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.
Vincent Borel is the co-founder of Webdoc, a social place offering an engaging way to share and unite with others through interactive, multi-media posts about their interests, passions and events and engage with their fans. A lifelong music fan, Vincent started his career as an engineer at Dolby Laboratories, where he was an engineer working on product development for a variety of surround sound products. After earning his MBA, he went onto work as a business strategy consultant for Nestlé, where he focused on offline marketing strategies. Eventually, his passion for understanding the many ways technology and social media affects the way people connect to brands and share information via the Web led him to start Webdoc with Stelio Tzonis, Cyril Pavillard, Mathieu Fivaz and Alexandre Tzonis. Through Webdoc, Vincent and his partners have created an environment where users can easily start expressive conversations and pull video, audio, photos and more from across the Web.
I had the opportunity to talk to Vincent about what he has learned about technology and fan engagement throughout the course of his career and how Webdoc works. He also shared some examples of how artists are using his platform and other new technology tools to build highly-personalized relationships with their fans and get their music and message out there.
Thanks so much for taking some time to talk, Vincent. What led you to found Webdoc, and what is the vision of the company?
VB:
I’ve always had a passion for music, but I’ve never been a great musician. I decided I was going to contribute to the industry one way or another. I started off my career as an engineer at Dolby Laboratories. I was doing a lot of the product development for all the surround sound for both the professional and consumer ends of things.
After doing that for a few years, I wanted to see the other sides of the business and not just be involved with product development. I wanted to be more front facing and also push myself outside my comfort zone. So, I did an MBA and then for three years did some strategy consulting – helping businesses worldwide – for Nestlé.
I heard that you brought chocolate to Pakistan.
VB:
Exactly. You raise a very interesting point, because I started consulting so I could do something totally different. I did not want to do anything related to technology. I thought this was the best way for me to understand how consumers buy products. And food is a product we see every day. Why do people end up buying one product over another? I thought working with Nestlé would be a very interesting part of my professional life. It also brought me to very interesting places, like the Middle East. I actually never ended up going to Pakistan because there was a bit of turmoil going on when I had planned to go. But I did get to go to many places in the Middle East and Asia – places I would have probably never gone had I stayed in technology my entire life. The experience showed me the reality of the fact that not everyone has an iPhone or an iPad. People use the Internet in Internet cafés, and the food products they buy are not always refrigerated like we’re used to. It was definitely a big eye opener.
But after doing that for a few years, I really had this desire to get back into technology. And while I was working at Nestlé, I was always involved in personal projects fulfilling my passions for sport and technology. And that’s when I met my partners at Webdoc, and we started talking about the Web and how it was evolving. They were actually working on really interesting products for education. They were bringing this concept of interactive white boards to classrooms. And that was great, but it was actually a really tough vertical, because when you work with education, you have to deal a lot with the state and the government. That was when we all said, “I love this idea of merging content and being able to create content on the fly. But I wish it was on the Web. I don’t want to have this document on my website. I want it to be available everywhere so I can share it.”
The name Webdoc comes from that idea. The “document” has always been around, but it has taken different shapes and forms as history has moved along. We think in the future a Web doc will be a type of document where you’re able to pull in not just media – pictures, videos and sound – but anything the Web brings, which are all these powerful, interactive elements.
Webdoc encompasses the idea of the Web and the “document,” and it allows you to use the Web as a language to express and share.
The idea of pulling from different disciplines and putting the information together makes sense to me. But my question about Webdoc is, do you see it as a portal on its own, or is it a place to distribute and disperse?
VB:
It’s both. I think for us, the idea is that today, the creation happens on Webdoc, but tomorrow it could happen anywhere. And the consumption happens on Webdoc, Facebook, on your blog and anywhere else. We see the Web as a very widely-distributed platform. So, we don’t believe in having central elements. For example, you might wonder why, when you’re looking at a map, you have to stay on the page and are unable to use it anywhere else. I think making elements that are more portable brings a tremendous amount of value. Even if you think about YouTube, it was consumed for many, many years outside YouTube before it was a destination site. It was on Myspace, blogs, etc. It is still in all these places today, but there is tremendous traffic on the YouTube site as well.
Part of our philosophy with Webdoc is to make your content consumable anywhere. Wherever your audience is, you should be able to provide that content.
From the outside looking in, it feels like there are a lot of applications, and it’s so open ended, that this whole concept hasn’t come into its own in many ways.
VB:
We see this concept as something that is very broad. But as we see it, Webdoc is the most expressive way to share on the Web. The context in which you express yourself is key. So, when I talk about fashion, I will express myself in a certain way. And I’ll use different elements to talk about music. What you’ll see in the evolutions of Webdoc is that it’s very text driven, and the forms of expression must be very spontaneous but very specific to the context you’re in.
Obviously, people in the Arts have rallied around Webdoc. A lot of your most active contributors are music- and entertainment-related brands. You have people like Jack White. How have you seen artists effectively use your platform for marketing?
VB:
It’s interesting. When people talk about marketing, they often think about push marketing and the idea of creating content and blasting it out. Certainly the Web has dramatically amplified the ability to create and virally spread content using social networks like Twitter, Facebook and blogs. There are a lot of venues where you can just feed content so it can be spread. That’s certainly one very powerful method, but the Web was never meant to be a one-way pipe.
We’ve seen very interesting things happening on Webdoc. We really believe in the notion of having social spaces where people can interact using any form of expression they want. It could be simple text, or it could be videos or a combination of videos and pictures. People should be able to combine any number of elements. We’ve seen several artists and brands use it more as a place to engage around rich content. And that engagement could be anything. People often think of campaigns or contests. But actually the most successful ones we’ve seen have involved sharing life events. For instance, maybe I’m in a band and it’s my lead singer’s birthday. How can fans interact with that person they love? How can you create a space where people can express themselves and unite together? You want to really give them a sense of community while still allowing for freedom of expression.
The UK band One Direction, who did very well on The X Factor in 2010 has used Webdoc repeatedly to create a real community and space. They had tremendous engagement. In one case, they had 6,000 posts in less than 48 hours. And when I say “post,” I’m not talking about a “Like” or a comment; I’m talking about rich, unique posts where people were expressing themselves or sending well wishes to the person whose birthday it was. If you tried to do the same thing elsewhere, you might get a little more in terms of volume, but the quality would probably be lower. You’d probably get 4,000 “Happy Birthdays.” And there would be little interest in seeing what other people are saying. When, as an artist or a band you provide a bit more freedom in the way people can express themselves and make it extremely simple, you’ll see that people are spending more time looking at what others are doing. And their personalities come through more in their posts. We’ve seen people spend 15-30 minutes in a single community around a single life event like a birthday. That’s really tremendous.
To come back to marketing, we note that marketing has become a lot less of a push than a two-way or multi-way interaction where people are sharing and generating buzz around something.In fact, one direction was the trending topic in the UK during that week.
Twitter is a very fertile ground too. Typically people create a post on Webdoc and tweet it out to their followers: “Hey – check it out and tell me what you think!” And people go check it out and make their own and share it. You get to realize the true potential of Internet marketing.
With the way Internet searches work currently, having a primary destination – like a website or a Facebook profile – seems to be the most effective method for artists, musicians and other brands. Do you think having a particular destination online will matter less in the future, when you’re able to express yourself more clearly to an unshaped community of connections? It seems like the success of Webdoc suggests we’re moving away from the norm.
VB:
It’s funny, because while the Web is becoming very decentralized, and this ability to spread, share and disseminate content wherever you discover it is becoming more possible, it’s also increasing the importance of destinations. And you can see it today with artists and their websites. When MySpace first came around, a lot of people dropped their websites. Then suddenly, today, you see a lot more artists putting more effort into their own websites.
I don’t think there’s a specific answer to your question. I don’t think having your own website will go away, but the website will just have to fit your purpose. But I do feel that people are going to be discovering content in multiple places. And you have to make sure that wherever those people are, they get the best experience they can. That might be on your website, but it could be somewhere else. And if it’s somewhere else, what are you providing?
Whenever the issue of the Web comes up when I’m coaching people, I often tell them that the goal is creating an on-going, multi-media dialogue with fans and potential fans. And it never occurred to me that this goal might be possible to achieve under one roof, but it seems like Webdoc is providing tools to do exactly that.
VB:
One of our frustrations when we were defining Webdoc was this idea that you might say, “I have these great photos on Instagram and very cool videos I found on YouTube. I wish I could combine them to say something. But the only means of expression I have today are single media. So I can share one video, a few pictures or a link to a URL.” When you’re talking, you’re usually using more than a single word. And I feel that due to technical constraints, working with one piece of media at a time made sense until today.
As time goes on, the Web – browsers, etc. – is getting a lot more powerful. If it’s easy for me to combine two videos, why should I be limited to just sharing one video at a time? And by doing it this way, you’re putting a little bit more weight on the type of message or content that you’re sharing. And we all know about the fatigue of Facebook; sometimes you look at your Facebook feed, and you feel exhausted. Within a couple hours, if you haven’t read your messages, some get buried, never to be seen again. I feel like when you look at the Facebook timeline, it’s interesting that it’s all about the curation you do for the important events for a brand or a band.
It’s important to have continuous engagement. But it’s also important to bring certain events to life. So, you can put up a single video. But what happens when they watch the video? Are you driving anything more than just awareness? It’s really interesting. I think we’ll see a lot more happening in this direction in the future.
Do you have some examples of the work you’ve done with Webdoc?
VB:
Yes. The first is one of the first case studies we did with Universal around Nirvana. Of course, Nirvana is an amazing band. And last year was the 20-year anniversary of Nevermind, so they wanted to get fans to share their memories. When we started the discussion, we showed them what could be done. And we said, “The true power of it is that you’re probably going to generate some really cool content.” But until we show it to them, there’s always this question mark: How is this going to happen, and what is it going to look like?
