvy and team up with Sam Adams, who had been his best friend since high school, to help him build his music career. Within months, Alex, Sam and his hoards of loyal fans were able to bring Sam from a freestyle rapper making music in his dorm room to an internet sensation and a touring artist with a #1 album, Boston’s Boy, on the iTunes Hip Hop chart.
I had the chance to talk to Alex about what drew him to Sam Adams, why he has been so successful at harnessing the power of internet marketing to promote his brands and how he plans to help Sam further his Hip Hop career in the modern music industry.
How did you get involved with Sam Adams?
AS:
Sammy and I got connected through a natural, organic process. We became friends in high school when he moved out to my school in Boston my senior year. When I first met Sam, I was attracted to him as a result of his general swagger, and not necessarily because of the music. He had a different attitude and demeanor than most of the kids I’d been around. I was immediately attracted to that right off the bat. When I first started hanging out with him and listening to his productions and what he’d do on the computer at a very early age and a very early stage for him – around 16 or 17 – I realized that he had some kind of weird, innate inherent talent that I’d never seen before in any creative field, and it really turned me on.
We didn’t really start working together on music at that point, because we went our separate ways to school. I went to school at Boulder, he went to school at Trinity. But I stayed updated on whatever he was doing musically on probably a weekly basis for a year or a year and a half. He hadn’t actually even recorded his voice on anything yet when we were both a couple years into college. The first time he ever really laid down vocals and let it be heard was on “I Hate College,” which was obviously a huge turning point. When I heard that along with a bunch of other stuff he’d done in his college dorm room, I put into the mix along with all the other music I was listening to. I’ve been a huge Hip Hop head my whole life, and a huge music listener.
“I Hate College” was the remix of Asher Roth’s “I Love College,” right?
AS:
That’s correct. Basically I put him into the mix with everything else I was listening to, and I had a feeling he was better than any of the music I was excited about at the time. He could fit right in, if not be the best, and I wanted to make something out of that. So, at that point I decided to bring him out to school at Boulder and do his first show at a bar, collect some liquor money and some door money. That’s just the summary of how we got started and how our relationship came to be.
And you’re also running a clothing company called Eighties Babies?
AS:
That was something that started before I worked with Sam. When I was out at school, my first jump into the social media world was sparked by the clothing company I started. I went to school for graphic design and art and started designing t-shirts and other clothing. The way I got my clothing out and started doing really well with that was through Facebook primarily and also through events. I used Facebook to really make it pop. I had that background when I started with Sam, and it flowed right into helping promote him.
Obviously Sam has something that people gravitate towards, everything from his video leaking and getting a million hits on YouTube, to an independent artist topping the hip hop chart. Clearly he has something people want, so you can’t define that, but from a business perspective, what did you guys do that other people didn’t? Which marketing techniques did you use, and how did you use mixtapes? What were the major business steps you took to get Sam on the map?
AS:
I think it’s important that in your question at first you said, Sam’s so appealing, and people gravitate towards him. My job was really just to put him in front of people, so they could really experience that feeling, and it wasn’t something they had to go after or find out about. It was something that was easy for them to see and blatant and obvious. I didn’t really have a business model; it was just very natural for me. The way I did it was I stayed on Facebook – and I still do to this day, though back then even more – all day, posting new stuff and being in their faces and in their news feed. People were and are using Facebook or Twitter or YouTube on a daily basis all day. What that does is, whether they think they like Sam yet or not, they’re going to get the opportunity to really find out. With a lot of other artists, you have this preconceived notion that you like them or you don’t like them based on a few visuals or half a verse you may have heard from a friend. With Sam, there’s no way if you’re at all connected to anyone in our network that you’re not going to see his face 150 times and hear a bunch of his songs unless you really ignore it.
That would suggest to me that you guys had a lot of early super fans, people who gravitated and were willing to do their own additional promotion because they were such big fans.
AS:
That’s absolutely a fair assessment. I think that was something that I had recognized was an asset to us from step one. Did they help me out? Absolutely. But we enabled them and gave them that responsibility very purposefully, because to me, creating an environment where our fans that love Sam felt like they were part of it, and part of his family and community and part of his team and promo has no downside. There’s only upside, and they proved that, because for any time I wasn’t on the ball putting something in someone’s face, I had 100,000 kids who were just as passionate as I was about it and willing to put it in their friends faces.
What does creating an environment that enables other people to pick up promotional tasks look like specifically?
AS:
It’s about being approachable online, being responsive and having a dialogue with your fans that makes them feel that they’re as important as they really are. Being in this business, as I’m sure you’ll know, the idea of being unapproachable and being someone famous has been important for a long time. But for me, that was selfish, especially with the existence of YouTube. A good way to exemplify what I’m talking about is – and this is the biggest secret I have business wise that I’ve never really talked about publically – we’ve let our fans put our YouTube videos out. If you look at any other artist, they have an official YouTube log, and they’re going to put out every video first so they can get their numbers up and then take a good look at their numbers and use that as their business model. For me, that seemed selfish. The only upside to it is that you can check out your own diagnostics, which there wasn’t much value in for me. If we gave fans the opportunity to feel like they were the first to put out our music, and their video is the official video of a certain Sam Adams song or a certain interview, suddenly not only do they feel like they’re just as important as we are in terms of promoting him, but we’re getting our product out to an entirely new network that I may have nothing to do with or not be a part of whatsoever. And that was appealing to me.
That’s really great. It sounds like this started for you guys when you were still in college. Did penetration of and access to the college market help you in any way? How did you leverage that?