Nirvana posted the content on their Facebook page, and there was just a ton of engagement from real fans. You could imagine walking into their rooms, as if they had a collage of posters. It was the feeling of going back in time and seeing what kind of memories people had. It was about mixing pictures with videos and adding a personal touch to it. People posted pictures of their homes, using a single type of media. And some people just posted text. Other people posted a picture with a SoundCloud file.
It shows that Webdoc is about this ability to say it in any way that makes sense to you.
Then, to go back to the birthday example I was talking about earlier, on a band member’s birthday, One Direction managed to get over 10,000 posts. And they were very different from the ones in the Nirvana example. This shows that the personalities of the fans that follow a given band are all different. Fans express themselves very differently, and it’s key they have the opportunity to express themselves in ways that fit their personality.
Creating things like this before was impossible. Fans are able to express themselves through the different Webdoc tools without having to learn anything. They sign up, and they can just start posting their webdocs. It reminds me in many ways of the original idea of “fan mail,” which was always people writing and making drawings. This is the closest thing to it on a digital level. The Web brings the unique ability to make this “fan mail” public in a single space. It’s all the fans of a particular band finding themselves in one place talking about the same thing. And you get this very powerful movement. I share my own posts, but I also get to see what other people are posting. That stimulates the fan base and strengthens the bonds between fans of a particular band and each other and fans and the band itself.
And do you have any other examples?
VB:
Swedish House Mafia is very popular in Europe and growing in the U.S. as well. The band wanted to get their fans involved in the design of their new single called “Antidote.” They asked fans to submit their t-shirt design on Webdoc. The cool thing was that all the photos were visible to everyone. So, it was stimulating their fan base and enriching the community. The quality of the submissions was simply amazing.
Then, the band selected the top 10 and came back to the fans and said, “These are the 10 we selected. We want you to vote.” And again, they put up all the designs and let people in the community vote. It was on their Facebook page, but they did it through Webdoc.
That’s great. And you guys have an app you can install on Facebook.
VB:
Exactly. And that’s a perfect segue to another example. We believe you have to engage your fans at all times. So, The Script is in the recording studio right now. They were playing with something called “money shots.” You take a bill, fold it in half and put the face of the person on the bill in line with your own and take the picture. They were having a lot of fun, so they thought, “We should really ask the fans to do the same thing. It would be great to see what theirs look like.” So, they made a video and used Webdoc to post it. The video basically said, “Hey guys, post your money shots here.” Using Webdoc, they found a way to group together their fans from all over the world in a single, social place around some original, rich content. Some of them are really, really funny. Again, it’s a testimonial to the fact that their fan base is not just in the UK. You have people from all over the world participating. And all the fans are having fun while browsing what other people are doing and gaining inspiration for their own photos.
It’s very simple, yet it’s so powerful that you can get your fans to communicate. And it’s the fact that everything is in one place, so you can see it all at once. If I were to do this on Facebook, I would be able to show it to my friends on my own stream. But maybe my friends are not fans of The Script. So, I wouldn’t see all the other cool posts from fans in Korea or other places that I’m certainly not friends with because I don’t live there or speak the language. There are no boundaries here, and it’s very similar to Twitter; I get to connect to people who have shared interests and see what they’re doing.
And that’s an amazing campaign, too.
VB:
To get back to your point about Facebook, we have an app currently. But the Facebook pages have just changed, so we released something new now that everyone has switched over. The app has much bigger icons so the content is featured more prominently on your timeline. And, like the new Facebook pages, you can bring forward different views. The default view will be the timeline. But the second default is the photos. And using Webdoc I can put any other views I want. As an example, one of the views The Script put in was these “money shots.” When you click on it, you get that view. And the view is the same on Facebook as what you see on Webdoc. You can see all the posts on your page, and people are able to participate.
The new Facebook app provides a social space for your fans to interact. You can change that social space on a daily basis if you want. One day it could be the “money shots,” the next day it could be “Share your personal stories about the first concert you went to/your favorite music video/your favorite song.” Regardless of what you choose to highlight, you’re able to get fans to interact through rich media posts and content all in one space.
To learn more about Vincent Borel and his platform and see an introductory video, visit the Webdoc site.
Kristin Bredimus is Vice President of Community & Artist Relations at OurStage, a music-centric social media platform that provides undiscovered artists with unique opportunities to share their music to fans and industry people. With over a decade of experience in music business, Kristin got her start photographing local bands while attending art school in Boston, which eventually led her to a career as an artist manager helping musicians through the process of recording, music releases, touring, negotiating record and licensing deals and promotion. She went on to become the Director of the NEMO Music Festival – where she managed over 400 artists on 30 stages across three days – and the Boston Music Awards. She started working with OurStage in 2007 as a consultant, working her way up to her current role as an advocate and advisor to the more than 225,000 artists and 4.5 million fans that use the platform.
Kristin recently talked to me about how her passion for working with emerging and independent artists began and how the OurStage platform can help musicians find opportunities to grow their careers. She also provided some advice to bands that want to get their music heard and build a loyal fan base.
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me, Kristin. How did you get into the music business?
KB:
I actually got into the music industry through photography. I was a photography major at the Massachusetts College of Art, and I started to take band photos for people I knew in bands to help get their promo shots together. In doing this, I inevitably became friends with some of the bands. And being a Bostonian, we have a really large, eclectic music scene. So, I had a bunch of friends who were either musicians or artist managers. Initially I was trying to connect the bands that I had photographed with different managers I was friends with. The bands were all baby bands, so my friends that were artist managers said, “Until we can start making money from a band, it’s really premature for them to start working with people of our caliber.” But one of them said, “If you’re interested in working for this one particular band, I’d be happy to coach you on what you need to do to be an artist manager.”
That’s essentially how it started. I went from photographing a band, to managing a band called Hero Pattern that was based in New Jersey. My friend Ami Bennitt, who was the manager of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, gave me tips on what to do. Then, I started networking. I took an approach where I sat down with every member of the band and had them give me a list of every band and every industry contact that they had. Then I started trying to figure out how I could get in front of people who could positively influence their career. At the same time, in my own community in Boston, a friend of mine was taking over the NEMO Music Festival and the Boston Music Awards, so he asked if I would help out with that. Then I eventually became the Director of that music festival and of the Boston Music Awards.
Initially, I was trying to just make as many inroads in the music industry as possible. And having worked in art – and I’d also worked in film for a while – I was really surprised by how effortlessly I could start to network. It seemed like the music industry – even more than the film and art industries – was really propelled by personal relationships. People at all different levels in the ecosystem were really willing to talk and be helpful as long as I respected their time, presented myself and my clients in a professional manner and there was genuine talent and drive behind any artist I tried to position.
From there, my personal career evolved. I stopped managing bands. And I sought out different jobs opportunities that allowed me to work with many more independent artists, because I’m interested in working with artists as they’re making their way out in their careers. I enjoy working with people that are hungry, passionate and creative. And I think as an artist gets more and more successful in their career, particularly in the traditional model of the music industry, a lot of times there is a lot of other people that are kind of informing their image and their music. And it becomes less and less about what the artist wants. So, I’ve always really enjoyed working with an artist in the beginning and helping them make some decisions, but also trying to find that balance between being a smart business person and still being an artist.
I’ve worked with a handful of people at labels throughout the years. And they had worked with many multi-platinum artists. A few of them in particular would only hang up the Gold record for each artist, and I would ask them why. They would say, “That was the most meaningful one – that first stretch to Gold.”
KB:
Yes. It’s funny, because I think a lot of people working in the industry all have different motivations. I think because I was a visual artist, I’ve always really enjoyed working with artists as they are emerging.
That’s why the NEMO Music Festival and the Boston Music Awards were great for me to be a part of, because they were really helping to illuminate the emerging artist. Those two events were part of a company called TRP Sports and Entertainment. So, I essentially ran their music division. And we would do a lot of other music-centric promotion with brands. In doing this, I was introduced to OurStage because another friend in the music industry was hired to work for the company and basically help make introductions to people and companies within the music industry that had access to a talent pool of emerging artists. At launch, OurStage needed to help seed the site with emerging talent. So, I went to my database of a few thousand artists and told them about it.
I eventually became an official consultant for OurStage. I’ve been working with the company in some capacity since they launched in 2007. In 2011, I was promoted to Vice President of Community & Artist Relations. It’s nice to be still working within the music industry, still working with independent artists and to have a job and a career that continues to grow. I know it’s been really hard for a lot of my peers over the last few years as the industry has changed. I’m very appreciative of my job.
I think if you work in the music industry, you have to be very flexible and get creative. So, finding an angle that’s technology based is a good example of that flexibility and creativity. We actually work with a lot of music industry majors at Northeastern. When I’m interviewing the next round of prospective co-ops, I always tell them that working for a company like OurStage will actually give them an advantage, because they will need to learn a lot about technology and social media. And a lot of different elements of the music industry will be touched upon, because within OurStage, we do music licensing, produce large events to give artists opportunities, etc.
I was at OurStage kind of early on and was actually in conversations with someone about Musak. I remembered going to the site and thinking, “Is this a battle of the bands? Is this a community? Is this social media?” I remember feeling very overwhelmed by it. I have clients that use it, but I haven’t been back in a while. Clearly, you have a lot of traffic and a lot of registered participants. Tell me a little bit about the direction and the benefit this site provides to artists.
KB:
Everything that you said is totally valid. Because the company is very much a startup, part of what we struggled to do is provide a lot of different value for a lot of different silos within the industry. And sometimes we do that with grace, and sometimes we are aware that our offering needs to be advanced. Part of what we’re doing for 2012 is to really make all our offerings very clear to all the different types of users that come to the site, whether they are music lovers, music industry people or independent artists.
What OurStage is best known for is being a competition platform. Every single month we offer unique opportunities to emerging artists. The intention is to create opportunities that can really be a catalyst in an artist’s career – something to get them on the radar of a larger pool of people in the industry that can influence their career and a larger audience of fans. We do things like run “opening act” competition for artists giving them the opportunity to open for people like Bon Jovi, John Mayer, Kid Rock and other artists. We’ll also do collaborations where an artist will be asked to collaborate with some sample tracks from artists like T-Pain or John Legend. We’ve also done competitions that award the artist recording and studio time with influential producers like Mike Flynn, who does A&R at EPIC and is a producer who has worked with The Fray and Sara Bareilles.
It’s basically about creating unique opportunities that bands can’t get elsewhere. We don’t charge any money to artists that are awarded these opportunities. Essentially, artists are asked to create a profile on the site. And we encourage them to really fill out their profiles and their EPKs, then enter their best original songs into our monthly music competition.
The types of industry-related opportunities we offer vary every month. And it’s not available for all genres of music. Generally speaking, they’re divided up between pop, rock, country and urban opportunities. Even if we don’t have an industry-centric opportunity, we give away $5,000 each month to an emerging artist. It’s really intended to give them an amount of money that can fund recording, a tour, a van or will provide the artist with whatever it is they need.
The paranoid artist within me – because that’s how I got into this business – would say, “That’s great that you don’t charge, but how does OurStage make money?”
KB:
We make money a few different ways. We make money through ad sales. We also make money through our sponsored competitions, because it’s really an interactive branding play for some of these artists and companies.
Well, and I would imagine if, for example, you’re giving away Shure microphones, that would be great PR for them.
KB:
Exactly. We also have a couple partners who have invested in the company, one of which is MTV Networks.
We are also looking to build out a suite of tools that will be something we would charge artists and industry people for. But of course, there would be a value to utilizing those tools. That’s something that we’re working on in 2012. When we get to the point where there is some kind of subscription service, we will of course keep in mind that there has to be real value to the artist, and that our price point needs to be reasonable.
Having managed bands, I am always very skeptical of any type of business that wants money from an artist. I’m also sensitive to the fact that a lot of artists are working crappy day jobs so they are available to go on tour and record. As a result, they don’t have an endless supply of funds. So, if they are going to spend any money, they need to spend it very wisely. We also have to understand what their individual economics are, because they have to take care of their recording costs, merchandise, gas for touring, etc.
That’s part of what my role is within the company. I act as the artist advocate. OurStage wants to be artist friendly. Whenever we make any decision, the artist is paramount to any choices that we make.
Other than the contest platform, you mentioned licensing and some other parts of the company. What are some of OurStage’s other elements?
KB:
It all ties into the competition. Essentially, when an artist enters a competition, what ends up happening is that a community of music lovers starts to sort all the songs that are competing in what we call a “channel.” At the end of it, an artist can win a prize, whether it’s cash or an opportunity.
What then happens, which a lot of artists aren’t aware of, is that we then generate a music chart. We display the top 100 artists that are ranked within every music channel. And that top 100 artists list then becomes a way for my team to start sorting the gems. We might identify an artist we want to feature in our online magazine. We often do features on our emerging artists, because want to be one of the first voices writing about them. We know that a lot of times our artists are just getting out there, so it’s very important for them to have a well-written, concise bit of press they can add to their EPK and press clippings.
Another thing we do is source music for music licensing opportunities. And that’s one of the reasons Dave Bason at the MGMT Company is working with OurStage. He and a small team of people that we’re building right now are setting up a licensing division. And OurStage is editorially vetting artists from these top 100 charts that a larger community of fans have vetted. Then, we’re approaching select artists and seeing if we can represent their catalog and position licensing opportunities for them. The idea is that OurStage would act as their publishing administrator. Dave and his team would position the song. If licenses are secured, then OurStage would get a percentage off the top of the master and sync fee licenses, although our percentages are largely below the industry standard. Because, again, we want to always be perceived as being artist friendly first and foremost. That division is just getting underway right now. And we have an entertainment lawyer who is working within that division as well.
Another thing I’m doing right now is that some of the program directors over at the X Games are looking for opening acts to perform for their headline acts, who are performing at Belly Up as part of the X Game week of events. Because of the collective relationships that people at OurStage have, people will come to us and say, “I need an artist for this opportunity.” If we have enough lead time, we’ll run a promotion around it. If we don’t we’re still going to present the opportunity to our artists.
With X Games, everything is very time sensitive, so I’ve gone through and made recommendations to the people that are programming the music, suggesting openers for several of their nights. And that happens a lot. And promoting some of these opportunities for artists is something OurStage isn’t necessarily as strong at doing. And this is because we’ve been operating without a marketing director for a while. Again, this is another thing we’re changing in 2012. (Editor’s Note: The X Games/OurStage event did not end up coming to fruition this year.)
All these things that happen behind the scenes will start to bubble up, so artists better understand what the company can offer them. And the hope is that the industry and fans will better understand the role we hope to play in emerging music.
While I realize success has a thousand fathers, is there a success story you can point to where OurStage made a huge difference in a particular artist’s or band’s career?
KB:
That’s a question we get asked a lot. The reality is, when we work with artists, it’s in the very early days of them having a career. Having been an artist, I’m sure you know that any type of success doesn’t happen overnight. The way I like to look at how we positively impact careers is in terms of getting an artist to the next step.
Which artists have had their careers impacted because they were associated with OurStage? Our biggest success story is an electronica act called Plushgun. Plushgun was discovered on our site and signed by Tommy Silverman. So, that’s an example of a band that got a record contract.
But the things we do in general are small steps that get an artist closer to whatever their overall goal is.
You guys have clearly positively impacted dozens, if not hundreds of careers. Unfortunately, people usually ask people whether or not you were responsible for “making” a famous band.
KB:
I personally feel like the future of the music industry is the evolution of a very robust middle class. And it’s a middle class of artists whose career and success is defined by being able to quit their day jobs. So, they’re able to support themselves by virtue of their music, whether they do that through sales, touring or music licensing opportunities; they are artists who are able to make money off their music. Those are the types of artists we help bring to success and get closer to their goals every single day.
There’s an artist who in 2011 had a lot of success as a result of OurStage. His name is Austin Renfroe, and he’s based in Nashville. He has an indie pop sound, and he’s been a big hit in the college/NACA market. I spoke to him actually when he was showcasing at NACA, and he had already booked over 60 dates. He tours about 250 dates per year. In 2011, he was featured in The OurStage Panel, a web series we’ve created. The basic concept is, 16 artists from OurStage get their music positioned in front of 4-5 panelists who are heavy hitters in the music industry. The panel discusses each single and gives some career advice. Then, the artists advance to another round, and there’s a live showcase. One artist won a series of mentoring opportunities and a video EPK to be produced by Mitchell Stuart. Austin was one of the finalists. He got some attention based on this web series. He also won a competition we did with Intel. And he’s actually at NAMM right now with Intel doing some acoustic showcases. And he won $10,000 in cash and a whole suite of tools and gear from Intel, Cakewalk and Gibson.
That’s definitely a success story. Contributing to artists making a living is really important.
You have a pretty unique viewpoint given your particular music industry background and career trajectory. Do you have any parting words of advice for artists trying to make it in the current climate?
KB:
I understand that a lot of artists start to fatigue when it comes to the internet and all the different social media platforms or any web-based platforms or communities. My advice to them is to really understand that you have no control over how or where somebody discovers music. So, if you have the energy, I absolutely recommend having a presence across as many different platforms and within as many different communities as you can. I understand it takes a lot of work. But you just never know who the people are who are loyal to a particular community. And you don’t want to be eliminated from another community.
One example I often see is, a band will have their free social media home and will spend most of their time there. It will have all their updates, their calendar and their music. But a lot of times, when I’m looking for music myself, I might not first go to the website they consider their home. So, then I have to do this scavenger hunt across the internet to try to learn more about the artist. A lot of people don’t have the time or inclination to really search, especially when it comes to new music and new artists. I recommend that wherever you have an online presence, always keep it updated, and include as much information as possible. You should have a concise, well-written bio. And you should have any industry achievements – because that’s always a great way for someone like myself to start to filter out a band or get a sense of how professional they are.
I also recommend having some type of live performance footage, because a lot of times people are starting to vet artists from what they see on the web. Then, make sure that your calendars are always updated. Musicians might not have the funds and the opportunity to be recording music on a yearly basis. But it’s really important to those that will be invested in a new artist’s career to see that the artist is active. The way the average person makes an assessment on how active the artist is, is through their releases or the amount of shows that are in their calendar. If you haven’t released anything for three years and you don’t have any gigs listed in your calendar, that tells me maybe you’re not really serious, your band is inactive, or you broke up. And I’ll just move on to the next artist.
To learn more about Kristin Bredimus and the work she does, visit the official OurStage website. You can also check out the company on Twitter and Facebook.
Jeff Yapp is the Founder and CEO of NXTM and WHOOZNXT, a platform that helps artists find opportunities to connect meaningfully with their fans, build their following and get real-world exposure. A self-proclaimed “classically-trained” products marketer and known as an innovative marketing expert, Jeff got his start in the music and entertainment industry when he went to work with Pizza Hut on entertainment-based marketing and properties. This eventually led him to Hollywood and a job as Executive Vice President, Program Enterprises for MTV, where he worked with the MTV, VH1, CMT and Logo networks to build the scope of their brands in the emerging digital market. While at MTV, he was able to grow the division significantly and worked with content for movie studios, gaming, sports, home entertainment, consumer products, radio networks, publishing and business development. Jeff also led the team at Viacom that successfully acquired Harmonix in 2007 and launched Rock Band 1 and 2, which earned 50% of the revenue in the video game market the year it was launched. In 2007, his team also won an Emmy for its work in the 3D avatar-based virtual world with the games Virtual Laguna Beach and Virtual Hills. In the 1990s, Jeff also worked as an executive at 20th Century Fox, where he was responsible for launching the campaign that reintroduced the Star Wars franchise. He launched WHOOZNXT in 2010 and immediately signed mega-artist Taylor Swift on as an investor and his first client.