AS:
I think to say “it helped us” is an understatement; it created us. It’s the sole reason why Sam Adams came to be. The college network and the Facebook and Twitter networks, but mostly Facebook and YouTube created us. The environment you live in in college is such a small world because of Facebook that he became a trend in that world that was stronger than it could’ve been in any other place. His timing and his sound along with that was just explosive. So, the college market and Facebook were absolutely the most important things.
How does an independent artist go about becoming #1 on the Hip Hop charts? It sounds like non-stop social networking promotion, and obviously he was performing and collecting some super fans to get up and do stuff with him and for him. What were the steps you took to promote a release, and which tools did you use?
AS:
The credit has to be given to Sam as far as getting to #1 and making that release be so special for us. I could reiterate the value of Facebook and YouTube and everything, but the real value came from his sound and his timing within his environment. And he was able to put out a brand new, authentic white rap sound that was naturally poppy and naturally danceable to his market. We didn’t have to do much work. I can’t take credit, and no one can take much credit except for him, because he had the ability and that genuine sound. That’s what made that release happen and made him go to number one. I was there to help out on the sidelines with everything I already talked about and do. Obviously that helped it go to number one too, but the rest is all Sammy.
Did you find mixtapes helpful in promotion? Wasn’t that some of Sam’s early stuff?
AS:
We put out one mixtape. Most people involved in social media and networking that way and promoting themselves that way would say that mixtapes are the most important thing, and putting out free music to their fans is huge. To me, that’s not really part of my model. I think if fans love something they should be able to buy it, and it should be powerful enough for mixtapes not to run their career, especially when you’re someone who is as naturally pop oriented as Sam is. You need to be a sellable artist. We have such an extremely hardcore fan base that are so passionate about him that they almost don’t want a mixtape track compared to something they know is mastered and has a perfect sound. They’d rather buy it and have the best version of something compared to a more Hip Hop-oriented genre, where mixtapes are more appealing. That’s not us.
What’s next for Sam and for you?
AS:
The next step for Sam is for him to sign onto a major label and put him in a place where he can really maximize his potential, which to me and everyone else on his team and to Sam himself is the most elite place that an artist could be, and we want him to be the best and be a superstar of the highest magnitude. Our next step is deciding which label to go with. We’ve been approached by everyone in the world and have sat down with every president around the nation in the last year. IT’s about deciding who is really excited and who really comprehends Sam the same way we do so we can make that transition and be proud of the move we’ve made. Considering how well we did on our own, it’s important for us to really transition well.
I’m going to ask a question, because to be honest, so much of what artists want out of a label you’ve accomplished yourself. Of course, with a major label there’s distribution and a giant team. But what do think the most valuable thing about a partnership with a major label would be at this time, since you do have so much going for you? What is the missing ingredient for an artist of Sam’s stature to move forward?
AS:
I would say that radio along with an international presence are the two ones that stick out in my head that I would really appreciate help with, and that’s where the label is going to come in. There’s a certain extent to what I can accomplish, and I’ve really maximized my resources at this stage.
To learn more about Alex and his clothing company, please visit the Eighties Babies USA website and become a fan on Facebook. You can also keep up with Alex on Twitter. To learn more about Hip Hop artist Sam Adams and listen to his music, visit the Sam Adams Live Facebook profile, or follow him as BostonsBoy on Twitter.
Pam Workman-Hilton is the Founder of Workman Entertainment and PR. Since childhood, Pam has been passionate about music, literature and the performing arts, but also very inspired the ideas behind business and entrepreneurialism. She first entered the music industry when she got an internship at MTV while pursuing a masters in journalism at New York University. This first internship deepened her interest in the music industry and led her to a second internship at VH1, which turned into a job in creative development and programming during VH1’s big “Music First” era in the mid-1990s. There, she was introduced to manager Bob Doyle (Garth Brooks) and his client, the renowned songwriter Billy Mann (Hall & Oates, Jessica Simpson, P!nk). She left VH1 to work with Bob as a management associate, eventually rising up in the ranks to creatively and administratively run his New York office.
When the bottom of the music industry as it had been previously been known began to fall out in 2000 because of the growing digital industry, Pam moved into the next phase of her career as a publicist. Thanks to her interest in technology and her vast experience on both the creative side and the business side of music, she has grown into a highly-specialized publicist who focuses on corporate music and music technology PR. With her own New York City-based company Workman Entertainment and PR, she now helps individuals in both corporate and entertainment arenas leverage modern media tools to build their brands and develop their careers. Most recently, she has worked with artists and entrepreneurs such as Eminem, Russell Simmons and Echo and the Bunnymen and also works closely with the New Music Seminar.
Pam spoke to me recently about her life as a publicist, the upcoming New Music Seminar and how artists can build their personal stories and their careers in a changing, digitally-driven world.
I want to ask you a little bit about your world view given you do a lot of events PR and corporate PR, although in many respects, the philosophy and underpinning is not that vastly different from what artists have to do to get noticed. Do you see your job as a publicist as helping pull a story from your clients and repackaging it? How do you look at your role?
PWH:
I look at my role as one that fits into all the crevices that aren’t being filled at any given time with any client, whether I am working with an indie band, a major label artist, a music technology startup or a national music organization. Granted, the larger organizations often have more infrastructure. But that’s not necessarily bulletproof in the sense of what one needs to be successful as a publicist. To be more specific, it’s not a cookie-cutter job. And I don’t believe anyone’s job in the music industry should be now. All of us have to be very creative and dynamic in terms of the services we offer and the skill sets we provide to the music community. The demands upon artists and companies to be successful are no longer linear. It’s this composite of things. For example, with an artist’s campaign, it’s not just “We have the radio in play, and you’re the publicist, and here’s the product manager.”
I remember the days where we would go about and there was just a cut and paste process. It doesn’t seem like there’s a specific process to an artist’s PR and Marketing campaign anymore.
PWH:
My point is that because there often isn’t a process, the team may be leaner, and the job may be bigger. I do traditional PR, and yes, my job is to get the story of the band, artist or company. But sometimes they don’t even know their story. Sometimes neither does their manager or label. It depends where they are in their career. And sometimes that story needs to be refreshed or reexamined. I think this is very 101, and I’m sure you’ve heard this many times, but having a great record does not a story make.
The line I always come back to is that “Dude Releases Record” is no longer newsworthy.
PWH:
That definitely sums it up.
What would you advise people that are looking for publicists or who are just saying, “I should do some blog outreach?” Is there an exercise or a process?
PWH:
Yes and no. I personally would advise any young artist or even mid-career artist, or anyone I work with to look for the unconventional opportunities. To me, getting a blog placement is fine. But getting involved with a charity you care about and being passionate about it and maybe getting the opportunity to perform at a charity event because you’re involved and you care, and then having your fans know you care about something other than your music starts to build a story about who you are.
I often advise people also that their music is unfortunately, or fortunately only one dimension. When you’re forced into a situation where you’re constantly generating some content or pitching to a niche, it involves living your passions as well.
PWH:
I guess we’re on the same page in the sense that I don’t want to say, “Don’t go after a blog hit.” And I think a blog would be more interested in a new band if they were doing something other than releasing their EP. I think identity is also really important. What’s your unique offering? And I don’t just mean the sound, but also visually, or literally “What do you have to say that’s different or fresh?” Maybe you’re from Hawaii and you spent your life surfing. To New Yorkers, that’s kind of different. I guess that’s why Jack Johnson is hip.
As marketing executives we all want the Jack Johnson story: “By the way, is there anything you do?” “Oh, yeah. I’ve been producing documentaries on the most famous surfers in the world for ten years. Does that help?”
PWH:
Right. You do have to start from somewhere. I think the people that are passionate about life and have things going on or are doing things beyond the realm of just putting a record out are at ground zero for the beginning of PR.
I’m going to switch gears on you a little bit. Tell me about what you’re doing for the New Music Seminar. As somebody that has that unique position to interact with all the panelists in a PR capacity, what are you noticing about the trends for the business? What have been some of your greatest takeaways about the changing music business?
PWH:
One of the first things that strikes me is that the story is still being written: the new business story. We’re in the middle of actually writing it. What’s exciting about the New Music Seminar (NMS) is that when you’re on the ground and experiencing it, you actually feel that happening. That is truly the unique takeaway that not only I get from the seminar, but that I think anyone who goes would likely get also. There is no pat answer today, so I think if you are excited by being a part of the solution and the conversation, the NMS is a very exciting place to be, whether you’re an artist, entrepreneur or an executive.
The other takeaway is simply that it’s a very exciting environment right now in that there are all kinds of new technologies and services that are being introduced, many of them at NMS. I don’t think any one of them will save the music business, but I do think there will ultimately be some composite of these services and this world that we’re learning about right now that will help us, if not succeed, definitely survive. Without them, I think we’ll see the value of copyrights continue to devolve, and I think the monetary solutions we’re currently attached to won’t grow, even on the digital side. There was a recent story in The New York Times that said we’re flat-lining in the digital world. I think all those things, if you’re an industry person, are cause for alarm. But if you’re an artist, it’s also concerning, because you want to know how to be heard, how to survive and how to make it work as a professional. I do think certainly that NMS will be educational to any artist that actually wants to understand what it will take to make music a career. Whether or not they can do it is a different story.
What’s refreshing to me about the seminar’s stance to me is that it doesn’t sound that anyone is saying, “We have the answers.” It sounds like you’re coming from a place of, “Here are some of the brightest people we know. We’re all trying to figure this out. Come and help us.” That’s the interesting thing to me.
PWH:
That’s definitely the most interesting thing to me too, and I think when I talk about the energy and the dynamic, that’s exactly where it comes from. You feel like you’re a part of making that a reality in action.
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You can learn more about Pam, her business and her roster of clients on the Workman Entertainment and PR website.
The New Music Seminar is coming up in L.A. February 14th-16th, 2011 in L.A.
Also, for the complete schedule of events at this year’s New Music Seminar and to register visit www.NewMusicSeminar.com. Use the 2 for 1 discount code by entering the secret code NMSLASE2322 when you select the Partner’s Discount tab on the registration page. You don’t want to miss this opportunity to take your career to the next level.
Other than How do I get a record deal? or How can I License my music? the question that comes up the most is How do I make it in the music industry?”
“Making it” to me just means making a living playing, writing and recording music.
Top 5 Behaviors that will help you make it in the music business:
#1 PRACTICE & LEARN: It is ALWAYS about the music. Practice your craft daily. Learn everything you can about music theory and writing and reading music- this will make you much more employable than the dozens of hobbyists out there. Never ever stop learning and finding people to learn from. This has to be your number one priority no matter what happens. You have to keep finding new ways of challenging yourself because just keeping callouses on your fingers is not enough. If you really hit a wall with your instrument – pick up another instrument or get better at home recording techniques. Sometimes taking a break from your primary instrument can help but there is no reason to stop learning all together.