I got to sit down with Jeff and talk about his experience in the entertainment and music industry, how WHOOZNXT works for artists and why developing a meaningful relationship with fans is so critical for artists that want to make it in the music business.
Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me, Jeff. How did you get started in the music industry?
JY:
I started in packaged goods marketing, and that morphed into a move into the entertainment business. I started at General Foods. I was a basically a “classically-trained” packaged goods marketer. Then I went to work for Pizza Hut, where I started to get involved in entertainment-based marketing and properties. That got me exposed to Hollywood, and I went to work for 20th Century Fox in the video department. I headed global distribution for Fox, and it was really my big step from packaged goods into entertainment. Then I had a stint in retail, and a big set internationally, which gave me some perspective there.
Most recently, and something that is probably most relevant to this conversation is that I spent time at MTV. I took that background of classic marketing, content and video development, all the way through to retail distribution. My job at MTV was what I jokingly called in the “rats and mice” division. It was all the things that were not related to television. So, I had the movie studios, the gaming studios, consumer products, publishing, business development and technology across all the music groups: MTV; Vh1; CMT and Logo. It gave me a front-row seat in the music business.
I was at MTV for about six years during the implosion. I was there when the business was really changing and everyone was looking for the next savior. When I first got there, the savior was supposed to be AOL Music. And then it became Yahoo Music. And then there was Myspace. What was interesting was that there were a lot of pluses and minuses. On the plus side, these social platforms and digital platforms were getting bands unbelievable exposure for the first time ever. All bands potentially had access to these huge audiences, and they weren’t having to go through a gatekeeper like a label. But that was good news and bad news, because now 10 million bands had unlimited access to fans. It became this amazing morass for fans to sort through it all and really start to provide some meaningful exposure that could help a band go from local hero to superstar.
That’s the thing I got interested in. I said, “How do you take all this online activity and translate it into the kind of exposure that a good band needs to break out?” The A&R budgets continued to decline along with the ability for anyone to make investments in artists, because there was pretty much a one-in-ten chance an artist would have a successful hit. I started to think about how I could make that potentially more interesting in terms of which bands to focus on and which to give exposure to. And that’s where WHOOZNXT came from. I was really looking at Myspace, and looking at this amazing platform with ten million bands plus. But then you go to it and have no idea, if you’re a fan, where you want to go and what you want to listen to. It’s really not a great discovery platform. So, I said, “How do I translate digital success into real-world exposure?” That was the first kernel for WHOOZNXT.
And, really it was something that was not being done. What was interesting to me was that there were hundreds of companies that were toolkits and playlists and things that were digital ends. Myspace was a digital end. At MTV, you could really see our exposure impact on bands. You could take our video rotation at 2 a.m. and generate more online activity for a band than the front page on Myspace, which was kind of telling to me. It was obvious why some labels had done well. If you take the live performance, the radio campaigns, television campaigns and the digital campaigns and roll them all together, that package, with talent, gave you a shot at helping a band break. I felt I could bridge that in some way.
I started WHOOZNXT about a year and a half ago. And as a startup, you have to get some credibility. So, I approached the one artist that had used the digital platform to build a fan base pretty amazingly: Taylor Swift. At a time when everyone told her they were not interested, she lived on Myspace. She talked and sang to her fans and had an amazing connection with them on Myspace. I showed her what I wanted to do, and she became my first investor and client.
It was a pretty amazing story. It seemed like Taylor’s success was pretty random, but in the back of my mind I always believed that there were probably 25 other Taylors that will never have the same shot.
And she’s on an indie in Nashville signed to a major.
JY:
Yes. She is signed by Big Machine through Universal.
It’s one of the few situations where someone would have the flexibility to do such a partnership without being hand strung through infinite layers of red tape.
JY:
Absolutely. And I got to Taylor right after the release of her first record, so she was just starting to explode. Having spent time with her and her family, I realized how many random things had to happen for someone as gifted and as talented as she was to have the shot she has today. That’s what became interesting to me. So many things had to happen that were completely unrelated and random for her to get into the situation that’s allowed her to become the global superstar she is. I wanted to see how we could take some randomness out of that type of story. And that’s when I came up with the idea for WHOOZNXT.
We’ve created a platform that’s free for artists to register on. The thing that’s confusing to artists when they first come to my platform is that I don’t ask them to do anything except register their entire social grid. I don’t want them to have to fill out another profile or upload their music or videos for the 50th time. When we first started this, the bands asked, “What are we supposed to do?” And I said, “Focus on growing your fan base by writing great music and performing it live. This is a report card. This is you chart and will tell you how well you’re doing and what you need to do to grow your fan base. Because, at the end of the day, success as an artist is going to be tied to your fans and their depth of commitment to you. They need to be willing to part with a dollar for something you do.”
One of the many reasons I was excited to talk to you is that you’re clearly a guy with a formal business acumen. A lot of music business startups are built on a dollar and a dream. And people get through on pure, unbridled passion and somehow get through to an investor. Sometimes it works. But more often than not, people don’t really take a look at the marketplace before they go in and spend a lot of money and time developing things.
I think it’s interesting that you took a look and didn’t find any filtration systems or referral programs that were good. I think there have been some, but they have come and gone so quickly because they require people to sign up for yet another platform and fill out another profile. As far as I can tell – and I just signed up my first artist with WHOOZNXT a half an hour ago – you guys are really just establishing clout and then building additional opportunities based on what people have built through their own momentum and relevant to the career level that matches theirs.
JY:
Exactly. Say my top opportunity is a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live or a chance to open up for the Virgin Mobile Free Fest. How do the people in charge decide which band they go with when there are thousands of bands being pitched to them?
One of the things that started to ring true was one of the ideas we thought a lot about: the concept of fan validation. There are a lot of “heat indices” out there and algorithms to predict who is going to be the next big band. But at the end of the day, the only thing that has truly determined how big an artist becomes is the size of their fan base, defined by those who will go see their shows and buy their music. Today’s world is very different from even three years ago; now, an artist’s fan base really lives in the online social communities. They don’t spend a lot of time on their website or on another dedicated site. So, it’s on Facebook, YouTube and wherever their fans are that artists need to be.
So, we thought, “Why don’t we just aggregate how fast they’re growing fans across a particular platform?” Every month, the band that has grown the most fans will be “the hottest.” And every month, we’ll restart back at zero and track it all over again. Because the truth is, in the music business, if you write a new song, your life can change if it connects. It’s not the fact that you have 22 million fans. It’s the rate at which you’re growing your fan base. For example, Justin Bieber is hugely popular today. But his rate of growth has definitely slowed. We think we’ve discovered something pretty interesting.
We started WHOOZNXT at South by Southwest. We turned on our system at 4 a.m. the day before the launch, and immediately a band jumped out called Asking Alexandria. We were scratching our heads, because we hadn’t heard of it, and it wasn’t a band people were talking about when we got to the festival. We talked to journalists, and they hadn’t heard of the band. And we talked to someone at Jimmy Kimmel Live, and he hadn’t heard of them either. We thought at first we might have done it wrong. But, it was clear that they were 2-1 in terms of fan growth over anybody.
What’s funny is, I started in the research department at a subsidiary of Atlantic called Lava. And what they had drilled into me was that the only thing that predicts future sales is existing sales. So, quite literally, we would look for things that were unaffiliated with major distribution that were selling or things that were unattached to major labels but on radio stations and getting requests and requests in record stores. For a company that was a Fortune 500 company, it was a little amazing that this was the only research we really did. A company in another industry would be willing to spend a million dollars determining whether someone wanted white or off-white tube socks. The music business would spend that much money on videos without knowing if there was any market for the product whatsoever.
JY:
Yes. It’s all pretty interesting. When we started at South by Southwest, we knew we were going to see 90,000 music fans throughout the week. And we picked this band Asking Alexandria to feature. We then found out after we picked them that they were voted “longest lines.” People had to spend the night. And they filled 4,500 seats at a show the day after South by Southwest in Dallas. The coolest thing that happened to me was, a week before this band was going to play on Jimmy Kimmel, I was sitting at Taylor Swift’s label waiting for a meeting. And the head of marketing said to me, “Who the hell is Asking Alexandria?” He had no idea I was working with them. I asked why he was asking, and he said, “Universal Distribution has just named them the ‘Band to Watch’ because their first-week sales were so strong.”
So, fan base growth rate as a predictor of a band’s success feels like a pretty good model. They have continued to have an amazing summer. They opened up the Warped tour and are going to take their own tour this fall with venues with 4,000-5,000 seats and 30 dates.
We’ve evolved the site too. If you go on the site and look at “WHOOZ HOT,” you’ll see something pretty cool. It’s an idea I had when I was at MTV. I was wondering why we were picking who we thought was hot. I wondered why we didn’t let the fans pick who they like. So, for “WHOOZ HOT,” we use the ranking system from WHOOZNXT and rank our bands. You can categorize them by genre, by geography or by level. You can say, “What’s the hottest double-platinum rock band in Detroit.” Then the system automatically reaches into a particular band’s YouTube and pulls out the hottest video in the last 48 hours. Basically we’re creating a next-generation music channel on the fly, where the channel is completely programmed by the fans.
That’s a daunting task, but one that is certainly a worthy one.
JY:
We have it going, and it really feels good. At MTV I was always wondering why we weren’t programming videos this way. Now I have it. I feel like we’re doing things for artists that other people aren’t doing for them. And we’ve put together an exposure network. It will continue to fill out, but it includes television partners like ABC, Comcast and Time Warner, and radio partners like Clear Channel and Westwood One, live performance partners like AEG Live and Live Nation. We now have about 80 gigs. We’ll go to 140 in September. And when we add Guitar Center as a partner, we’ll hopefully get another 280. We’re filling it out to where we’ll ideally be able to offer opportunities for bands they wouldn’t have without us.
You have such a unique vantage point as someone that has built a business around a science you created for determining which bands are going to be successful. Ultimately, I want to ask you how you turned this into a profitable business for you. But, first, I would really like to know if, as you’ve studied the different ways people engage their fans, you’ve noticed that certain social networks or methods work better than others?
JY:
Having now spent probably the better part of four years looking at social media, there is no way a band will ever tweet, blog, post, interact, profile their way to success. The conclusion I’ve come to is that the music business at its core has not changed: It’s all about the artist and their connection to their fan base. Without that connection, nothing you do on social media will lead you to success.
It’s really funny, because it’s still about the song and how the song connects with a fan. What has changed fundamentally is that with that song, the acceleration of awareness has changed overnight. The way I think about it today in terms of how I determine which are the best accelerants for that song, is that Twitter is the real-time measure of your impact in a situation. So, when you perform live, Twitter will be a huge indicator of how well a song connects with fans. Twitter is easy, fast and it provides a ton of feedback.
The second most impactful medium is Facebook. People will take time to post, share blogs or “like” on Facebook. Facebook is the digital equivalent of buying a single. Back in the 1950s or ‘60s, once you connected to a song, you would buy the single. At the point when people were really buying records, SoundScan was that universally-accepted measurement of engagement. That’s really all it was: “Were you engaged enough to buy a record?” We didn’t have objective ticket information, so SoundScan was that chart that basically identified how hot somebody was.
I would argue that when you decide to “fan,” “follow,” “like” or “subscribe to,” those are statements of engagement. They are digital engagements, but they’re the next level. And I think that’s what gets really interesting, and that’s what we’re using as the next “chart.”
I have people coming to me all the time and saying, “I want to do a viral video like Kreayshawn.” And I think, “OK. Go write a hit song and call me back.” There’s a fantastic story about Kiss interviewing managers. Gene Simmons swaggered into every potential manager’s office and said, “We want to be on the cover of every major magazine. What are you going to do about it?” And they ultimately signed with Doc McGhee. His response to that question was, “The plan is simple. You put your make-up back on, and you kill the president. Now let’s get to work.”
JY:
Gene called me once when I was working at MTV. And a conversation I had with him has really affected the way I think about fans. He said, “I have 1,000 fans that will pay $10,000 for whatever I do. And I have 10,000 fans that will pay me $1,000. I get $10 million bucks to get out of bed. What are you going to do for me today?” What he taught me – and he’s smart – was that all fans are not created equal. What it is incredibly important for artists to understand today is that they need to understand who their core fan is and stay honest and true to those folks.
When most artists start to fall apart, it’s because they lose sight of that core fan base, the ones that got them there. Our whole communication with artists is focused on their fans. What we’ve done with Justin Timberlake and Taylor Swift is to analyze their business through their core fan base: how much they are engaged; the revenue they get from them. We spend a lot of time trying to take care of the core fan.
Do you have any exciting things coming up at WHOOZNXT you’d like to share?
JY:
We’re really focused on band registration. My job is really getting cool, and it’s really about getting people involved. I know you wanted to know how we make money. The thing that’s interesting about music is that it’s a global platform. But the folks that follow the “emerging artist” category – people who are into music enough to really want to discover unknown bands – are who you think of as the taste makers that really have some influence. They’re the kids in high school you went to in order to find out which bands were the hottest. They are also the toughest people for brands to target. That’s why I think WHOOZNXT this is such a huge business opportunity. Just based on the 25,000 bands we have on the platform, I think we’re at 154 million fans. That’s a crazy number. That’s why I think we’re representing the future of the music business for bands.
It still takes money to be a developing act. There are no two ways about it. And I think that money is going to come from brands. And my job is to help connect those bands and marketers in a way that is organically true to the band and organically true to the fan, but also creates opportunities for artists and provides them with the capital they need to build their business.
Along those lines, have you started the process of building in potential brand partners for underwriting?
JY:
Yes. The first one we started with was Samsung and the Summer Krush events. The second one is Virgin Mobile. I can’t announce our biggest project yet, but it’s going to be a huge and exciting program for kids in the college market.
The thing we’re finding is that every brand – whether it’s a car or a soft drink, anything that has to do with the youth market – becomes really interested in this space very quickly. What I set out to do when I was at MTV is figure out what the future of MTV was going to look like. And this is the analogy I think is interesting: Cable was a piece of technology that enabled the rise of channels like MTV and ESPN – channels that anybody in the broadcast world said would never happen. A new technology showed up that gave you a whole new paradigm under which to build new businesses. And that’s where we are today too. YouTube is a global platform, completely interactive and on demand, and serves micro audiences rather than macro audiences. And there needs to be a completely new business model to support that next-generation video model. And we’re hoping our site can represent that business model.
To learn more about Jeff Yapp and his platform for artists, please visit the WHOOZNXT website.
This is an interview I conducted about a year ago with Reverend Dave Ciancio – a gifted music manager and blogger and more recently a bar owner. If you are in NYC and have a taste for Bourbon look him up at the Idle Hands Bar. It is a re-post, sorry about that folks – I will be back to regularly schedule programming soon.
I was fortunate enough to sit down with my friend Reverend Dave Ciancio from Yeah! Management. Dave was one of the founders of the hard rock indie promotion, marketing and management firm The Syndicate and recently has started Yeah! Management. I have been fortunate enough to know Dave for a long time and have watched him help the careers of dozens of hard rock bands.
Tell me about Yeah! Management!
DC:
I run Yeah! Management, an organization within Artist Arena. Artist Arena is a company that handles VIP Fan Clubs and tickets. So for example if the Rolling Stones go on tour, you can by a seat on the stage and a drink with Mick Jagger for $10,000. We don’t do the Rolling Stones, but that’s the concept. What’s cool about it is that we have access to all the people that Artist Arena has access to, whether that would be Green Day’s manager or the people at Warner Music Group or the Agency Group people. So, it becomes beneficial for our own artists to learn and watch and piggyback onto what is happening in the larger company.
So you’re doing primarily hard rock and metal management, like Poison the Well and Shadows Fall. What are the other stand-outs?
DC: Shadows Fall is our flagship band, and I’ve been working with them since they were unsigned. They are kind of my band of brothers. They bring in a lot of attention from metal bands. A lot of our roster is hard rock, but we have a couple pop bands like TAT and VersaEmerge. We’re all over the place as long as it’s rock and roll.
What gets your attention as a manager business wise?
DC:
From my last couple years at The Syndicate I was on a signing freeze. I wasn’t looking for anything new. I really believed in our roster and felt really committed and busy and had enough going on that I didn’t see a need to expand the roster. When we started the new company, I realized that without having to be in charge of doing all the marketing stuff I definitely had time to bring on more. With bringing on new employees and being in a new situation, I realized we had room for new bands. It became about relearning a process I hadn’t done in a few years – looking for young talent. The more popular your roster gets or the more successful a band you manage gets, the more bands that come to you. I couldn’t pick out a particular attribute that really shines, but in the end it comes down to, “Do I have an appreciation for the songwriting? Do I like the band members as people? Are they business savvy or willing to be business savvy?” And then there’s that Superstar X Factor – “What makes this band stand out? Is it the actual players in the band, the vocalist, or are they pretty? Do they own some other company or do something else that might help jumpstart their career, like a merch company or are they a skater?” It’s any number of things, but my criteria has gone up, and I’m a lot less willing to jump on things because I like them. I’ve found many times in the past that just because you like a band doesn’t mean you should work with them, and sometimes it’s better to just be a fan or help people out. Criteria wise? Be awesome.
The online thing has changed a lot, and you’ve spent a lot of time working on marketing with bands. Are there things out there you think all bands should be doing to promote their careers that are low- or no-cost?
DC:
Everybody needs to be on Twitter and Facebook and Myspace. If you’re not there, what are you doing? You need to know how people are looking for something or how they are looking for music. Maybe it’s reading a magazine or clicking on YouTube all day or looking on Facebook, or maybe a friend has to tell someone about it. You never know how someone is going to find something, so you have to be everywhere. If a person likes listening to music on Pure Volume, be on Pure Volume. If a person likes listening to music on iLike, be on iLike. If people are on a Twitter frenzy, then be on Twitter and have something interesting to say. You have to be where the people are, and that’s the foundation. Once you’re there, you can market yourself; but if you’re not online, what’s the point?
I notice that you do a lot of social networking yourself. Do you have any suggestions for expanding your reach?
DC: The standard answer applies – be interesting. Find something you like to talk about or are an expert on, or something you think you can use to draw attention to yourself. For example, I like to talk about burgers, so I started a burger Web site. Aaron from Underoath is a big foodie, and people are starting to know him because of the food. It takes him out of being just an artist, or the drummer in the band or the singer in a band; he’s now a food guy. So there’s another reason for people to pay attention. I think one of the problems with marketing today, especially for bands is that is becomes very unilateral – “Talk about the music.” People who are into music are into lifestyle. I think if you’re going to be on Twitter and Facebook and bother to have a Tumblr blog, you need to realize that the audience you have probably isn’t just interested in music. If you can bring something else to the table, bring it. Social networking is all about tools, and you have to know how to use them. There are all kinds of Twitter applications that can help you find new people or stay on top of your account. I check my Twitter karma once a week for my marketing stuff – Am I following all the people that are following me? Am I following too many people that don’t matter? In the Twitter world this is looked at as spam. It’s really about knowing how to use the tools.
Musician Coaching: Talk to me more about aspiring artists and what they should be doing to maintain relationships with their fan base?
DC: There’s nothing more important than engaging a fan base. If people have found their way to you, you have to assume it’s not just about music. I can’t tell you how many times I listened to Pantera as a kid, and all they did was talk about smoking pot. I liked smoking pot as a kid, so that appealed to me. I’m not saying every band should go on their website and start talking about pot, but you need to find what you do and figure it out and use it. It all comes back to be interesting and find out how to network. As far as generating mailing lists, it’s just natural. If you’re going to have a Myspace page, get a Mozes account, and if you’re going to have a Mozes account, get a Reverb Nation account. You can collect e-mails and phone numbers. For young bands, I’m a big fan of Ning and Drupal Sites. You can create your own Myspace and social network. We did this with Shadows Fall, and had a lot of success. We had a couple thousand people and called it a fan club, and told people to sign up for free. To use that appropriately, I can send people on there a message with the click of a button that says, “Tickets for our new tour are on sale today. We’re going to give you people 24-hour access before the public.” Things like that are really good.