#2 NETWORK – seek out and befriend people who make a living making music be they session players, band members, music executives (at labels, publishers, management companies or booking agents) or producer / engineers… The music business is all about your talent and who you know. In many cases people can get away with less talent if they know the right people and can convince them to participate in their projects. Find conversation currency with these people and a way you can collaborate with as many people as possible even if it is just throwing networking events. A note about “conversation currency” – talking exclusively about yourself and how you want to be a star could put Sominex out of business – stop it already.
#3 PLAY AND RECORD OFTEN. Play live, get basic home recording gear so you can preserve your ideas and share them with other people. Join a band or two – co-write with anyone and everyone who will let you. Start simple with open mic nights and work your way up. Meet and keep in contact with everyone who is doing what you want to do. Your songs and recordings are like viruses – make sure you have lots of them out there and have the help of people with a vested interest in making them get heard. The best way to do that is to collaborate.
#4 BE PROFESSIONAL. The music business if full of flakes. Don’t be a dude, there’s a million dudes out there. Be a man. (please replace Dude with Chick and Man with Woman if this applies to you). Do you know why Spinal Tap is so F*cking hysterical? Because it’s based on too much truth. Start by being punctual. More than just punctual make sure you are paying attention – it’s your career! Ask questions rather than nodding your head as if you already know and remember the people you are dealing with when booking shows or making records or whatever are making a living in music too so be considerate of them and their time.
#5 LEARN ABOUT BUSINESS. Look at and learn all of the ways that money is made in the music business. A good starting point is Donald Passman’s “all you need to know about the music business” – if you understand where the money comes from in the music business it will be much harder for people to take advantage of you…and they will try. To this end- find knowledgeable people you trust and surround yourself with them. Nothing is more terrifying than things we are vague about.
This last one doesn’t need to be advanced accounting either. Take control of your financial life. Keep receipts for everything and make a spreadsheet of everything you spend (I do this – it has saved me lots of $$$). Most people find they are spending too much in some areas and not enough in others. I once advised someone to do this who realized after three months of record keeping that he spent more on beer than he did on his career… He is much farther along in his career now.
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Got other practical suggestions for me or your peers about how to make it? I’d love to hear from you.
Darryl Ballantyne is the CEO of LyricFind.com, a company that provides music lyrics legally. The company was originally launched in the year 2000 seemingly before the market was ready for such a service and re-launched in 2004. Prior to the re-launch Darryl worked in digital business development at EMI.
Darryl, thanks for taking the time today. How did you wind up procuring legal rights to lyrics? Such rights were not commonly thought of as money making IP several years ago.
DB:
I got an introduction to Jennifer Insogna at EMI Publishing. I spoke to her for about an hour and a half, talking through our vision for the lyrics industry and what we wanted to do. As soon as she got off the phone with me, she called my former boss at EMI and said, “Is this guy for real? Can he do this? Should we work with him?” And he said, “Yes, of course.” That was the rebirth of Lyric Find. That was summer of 2004. We’ve been working on it ever since. In early 2005, we signed a deal with EMI Music Publishing, and it was the first mass lyrics licensing deal for digital use that had ever been done with any publisher. Then we started working with the Harry Fox Agency to aggregate publishers. A couple years later, we’d done deals with all the major publishers and a couple indies as well. And we started licensing out to all the different digital music services and websites that could use lyrics content, so they didn’t have to do 2,000 publishing deals and build up a database of content. They could come to us and have a one-stop shop for lyrics content.
Was that the business plan, to be the definitive resource and the All Music Guide or the IMDB of lyrics?
DB:
Yes, it was. When we’d first tried in 2000 and 2001, we’d originally looked at it as a single site. But from our experiences and our understanding of the music industry and how complex the licensing issue was, we realized that it didn’t really make sense to do it as a consumer play. For the economies of scale to really kick in, we needed to be doing it for everyone, and we needed to be the back end for all the different services out there and get a piece of everything rather than just try to do a singular site.
I have to ask, other than being a wonderful resource for figuring out, “Oh, that’s who does that song” or “Oh, that’s what that word is,” who are your corporate consumers? Who needs tens of thousands of songs worth of lyrics?
DB:
It’s funny you mention All Music Guide, formerly Macrovision and All Media Guide, because they are one of our closest partners and we actually built off their data on the back end. We work with them very closely. Our clients are people like Microsoft for Bing Entertainment, Rhapsody, Shazam, Slacker, Cox Radio, Lyrics.com, Virgin Media, LeosLyrics.com and many more. We’ve licensed a number of mobile applications, so there’s Lyrics Plus, Camina, Got Lyrics, and we’ve done our own direct-to-consumer mobile applications as well. We work with M Spot, Music.com, Kazaa, Lyrics Bay, Jawa, the list goes on and on.
I would’ve thought somewhere along the line someone like Muze (a media metadata company) would’ve scraped all that data and reused it. But I guess that’s illegal without a license?
DB:
Yes. And that was the thing with All Media Guide. When we started working with them, they had a lot of people coming to them saying, “Do you have lyrics? We like those lyrics.” And they didn’t. They didn’t want to go through all the licensing hassle, so they partnered with us to provide all that content. So if you go to Rovi (Formerly Macrovision – parent company of all media guide) now and say, “Can you provide us with lyrics?” they’ll say, “Yes,” but it’s coming from us.
I guess there is money in lyrics. How does this filter down to any given artist? Are there applications for small, mid-sized and even big artists to make money off the license of their lyrics alone, as only a portion of their composition?
DB:
For sure. We’re paying out in royalties seven figures a year to music publishers that filters down to songwriters. There’s certainly a good chunk of money there for people to get. For indie artists, the easiest way for them to get a chunk of that money is to be an HFA-affiliated publisher. If they join HFA, or are already a part of HFA, they can opt into our licensing deal with them. We’ll get all their ownership information, and it will get matched to our Rovi database. We’re using their data on the back end. So, through HFA, if a publisher is part of a deal and HFA has their ownership data, that will get passed onto us and associated with the relative tracks in the AMG database. And we’ll add in the lyrics. The publishers can log into the system and submit those lyrics to us and add them to their tracks so they are used right away. All that becomes available for all the clients we work with. It will show up on over 1,000 websites and mobile applications that are using our content.
The opt-in with HFA sounds like a great idea for artists to pursue.
DB:
The way HFA has it set up, it’s really simple to do. I always tell people that even if they are not interested in licensing their lyrics with us, they should still join HFA as a songwriter, because there are so many other deals like ours for digital use that HFA represents that are available as opt-ins, and they can opt into those and get paid.
Tell me about the announcements you guys made at the San Francisco conference.
DB:
We made a few. There were three main announcements. One was the introduction of the Lyric Find Chart, where we will publish weekly the top 25 lyrics across all our clients. We’re aggregating all that data from every client that uses our service and publishing a chart of the top lyrics in the entire Lyric Find ecosystem.
How does that work? Is that based on the number of times lyrics get hits?
DB:
Yes. Exactly.
Have there been any surprises? I would imagine when you have everything from the Stones to Kumbaya, that’s probably a hard list to wrap your mind around without a genre filter.
DB:
Yes. There were some surprises. Recently there were tracks in the initial top 25 that were only sort of surprises, like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas coming in at #23. That’s only sort of surprising, because, ‘tis the season. But also, up at #6 was Lindsay Lohan’s Anything But Me. She doesn’t appear on any of the regular charts, but the lyric is extremely popular. Down at #24 was Over the Rainbow, which is a classic song that isn’t particularly seasonal, but it has stood the test of time and continues to be a popular lyric for people to look up.
Lyric Find's chart (more recent than what Darryl was referencing)
Can you estimate in lyric uses alone what the top 25 people are making on just their lyrics floating out there?
DB:
Certainly some of our top artists are making comfortably in the five figures a year off just lyrics usage, probably more than that now. I know we ran some stats probably nine months ago or maybe a little bit longer on one quarter to find out the top paid artists. The top artist was generating $6,000 in the one quarter, and that was from a quarter a year ago. We’re paying out significantly more revenue than that now.
I guess now there’s higher visibility and there are more outlets.
DB:
Exactly. That was before a lot of additional clients had launched. So, it’s entirely possible there’s an artist that is making $50,000 a year just from lyrics usage from us.
What about the other announcements in San Francisco?
DB:
We announced a whole new set of web services, which help our clients integrate with us. We’ve always had web services, but we released a whole new and improved version of it that allows people to submit content to us, correct content, access better search functionality. We’ve always allowed people to search based on the lyrics themselves. So, if you know there’s a song that has, “I have kissed honey lips” in it, we can tell you that’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For by U2. But now with the new search feature, you can take that a step further and say, “I know there’s a U2 song that has this in it,” so you’ll just get results based on that artist. Or, you can say, “The song has this in it, and it has these lyrics.” You can combine all the different search fields, and it’s a much faster and more efficient search. So, for our clients, that’s hugely more flexible search functionality, as well as additional API’s that return meta data on artists and albums and track levels. A lot of that is coming from the All Music Guide database. We work with them to make that available for people.
The other announcement we made, the biggest of the three, was a new program we’ve launched called “Lyrics for Free.” Traditionally when we’ve done a licensing deal with a client, it’s involved either a set fee per display of the lyrics, or a set monthly fee and a rev share, or those types of structures. We were constantly hearing from potential clients that they were afraid or worried about committing to a fee per display or a monthly dollar value minimum. What we’ve done is built a program that gets rid of all those fees. Instead of having to commit to a per display fee or a monthly minimum, they can sign up, get the content, integrate the content on their website or mobile service and not have to pay us a dime. And we’ll monetize that traffic for them to cover the publishing royalties. So along with the lyrics, they’ll get ad code to put on their pages and then we can sell ads against those pages to cover the royalties the publishers need to justify the content.
That sounds interesting because given the breadth of indie and major artists you have artists could purchase ads to display whenever similar artists get searched for. Are those purchases possible to make for artists?
DB:
For sure. It’s certainly viable for artists or small companies. One of the ways we built the ad network was to make sure we could target based on factors like artist name or song name or genre. So if there’s an indie artist out there that is similar to Eminem, we can target all the Eminem lyrics pages on the site and across all the Lyrics for Free network to show ads for that artist. Or if there’s an artist that’s touring, we can target. Let’s say Eminem is on tour, and he’s going to be in Chicago. We can target all the users looking at Eminem lyrics that are in Chicago, or in Chicago and its surrounding areas.
Will there be a Facebook Ads or Google Ad Words-like interface for all these kinds of purchases going forward?
DB:
We won’t have a direct interface to do that in the immediate future. It’s in the plan, but I’m not sure when that’s going to be available. Currently it just happens through our sales team. We can target based on artists, song name, genre, geography, type of computer or browser – whether it’s a mobile device, a Mac or a PC. We can target based on a ton of different factors. But the important ones are artist, song name, genre and location.