Being a hard rock band or a metal band, the road has to be a part of your life. What was the process of building a touring base like?
DC:
It’s really hard, especially in modern times and the modern economy. There’s no money out there. You have to give to get. When I first started in the music business and I wanted to manage bands, there was certainly not enough money on the table to do what I wanted full time, so I had to DJ at a club on Tuesday nights just to make the rent. It’s a matter of how much you’re willing to sacrifice. If you’re a young band and you want to build a touring base, get on the road and figure out how to stay on the road and maximize on the road. Keep costs down.
Are there any specific tricks or common mistakes you see when people overspend?
DC: I think the most common one I see is that bands will spend a significant amount of time on the road getting paid $100 per night, scraping nickels together to get to the next gig and just pulling into town with three drops of gas left in the tank, and the minute they see a little bit of success, it becomes a game of luxury – “Now we want three guitar techs and two buses.” The magic disappears at some point. Not everybody can get up and stay up. And then they get accustomed to it and can’t adjust their business to fit economies of scale. The biggest mistake I see is getting a taste of it and not realizing you may not see it again. It’s better to get a taste of it and then try to keep as many of those methods of saving money with you so you keep your money.
Do you think it’s necessary for most artists to discuss something other than their music?
DC:
It depends. I love to look at a band like Pantera. For years all they were was “F**king Pantera,” and they didn’t need anything else. Then the DVD’s came out and we saw them backstage and partying and playing these massive shows and that took it to the next level. That’s how they got their personality. Even if you’re Dream Theater, and you’re clearly a musicians’-based band, play that up. They talk about drum lessons and guitar lessons and tablatures. Maybe they’re not talking about the new single on the record, but they are still talking about something else and appealing to the audience. I think it’s important to talk about something more than the songs and the tour and the record. What else are you doing that makes you who you are?
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You can check out Dave’s quest for Burgers and of course his music management company at Burger Conquest and Yeah! Management
I was able to ask my friend Howie Schnee the Co-Owner of Creative Entertainment Group and Co-Owner of Sullivan Hall and Sullivan Room in New York a few questions about what his job is like and what helps influence his decisions in booking bands into his clubs. I have known Howie since the early 90s when Sullivan Hall was called the Lion’s Den. He was in fact the first club owner to take a risk on a band I played with in college many years ago.
Howie has been responsible for building more acts on a local or regional level than any three people I know. The Lion’s Den (now Sullivan Hall) was one of the stepping stone clubs that most bands who wound up on Bonnaroo or the H.O.R.D.E. tour played before becoming big regional or national acts.
Howie's Venue- Sulivan Hall
How has the process of band /artist selection changed at the clubs in the last 10-15 years both for established artists and for the audition nights or slow nights when you are trying out new local talent. (online vs offline, more or less competition for slots etc…)
Howie:
It’s changed significantly. The immediacy of the web is mind-boggling. Almost all bands post samples of their music online. The old way was for bands to make initial contact over the phone and follow up with a press kit. By the time we received that press kit, details of that initial conversation were fuzzy at best. Besides music being immediate, there are many clues online that give a good idea as to whether or not a band has their act together so to speak such as having a robust website. Also, whether or not there’s some buzz and awareness about them like having a lot of Myspace plays, Facebook friends, Twitter followers for example. I’ll occasionally do random searches to see if there’s any interesting press about the act.
How do you prefer to be approached by an unknown artist trying to get a
show at the clubs you book? (referral, cold calling, how materials should be
presented and where i.e. Sonicbids, myspace etc)
Howie:
It’s really best for bands to include links for all of their sites they have EPKs on – MySpace, Sonicbids, Reverb Nation, etc. Just depending upon the buyer’s preference of site(s) they like to review bands on. A band should state the basics that talent buyers would like to know: where they’re from, what genre(s) they consider themselves to be in, when and where they’ve played the market before and how it went. If a band has friends, family or any roots to New York City that will insure a decent draw, that’s a good thing to mention. Also, anything noteworthy that may garner attention – album release show, TV or radio appearances, notable press, etc.
For a new band with few or no references that you can call to get a feel
for their following – how is the best way to approach you and how often so
as to be heard but not to annoy the hell out of you?
Howie:
References aren’t necessarily important, but professionalism and a good attitude go a long way. The other day I booked an out-of-town people who drew only 20 people to a show, on a Wednesday. Their manager followed up with a great email of thanks, but also noting how he felt strongly if we gave them a chance on a weekend night, he knew they could do 50 people at minimum. Then he followed that up with something to the effect of ‘I understand if you’d like to keep us to a week night and we’ll work hard to get to a weekend night eventually.’ His non-demanding positive attitude implored me to give him a weekend show despite the smaller draw. It also helped that their music was really good.
Describe the volume of submissions you get on a daily or weekly basis for
artist who want to play shows at Sullivan Hall and what percentage of those
actually get in the door to play?
Howie:
There are three of us that book the club so it’s hard to say exactly. I’d estimate we probably get around 20-25 submissions a day on average. Unless a band’s music or attitude is really terrible, we give most bands a shot. First time in though, it may be on a Monday or Tuesday.
What traits in a band member or manager make you feel like this is
someone who is serious about their business and makes you want to help them
build their following (both for you and the club)
Howie:
I alluded to it earlier. Positive attitude, non-demanding, carrying themselves professionally, strong work ethic all go a long way with me. That hard work ethic is essential if a band wants to take it to the next level. Nothing should be beneath them. I love walking out of a show and seeing a musician handing out hand bills or CDs or MP3 cards promoting their band. If I see that, and its 30 degrees and snowing, no matter what they sound like, I’ll book that band.
Describe some of the frustrations you have with they way musicians
approach you for a gig and things that people should avoid saying / doing.
Howie:
One of the most frustrating things is when you book an act, and discover afterwards they have multiple gigs lined up in town, and they’ve never bothered to mention it. I can understand a band wanting to get out there and play a lot (although I don’t feel that’s the right approach), but they should mention it during the booking process. I think acts should be more focused on the quality of shows they do versus quantity. Acts should be thinking in a reciprocal manor – not just ‘what can I get out of this?’
Let’s say your band can draw 50 people on a week night in New York. Your draw may be predominantly friends and fans at that point. Which is fine. Almost all bands start with friends and family. If your band starts booking 2 or more times per month, you’ll start to have diminishing returns. Now we book you after you’ve played a number of shows in town in a short period of time, and we put you on a good night on a good show, and almost no one comes out. You’ve benefited from the exposure but have offered nothing in return. You’ve spoiled your relationship with us. Bands should be thinking in reciprocal terms. Not only ‘what can we get out of this?’ but ‘what can we do for the club, or promoter, or the other bands on the bill for that matter?’
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Part two of my interview with Howie is available here. You can also check out his management and marketing company Creative Entertainment Group.
Eric Pirritt is the Manager for the band STS9 and the VP of Live Nation Rocky Mountains. Eric started his career in college promoting shows on the program counsel In New Hampshire and at the University of Denver and went on to work for various independent promoters and doing marketing for venues until becoming the VP of Live Nation and the manager for STS9.
I first heard of STS9 in an interview I did with Tom Silverman of Tommyboy who mentioned STS9 by name as one of the few independent artists who sold over 10,000 records in 2008. Eric, being very on top of all things going on with his band emailed me the day after the article ran.
So just tell me briefly how you started working with STS9.
EP:
One of the first bands I ever really worked with as a promoter where I booked every show they played for a month in Colorado was STS9. About halfway through that relationship they were saying they were looking for new management and at a show I booked for them they said, “We’ve been talking about a new manager, and he’s standing right in front of us. Can you do what you’ve done for us in Colorado everywhere else?” And I said, “I’ll try.” That was five years ago.
How did you go about building this? Obviously, it’s been a long time coming- they are not an overnight success. But what did you do to grow these guys from a band in George who had pockets of fans in Colorado to a national touring act?
EP:
The band was from Georgia when they first started building in Colorado. The sound was just something that made a lot of sense to Colorado. Colorado’s a state where people move from all over and have all different tastes, and they were this completely unique act. I remember the first time I listened to their first album, and I’d never heard anything like it. It was just one of those things where I started telling everyone about the band, and they would ask, “Who do they sound like?” and I couldn’t figure out who they sounded like. And if I go back now and look at it, that’s it. That’s one of the main reasons why everyone loves them so much, because they didn’t come off as something where they sound like “so and so.” Everybody always seems to want to compare something now to something in the past to make them feel comfortable with a description. They’re one of the bands out there that everyone goes to when describing the new bands: “This new band Lotus” or the “Bass Nectars” or “Pretty Lights” of the world, that are starting to come up. They came from our shell much like bands for many years would “sound like the Grateful Dead” or say, “They came out of the Grateful Dead scene.”
Your business with STS9 though is primarily the live show. You come out from a concert promotion background and you met them through live shows. They are mostly an event-based product, right?
EP:
Absolutely. We’ve made a lot of steps to get more out there in the world of getting our music into movies. They are in a documentary that just got accepted to some big film festivals. But yes, we’ve made our money on the road, we’ve built our fan base on the road, we’ve built our community on the road from the record label that we own and all these acts that are coming up right now. But it’s primarily a touring thing and an experience live.
What was your first step? I know they’re in the jam circuit. Did you pair them with other bands? Where did you start?
EP:
For Colorado, the first time they played, they needed a Thursday night, and at the time Thursday nights were Ladies’ Night Hip Hop Night at a local venue in Boulder that I booked. I loved the band so much, I said, “Let’s put you guys on Ladies Night,” and it was free to get in until 10. I brought some extra lighting because I could kind of just sense the vibe. I had never met any of the guys in the band, and none of them knew who I was until that night.