Do you think lyrics will continue to be more valuable in the future? It seems like they are showing up on clothing and having all sorts of other value as well.
DB:
It’s hugely popular content, and people constantly underestimate the popularity of lyrics. Every quarter we’re paying publishers more and more money for the use of their songs and their lyrics. It’s definitely something that artists and songwriters should get in on as early as possible. Get things into the ecosystem, get us copies of their lyrics. It’s great exposure too. By getting their content, even if it doesn’t get them a lot of revenue right off the bat, they’re suddenly going to be available on a thousand different music services and websites, and they’re going to be listed on all those sites and available to be discovered. The ability to search based on the lyrics will help. If somebody hears their song but can’t figure out who the artist is or what the song name is, by having the content in our database and in our search functionality, and the fact that that gets used in so many different places makes it so much more likely that a user out there who heard the song can now identify it and buy it or interact with other digital music services or with the artist in so many different ways. The utility of being involved in lyrics and in our database goes beyond just the royalties that we’ll pay. The idea is also that it will generate a lot more awareness and a lot more revenue for indie artists beyond just our royalties.
You can learn more about Lyricfind.com by visiting their website or following them on twitter.
Sean Beavan is a producer, engineer, mixer and musician who has had and continues to have a phenomenal career. You may not know Sean by name but you have heard his work. He has worked with Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Guns and Roses, Unwritten Law from behind the board and as a member of the trip hop band 8mm you may have heard his work placed in One Tree Hill, Road Rules, the Real World or in several major motion pictures.
Tell me a little bit about how you got into the business, and how you wound up engineering, producing or mixed a string of platinum and gold albums?
SB:
I got into the industry by listening to AM radio in the early 70s- I was fascinated by it. I found a recording device in my parents’ drawer and got out the tapes and started listening to my favorite songs and the craziness that ensued. I started making tape loops, and I decided I wanted to make music. My goal was to become a producer. I figured the best way to do that was to learn how to play music, so I became a musician and played in bands and got on both sides of the glass eventually. Then I was lucky enough to meet up with Trent Reznor at the right point in time, and he and I started working together, and he took me on the ride.
Must’ve been a fun ride.
SB:
It was awesome.
I think it’s the first story I’ve heard where someone came into music not by being a guitarist or bassist in the analog age, but came into it being a music fan and doing home recording without having an instrument to record.
SB:
As a kid, I just loved music. I think the first record I bought was Dark Side of the Moon. And “Money” was the single. All the noises in the beginning, the cash register sound and the coins were so cool, and I did it myself. I found this recorder and read an interview where Roger Waters was talking about how they did the tape loops. So, I got out my mom’s sewing kit, just experimented with all of that. I even taped my sister talking on the telephone and put that into things and really just enjoyed the whole idea of recording. I became a musician from those experiences. I later played guitar, bass and drums and love playing and writing songs, but it was always from the aspect of doing all of it and not just necessarily doing the one thing.
You told your story up to the Trent Reznor point in all of three breaths. I’m a believer that luck favors the well prepared. Were you working with a lot of people, or was this just a chance meeting?
SB:
Oh yeah. I’d been playing for a long time, and I think the first time was for a talent show. A friend convinced me to sing lead, and I was kind of scared, but I did it, and then all the girls said, “Hey …” and I thought, “This is what I’m going to do.”
Don’t let anybody fool you. That’s the only reason we get into it at all. I loved doing that, and it was fun. I just started playing and singing and got to know a bunch of people, and as I was singing, I was the guy that ended up having to buy the PA system. So I got into all the microphones and mixing boards. I started mixing when I wasn’t playing in a band, and I ended up mixing every original band in Cleveland live in the 1980s. So I became friends with every musician in town, and Trent (Reznor) was one of the musicians. He and I happened to be in the two rival bands in town, but we both respected each other a lot. I was mixing live for his band, and he played keyboards for me when I was making demos.
What were these bands called?
SB:
It was 1984 or 1985. The big bands in Cleveland were Nation of One – the band I was in – and Trent’s band, with Andy Kubiszewski from Stabbing Westward, a band called Exotic Birds. Chris Vrenna was playing drums in it at the time. When they’d play, I’d mix them. Trent would pop into the studio and play on my demo tapes. And when he listened to the demo tapes, he said, “Wow, these sound awesome. Do you want to mix my demos?” And I said, “Yeah, sure.” I was originally trying to get him in my band, but then when I heard his demos, I said, “Holy cow.” So, I mixed the demos for “Pretty Hate Machine” which got him a record deal. And I said, “Anything you need me to do, I’d love to do.” And, I ended up working with him. We would later work on The Downward Spiral album together.
And that became the Pretty Hate Machine album…
My read on producers, particularly in the late 1980s and 90s was that you went through a period where everyone wanted to hire you when you had a hit, and then there was a giant lull lull. Most guys were usually hit or miss and didn’t last very long. But you’ve worked steadily for 20-some years now. Obviously you had a handful of big successful records, but was there any trick above and beyond that to working consistently?
SB:
I don’t know. I’m always interested in the next thing, and I’m definitely interested in the job. For me, the process is every bit as important as having hits. I don’t really care about having hits. I wish I’d cared more, because I’d have more money. But I really just care about the music.
I love working with bands that are doing something cool or interesting. Luckily for me, I happened to luck into some really cool music that people tend to like and tend to put on their top 50 record lists and stuff. I guess by having a resume like the one I’ve compiled, I’ve attracted records like that, like Slayer’s God Hates Us All, where you’re doing something and you know it’s going to become an industry standard.