We created this kind of event that night. We were turning people away at the door. There is a good combination in Colorado, but it boils down to the fact that they had a promoter who found his favorite band. They’re still my favorite band to this day. I love them, and it’s not a business thing for me, it’s not a job for me. I get to manage my favorite band. I’ve said it before, that if there was a promoter who loved the band as much as I do in every town across America, these guys would be playing arenas. They’re actually starting to move towards that anyway. They got put on a Jay-Z show at an arena. They got announced on it nine days ago and the ticket count doubled. It’s almost sold out now.
That’s amazing news. What about online tools? Is there a community that sprung up? Did they do anything right or wrong there, or were they fortunate enough just to have fans to pick up and carry the ball for them?
EP:
I feel like we were one of the bands that clicked right when the Internet was starting to really be meaningful in ’99 or so. We were looking online the other day and re-registering our website, transferring a bunch of stuff around -we were first online in late ’98. They had a message board they built themselves. Everything they’ve done so far has been out of the concept to build community. We built our website ourselves. We didn’t use anybody to do it. We sell all our own merchandise out of a warehouse. Our label is us. The point is that we’ve made a lot o decisions that probably made our lives a lot more difficult in the grand scheme of things when we could’ve just gone to a ticketing company and said, “Just sell our tickets,” because we wanted to be connected to the fans. I would take it so personally if one person at customer service with the ticketing company we used to use was short on an e-mail back to somebody who had a problem. We do everything ourselves. We own our sound, our lighting, our warehouse, everything we do. I think that feeds off of it. We were able to build a sense of community. We toured a lot. Last year the band played 58 shows when we definitely used to play 150-200 per year. All this said, as a side note, if the band wasn’t good, none of this would matter.
One thing you can’t teach is talent. Clearly you have a product that appeals to people and that people want to be proud of in some way, shape or form. I was just kind of wondering about the things that really got it to the next level. How did these guys support themselves until the music became their career?
EP:
It took a long while for them to get to a point where they were making the money they are making now. If they’d have a big gig and make $10,000 for some big show, in Colorado or Atlanta or San Francisco, their first reaction was to take the $10,000 and make the machine bigger. They never said, “Let’s split the money five ways.” A couple of these guys were still living in their cars not as long ago as you would think because it was all about making the show bigger and making the show better. The amount of times I have to stop the ideas they come up with because they are artists in the true sense. They don’t think about what anything costs ever. They just want to make it something that when people leave they don’t forget it.
Right now with two semis on the road, it was the same way nine years ago with a van with an old white parachute that they would project their light show on. Or it was renting lights or decorating the stage with flowers. They always wanted it to be a unique experience. We’ve been able to still do that. For example, at Red Rocks last year in Colorado, we were doing two nights, but we decided to do one night just because we wanted to do something different so it didn’t feel like the same thing every year. We very easily could’ve put one opening act on and sold out Red Rocks. Instead, we built a second stage, started the show at 3 p.m. and put 12 bands on this thing for the same price as we charged before, just because that’s what we do. And people saw all this new talent, and these acts that had never played in front of 50 people played in front of thousands of people at Red Rocks Amphitheater. It was just a really cool thing. We’re doing the same this summer. The tour I’m rolling out this week is amphitheaters every weekend, and we have two opening acts, but we’re not going to stop there. We’re going to have DJs spinning on the side of the stage and have people in the beer tents of venues that have beer tents. We want people to look at an ad and see 7-10 acts and feel like they are getting the best deal they’re getting that summer.
So when you’re talking about reinvestment, you guys really have reinvested purely not in the infrastructure or the bureaucracy of your company, but in the product itself.
EP:
Absolutely. We probably spent $50,000 last year at Red Rocks with that whole second stage and starting early and paying the staff, but we just felt like it was the right thing to do. It was. The show sold out and people had the night of their lives. Even when we used to play 200 capacity bars to 10,00 seat amphitheaters, not much has changed; it’s just more trucks.
What are you guys doing now online that you’re finding effective?
EP:
There’s a message board that we host. We kind of stepped away from it a little bit in the sense that we gave it to the fans, because it was a lot of work for us, it was us hitting a point in our career where the keyboard player needs to be spending his time learning the new songs or being with his family, not moderating a message board. We picked a few fans and gave it to them. We still have that. A lot of it is content. We have a schedule, for example, for the next six months of what we’re doing every week online, whether it’s releasing a video of an old show that no one’s ever seen before or putting a new video on our YouTube page or making sure we send them a certain number of tweets about a certain number of things. Every e-mail blast for the next six months is already planned.
Do you do find it important though to have an on-going stream of media out there so people don’t get bored, even your hardcore fans?
EP:
Absolutely. There are two things: hitting your core fans, which is the important part of why we’re here; getting things out there like playing with Jay-Z tonight and putting up a remix of a Jay-Z song that we did in the studio. We’re always coming up with different stuff. The band just played their first acoustic show ever at an opera house and sold out in ten seconds. It was a flawless evening and the next album coming out is going to be an acoustic album. It was them on grand piano and no computers, acoustic guitars, acoustic bass. It was a legendary night. It’s content driven, but it has to be good and it has to be done smart. If I know we’re putting out this acoustic album, a lot of times maybe your reaction is to just tell everybody now, but no. Right now we just got off a tour that sold out 19 of the 23 shows, we’re opening for Jay-Z tonight at the Pepsi Center, big deal, and we’re announcing our summer tour. I think a lot of it is spacing things out and making sure you don’t overwhelm too. You have to be smart.
Most bands don’t have the luxury of talking about so many high-profile events they can talk about all at once, but your point is a good one. Talk to me about Coattails. The fact that they seem be giving back to other artists, and possibly were there other artists that helped them starting out? How important was that to them starting out?
EP:
As far as people on our coattails?
Or vice versa. The relationships with the community, not only fans but also other musicians. How important was that in their development and does it continue to be in their development?
EP:
I think it’s extremely important. It’s one of those things that it’s hard to tell what’s working when it’s happening. We just did a remix album where we had 30 artists donate tracks and we donated all the money to build a house in new Orleans. We just hit our goal of $150,000 last week. I read somewhere that somebody said once, “Your career is a forest fire filled with tiny sparks.” It’s all about having an end goal and an end game about what you would love to see if it worked. There are definitely artists we’re going to sign to our label that get a ton of traction, and there are artists that don’t get a ton of traction.
We’ve always said, “No matter what, we’re going to go out of this at least being one of the more unique artists out there. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to fall down trying to run, we’re not going to fall down trying to walk.” That’s been a big part of it. It’s hard to say what’s really triggering everything, but there’s always a reason for hundreds of different people to be talking about STS9, whether it’s our album, or because you’re on our label, or because we put you on a late night show because throughout our whole tour we promote after parties everywhere, where we put all our label people on. We’ve got this built-in audience, so a band that can’t sell 100 tickets in New York plays a sold-out Irving Plaza. I think it’s a big part of everything, and that’s where it’s at these days: how do you keep evolving? How do you keep being fresh? We’re never going to be the new band on the scene. We’ve been doing this for 12 years. We’re never going to be the new guys. So how do you evolve that? It’s not an idea of going out there for the sake of being relevant and just coming up with stuff to pretend you’re relevant. It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly what certain things we did, but there’s no better description than that our career is a forest fire filled with tiny sparks.
There are a lot of compromises in life you make as a band. If I could give advice to some of the people that may read this, I could sit here and tell you about all the great stuff we’re doing, but all five band members are 100% involved in everything. I would never be able to do this without them, and I’d like to think I’ve done a lot for them too, but these guys are as involved as it gets. We all work together and are a 6-person management team and a 6-piece band only one of us doesn’t play an instrument.
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Check out STS9, their record label and an upcoming Documentary about the band.
I got the chance to catch up with my friend Emily White of Whitesmith Entertainment and her client Sebastian, who is the self-described drummer and occasional guitar player for Family of the Year. Many of you have not heard of Family of the Year and that was kind of the idea. I want to follow the path of a group that is just starting off their career under the guidance of a gifted manager. I got to catch up Emily and Sebastian just before CMJ.
Sebastian, what is your role business-wise for Family of the Year?
S:
My role is the day-to-day task manager of the band – the liaison between Emily and her team and all the other members of the team. I do scheduling, logistics, etc.
EW:
He’s done an amazing job making sure we’re staying on track. We self-released an EP last month that was donation based and that’s been going really, really well. And we’re releasing their debut album next month. There’s a lot that goes into that: the artwork and producing the CD’s and mastering and everything that goes into that. Sebastian has been amazing making sure everybody’s staying on track.
S:
The group has naturally evolved into each person having a specific role. No one was assigned anything they didn’t want to take on. My brother (Joseph – guitar / vox in FOTY) is incredibly inclined when it comes to producing and recording music. It was his major project to write this music and record it. That was his natural ability. We’ve got another guy James who has extensive audio engineering background, so he’s at the shows dealing with the technical stuff. We have whiz kids on computers as far as social networking stuff: Christina and Vanessa. Brent is our graphic designer and will eventually take over our website management. He’s been putting Vanessa’s hand-drawn art into the computers in order for us to be able to create all our merchandise and our CD art. It’s naturally turned into a finely-tuned machine.
And you guys are from Silver Lake?
S:
Originally my brother and I are from Massachusetts and the two girls are from Orange County, CA. The two other guys are from the south. One’s from Louisiana and the other is from Jacksonville, FL. We formed in Silver Lake and we now reside a few miles from Silver Lake. We all moved into a big house that we’re rebuilding in the hills outside L.A.
It’s kind of nice you have different sets of friends in different markets. You must save money on hotel costs.
S:
It certainly does.
EW:
We also do that on the road. The band bought a 1986 RV, so we haven’t spent anything on hotels. They all crash together, and sometimes there’s a filmmaker or a sound guy or me, and everybody sleeps pretty well in it.