I certainly knew you from Pretty Hate Machine, and the work you did with Marilyn Manson and Slayer, because I went through… well, I continue to go through a pretty awkward metal / industrial phase.
SB:
If you dug it once, you never stop liking it.
What I was getting around to is that you’ve really done a lot. 8mm is a band you play in now with your wife, right? ***Editors note 8mm is a trip hop massive attack / Portishead sounding group***
SB: Yes.
That’s really quite diverse. How have you convinced folks outside the genre for which you became known that you’d be a great fit?
SB:
It’s funny, my manager Shannon is really into the idea of being a renaissance man and always trying to change it up and do something new and cool or off the wall and different to keep people guessing and make them realize what kind of potential you have. I’ve always been interested in all types of music; I love everything. If Frank Sinatra was alive today, I would’ve been pushing to do a Frank Sinatra record. I just love that kind of music. So, when I started deciding that I wanted to do some music where I was writing for television or film or soundtrack-style music, the idea of writing in 8mm style, the more Portishead/Massive Attack/David Lynch-style soundtrack idea really appealed to me. I loved the fact it was very different than the super heavy, saturated stuff that I was known for. It was a real love that I had. So I was going for what I loved and what would also expand the boundaries people saw me in.
Definitely mission accomplished. I hears some of your 8mm writing and thought, “Wow … that guy?”
SB:
It’s funny, because my stuff has never been A&R driven. When I get gigs, and when people call me up and say, “I really want you to work on this record,” it’s the bands. They heard a record I did and fell in love with it, and the band asked the A&R guy, “Can we work with him?” And if he’s nice enough, he arranges to meet me. I got lucky that way. There was a Thrice record I did a few years ago, and they were interested because they’d heard a few records I’d mixed. One of their favorites was a Palo Alto record called Heroes and Villains. And Palo Alto is a much more expansive, U2ish kind of band that has some beautiful melodies and soaring strings and things and beautiful Radiohead-type guitars. They’d also heard Slayer’s God Hates Us All and really loved that record. What they wanted was a record that could run that breadth and gamut. So when it was pummeling you it was pummeling you, and when it was beautiful, you were immersed in that beauty. And they thought, “This is the guy that can do it.” It was really fun doing that record.
Are you doing mostly mixing these days?
SB:
Yeah. Mostly mixing. It gives more time for 8mm. Producing takes so much time out of the year, and I try to do more mixing so I have more time to write.
It seems like it’s much less of a sales process and less involved. Like you’re cleaning something up.
SB:
Exactly. You’re more imparting your taste filter on top of what is already done. They’ve obviously built something and sculpted it into what they want it to be, and then they’re asking you to put your overall taste over the top of it and make it do what they want it to do next, whether they want it to be more hyped or more beautiful or more hard edged. You direct it from there. I love that aspect of it. Plus, with mixing, I can mix practically anything. I get it once it’s in the mix stage. It can be country, dub stuff, jazz. I understand it at that point. Producing, I really have to get it right away and feel like I know exactly the direction the band wants to go in and run from there. There is less of a pool of people you can work with in producing in order to offer them the best. I don’t want to just take a gig when I know there is someone out there that would be able to do it better justice than I would. I have to know balls to bone that I’m the guy, and that I would make the best record for a band. Less of those things come about. I might get one or two a year, and that’s good for me.
That means when you’re really willing to produce something, you love it.
SB:
For sure. And I have to, because otherwise I would be blank and wouldn’t know what to do next.
Let’s talk a bit about business now, because you were a guy with a band making a name for itself in Cleveland back in the days of posting flyers everywhere. And now you have all this musical experience and you know all the executives in the traditional system. So, in theory you could leverage a lot of favors. But here you are self-releasing and doing your own thing. What are you finding? What is working for 8mm, and what is not? What has worked to make your own music fly?
SB:
One of the revelations is just how hard it is to market music. I used to have a little more of a producer’s bias about making records, and you get angry about the budget. You see the record’s budget, and the marketing budget is three times what it is. You say, “Just give me a little bit more so I can get these strings.” It seems counter-intuitive, and then you realize the other side: making the record is the given. You have to have a great record, but there’s so much more that is involved and goes on. It’s definitely made me appreciate a good, solid marketing plan and people who get the kind of music you’re doing. It’s hard work for sure, but I love it. With 8mm, we never looked at going to majors with it, because that wasn’t what we wanted it to be about. It was more that we really wanted to be able to do licensing as the main thrust of the band. We’ve been lucky enough to license practically everything we’ve written. That’s been very nice for us.
Tell me about how you accomplished that. The volume of calls I get asking “How do I license my music?” is amazing. And I sent people to aggregators, because I figure you almost have to be on the phone 24-7 to be on the phone at the right time for your one particular swatch of music when you have Sony Music calling on the other line with all of western music.
SB:
Absolutely. You can look at it as a completely daunting task, but the thing that an independent thing has going for them is that they don’t have the baggage of all the legal stuff that a big major label has, and just the hoops that have to be jumped through to get the publishing company and the record label to agree to the deal on the licensing end. As an independent you can say to the music supervisor, “And I own all the publishing.” And they say, “Oh!” It becomes much easier to deal, because they only have to deal with one person and can make the deal easier. You have actually a distinct advantage being indie in that regard. Obviously it’s great to have champions, and my suggestion is to get on the phone to every licensing house out there and try to get your music to them. We were lucky enough to get our manager and our record label that we put Songs to Live and Die By on to get in touch with Lyle Hysen at Bank Robber Music, who championed our music and has done an amazing job licensing us out to people. Before that, we had licensed several pieces through friends we had in the industry. We just got lucky on a couple things. Once you get a couple of things going, people look at it and say, “Oh, I know that band.” It’s like rubbing the Buddha belly. Once someone has done it, people feel freer to do it.
So, you found there has not been a stigma once you’ve been placed? I always wondered how a creative ad agency would take a group like The Heavy, who had a lot of placements in Kia ads, but I’m seeing it pop up in four or five other commercials, and I’m stunned.
SB:
I’m stunned by that too. The advertising industry seems to look at it more as, for example, if you get a song in a car commercial, as long as that song doesn’t appear in another car commercial, that’s usually the sticking point on the legal that they do. I guess it makes sense. They’re selling a feeling. If your song has been used in a Jaguar commercial, then someone selling dresses or caviar is going to say, “We can even utilize that in cross marketing and use that same song.” All of a sudden they hear it, and it evokes the same feeling. They don’t know where they heard it, but all of a sudden emotionally it’s there. Music is like that. It’s about memory and emotion, and it’s emotion first. If you relate something swanky to that music, you’re going to automatically think the product that’s being sold now is swanky too. You can use that to your advantage as a marketing firm. I think it’s kind of genius.
It’s bizarre. You’re kind of a different case, because you had a lot of traction in the industry and relationships you could leverage. But I find a lot of people have a hard time balancing being persistent with being annoying. How did you walk that fine line before you came on with Bank Robber?
SB:
We’re a team. Juliette and I are a duo, and we’re actually a trio now because we have a drummer now as well. Juliette and I do all the business, and my business is mostly creative, and then Juliette does the day-to-day. She’s on every social networking site and is constantly promoting the band online. This is one of the places we really were able to glom onto early. We had a really heavy presence on MySpace when MySpace was the thing, and we got tons of music supervisors listening to our music on MySpace and writing to us and saying, “Hey, would you consider us using this song and this advertisement or show?” And there were some independent filmmakers, and there was no money, but what they were doing was kind of cool, and we liked the way it looked and thought, “Sure, we’ll do that.” We started opening up to that kind of idea. It was mostly Juliette and our manager Shannon who was also handling some of those social networking sites that really helped with that. We really got a lot of traction out of MySpace when it was the site to listen to music on. That was a big point for us.
Today it seems that a great deal of the MySpace experience is sifting through people trying to leave flash comments on your site.
SB:
Yeah. MySpace screwed up. First of all, they did something with the code and the program that made it not work most of the time. That right there caused all kinds of havoc. And then they made it so easy for people to run these horrible bots. And every decision they made on messaging was poor, and they took a site that was awesome and turned it bad. In 2004 and 2005 it was great. It was so much fun and so easy to find really cool music. I mean, there would be one guy in his bedroom in Iowa, and I would say, “Oh my God, he’s my favorite artist.” It was so easy. We have a daughter who was young at the time, and she would just be listening to everything. I thought that if I had this when I was a kid, everything would’ve been amazing. They just really screwed up, and Facebook was smart enough to slide right in there. I’m sure finding the right way to utilize the new social networking will be the next wave for the next group of people. We were lucky enough to be able to parlay MySpace and that social networking. We were in the top 3 trip hop bands on MySpace for four or five years. It helped.
I’m going to switch gears. What advice did you give classically and what do you give now about selecting the right producer, mixer and engineer? Because that’s a huge decision, especially now that it’s really all the artists’ money again. A vast majority of the records being made today are self -funded vs. label funded.
SB:
For me, if you’re a band on a very limited budget and looking to get the most professional-sounding thing out there, I would spend most of your money on mixing. Obviously, production is super important, because it’s much easier to mix things that are produced well. Mixing is a black art, not unlike mastering. There aren’t that many people that can do it really well. There are plenty out there that are looking for work too, so you can definitely get a better deal on it than you used to be able to in the Halcyon days of the 80s and 90s. But that would be my big thing. It’s kind of like what Al Jourgensen said to Trent Reznor when we were starting the Nine Inch Nails tours. He said, “The most important thing to think about when you go out on the road is to take a great monitor engineer so you can hear yourself well.” And Trent turned to me and said, “No, the most important thing is that the people in the front row think the band sounds awesome, so I’m bringing a front house guy.” So that’s what I did. Because Trent knew that no matter how crappy it sounded on stage for him, it sounded awesome up front, and the fans were getting what he wanted them to hear. Those are the kinds of things that are important. You definitely need to have your priorities straight.
Any other parting words of advice to people coming up?
SB:
The record is just the starting point. You have to work to make a great record, and don’t stop if it’s just “good enough” in your opinion. You have to stop at “great.” And then when you’re at “great,” you have to start working. Because it’s up to you to promote it, and up to you to do everything. You have to have a show that separates you from the herd and have a show that you yourself would go to.
And that’s a big deal, especially in this market, where live is going to be where you will make the majority of your money. You have to provide people with an incentive to go see your show, and not just a show. Because now, every moment of every day, I have six or seven things I could do that are really fun and interesting. You have to make yours more fun and more interesting than what is on TV or in the movies or on the internet. You have to really provide someone with a reason to come see you, and don’t ever expect someone to do it just for you. You have to give them something important and special.
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You can check out Sean’s band 8mm and do yourself a favor and follow Sean on Twitter.