S:
There are seven of us right now. There’s the band and then Chris. He’s actually making a documentary about the band. He’s been traveling with us on and off over the last couple months. Emily is going to be joining us. It’s usually quite a packed vehicle and really fun … and economical, really.
I first heard of you guys about 90 days ago. What experiences did you guys have with nationwide touring, either individually or as a group prior to 90 days ago?
S:
We had some experience, but not an extensive amount. We basically had several DIY tours that we had put together, but we’d never worked with a booking agent.
EW:
These were other bands also.
S:
My brother and James and I used to play in a band together back in Boston for years called Unbusted. Mostly we were in Boston and New York and the Northeast, but we did go out on the road a few times. But they were DIY tours, and it was really hard and really expensive and kind of heartbreaking. You get yourself so very excited, but if the framework isn’t there and you’re not getting yourself out there, then you’re not going to make money and you’re not really going to attract attention. For years back in Boston when we first knew Emily, she was juggling college and interning and a supporter of our music. She was on the ball back in the day telling us about mailing lists, social networking websites and things like that. She told us, “This is the way it’s going to be,” and we would say, “No, we’re traditional band that is going to keep playing club after club and wowing people, and soon people will be showing up by the thousands.” Sure enough, we were wrong. We had some experience touring, but it wasn’t effective touring. You could go out there and spend two years touring the states, but if certain pieces aren’t in place it’s not going to be a good experience. We had fun, but as far as trying to build a career and a following and selling albums, it’s next to impossible if you don’t have the correct presence online. I think that’s the major factor these days. The biggest difference is an ability to connect with fans. It’s the only avenue these days.
What has been the difference this time? How did you go about getting a booking agent?
S:
I honestly think it was the strength of the recordings that Joseph and Vanessa had made. The music was never really intended on being released. It was really a love child of theirs. They spent a year and a half in their apartment in Silver Lake recording this music together and falling in love and recording these songs. It was really a natural, beautiful thing that was turned into our product. I think that’s what has given us all a chance. We were reaching out with a lot of people. I was pretty much going through my Rolodex and saying, “Let me call up everyone I know to pull that one favor.” I contacted anybody whether they’d slighted us or been really great to us. I was standing in line at the DMV sending off e-mails. We were just really excited about what was happening with this band. We had just formed, we had a couple of really great concerts coming up and we were really excited about the music, and I reflected that in an e-mail to Emily and she came back immediately excited. And she started kicking butt and churning up some interest from their end.
That’s important to ask you about too. People have different projects throughout their lives. Did this feel different?
S:
100%, yes. It is a totally different monster. Everybody has their teenage/high school band and has high hopes and hometown dreams to fulfill. And then if you’re not one of those lucky few bands that makes it with your high school buddies, you have your sophomore slump with your next band. We formed another group called the Billionaires that achieved some kind of minor local success in L.A. We played some really great shows, released some albums, sold some copies but that was a major turning point. We went from being a small town, hard rock, raw group of kids that moved to the city and matured and settled into songwriting. Joe always had the ability to write a good song, but I think the music and voice kind of naturally emerged. It felt different because it felt really right. We all agreed we could play with this band in any situation, whether it was Madison Square Garden or someone’s kitchen. That’s really a great feeling, and it’s not just about sound, being too loud or too quiet. It’s a matter of being really comfortable with it and it representing us.
EW:
They made incredible recordings. But the reason they were able to do that is because they’ve been musicians for so long. I have other people saying, “How is this happening so quickly?” Well, although it appears that it’s happening quickly, these guys have been in bands, they’ve played SXSW, they’ve done the DIY tours so they really know what it’s like. I loved them in college, but they’ve developed so well, and it really shows. People like us that are listening to music all day, when we hear really great music and really great songwriting, that’s really going to stand out.
S:
I guess I neglected to mention that half the band had been playing music forever, putting on concerts since we were ten with aspirations to become rock stars. What’s great about the other half of the band is that they haven’t. We have half junior veterans and half greenhorns. It keeps it really interesting and fresh for everyone.
I noticed on the website that you guys are doing the name-your-own-price for the CDs. I know a lot of people have advocated this approach. How has it worked for you so far?
S:
It’s been fantastic. It’s just great. Everyone gets our music. I think it’s tough to force someone to pay for something these days, especially when it’s our first release. We just want to get our music out there. It’s worked out really well because we end up with the information that is their e-mail address, which I think is more valuable than five dollars. In the end, we’re bulking up our fan base. It’s about getting direct to the fans, so this has expedited it.
EW:
We own the rights, so we’re able to do that. And the average donation has been about ten dollars. Obviously beyond that it’s amazing, because of course, if you can give the band your money, that’s fantastic. They have a really great artist statement that’s really upfront: the money goes to gas and bringing these people to your town. But beyond that, we do just want the word spread. And if it’s a poor college student that can’t afford anything, awesome, we just want you to hear the music and come out to a show.
S:
We’ve had people pay fifty dollars, we’ve had a thousand people pay nothing. It doesn’t bother us. We want the music out there. I would give anybody a physical copy for free in person if they wanted it.
How long have you been collecting addresses, and how many (ballpark) would you say you have?
EW:
We have been collecting since September 22nd when it was released. I think we’ve had 2,000 page views, a few hundred downloads and it’s definitely gone well. We’re literally using that to spend on Facebook ads, posters and reinvest in the band right away.
S:
Just reinvesting and reaching out a little further. It’s great to spread out the money and invest a little more. We’re not pocketing it.
EW:
Sebastian had a great point about data collection. It’s wonderful for me to see these e-mail addresses, the countries, the person’s name. I write back to some people and say, “You’re in Australia, how did you hear about this band?”
S:
We’ve got these great Google analytics coming through. Greece is number three (The third ranked country for FOTY web traffic). It’s really cool and great information. It’s fantastic to be able to see the information and reach out to them. The whole world is conspiring right now to help the indie band.
EW:
Our number one traffic generator has been Twitter. That’s great, because it’s the band interacting with fans and with other artists, and it’s making a huge difference. We’re going to do a similar thing for their album release next month. It’s going to be a donation-based album, a 15-song album. Anybody that pays over ten dollars is going to get a physical copy. We’ll probably do a couple other tiers too.
How about the postcard campaign?
(To help fund their trip to CMJ Family of the Year offered fans personalized post cards from the road for a $5 donation)
S:
It’s going great. We’ve had a huge response to it. I don’t know how many we’ve done, but we’ve done a bunch. It’s fun for the band. It’s old school Twitter. It’s direct to the people, and people want that. I know I would want that if I was falling in love with a band again.
EW:
People like to know that they’re helping out. I went to Jill Sobule’s show last night, and she brought the fan up on stage that had donated the most amount of money on her album, and she wrote a song for that fan and did a duet with her and I almost cried. The fan literally helped make this album.
S:
We’ve had several people purchase several postcards. It’s overwhelming that if you give people the opportunity to help out, so many people will take that opportunity.
EW:
Cut out the middle person. People really like supporting artists that they’re into, so we’ve been really blessed.
S:
We’ve had a really positive reaction at live shows whenever we mention from the stage that we’re doing this on our own and we need help. It’s amazing. People love the idea of it. It’s not just hoots and hollers. People actually react and come and purchase stuff.
I was always fond of buying a drink for a band coming through town, but gas money seems a much better use of everybody’s time. What’s this documentary all about?
S:
It just slid in perfectly with work and planning. Vanessa is an actress and has been one forever. The DP on the last film she worked on was a fan of our music, and we invited him to come out with us. He expressed interest in working on a filmed documentary of the band. It just worked out that he cleared his schedule and just fit in perfectly with the band. It’s not as if there’s ever any kind of weirdness about this extra person hanging out. He’s just a great friend of the band. I don’t know how to describe it, but it just worked out.
EW:
We’re incredibly lucky that it came through. Chris has been busting ass, and I’ll wake up and see him literally sleeping on the RV floor. He’s amazing.
Are you going to repurpose the footage at all?
S:
We have a five-minute short that’s going to be released soon, though we’re not sure what it’s going to be released with. Later on after this full tour we’re doing, there’s going to be a twenty to thirty minute documentary of the whole thing. And it’s really focusing around the band doing it itself. It’s not just the antics of being on tour. It’s focusing on what we’re talking about so far.
Is there stuff that you’ve tried that hasn’t work? Advice to somebody who will ultimately be reading this?
S:
Definitely listen to Emily White. (Laughs) If we had listened to her five years ago we would’ve been a lot further down the road, though I think also if we had, we wouldn’t be here today. But seriously, I think that in rock and roll, it’s really hard to give the Internet as much credit as it’s due. Computers aren’t fun, computers aren’t cool, but it’s absolutely critical to be in touch with people. It’s a new era and a new age. And be creative. If you’re having fun people will have fun as well. Whether you had fun creating your artwork as a group, naming your group or making your album, it does reflect in the product no matter what it is.
EW:
Focusing on the work and the art is important. The art has to be amazing. I don’t think musicians should spend more than an hour or two a day on social networking. They should be rehearsing and writing and recording. It’s important and needs to be kept up but really cap it at two hours. We’re all here to support these artists and their music.
S:
I guess I neglected to say that because it’s such an automatic thing for me.
EW:
There are so many musicians that get too caught up in all the social networking stuff, and I think that can be overwhelming and dangerous.
Yea, I have found it can be a dangerous time suck as well…
S:
Back to the whole dynamic of the group and the roles. It’s been amazing that Joe, who is the band leader, producer, songwriter hasn’t been tethered to this business bologna at all. Of course we all make the decisions together, but he’s not getting on Twitter.
EW:
I don’t want his head in it. His head needs to be in music all the time.
S:
It’s really been ideal. If there’s an opportunity to divvy up jobs where it’s stress free, that’s the thing to do.
EW:
These guys are working their asses off. It’s really impressive.
S:
I want to reiterate “practice.” We’ve been playing forever, and it still isn’t enough. We spent six days a week since March from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. in our rehearsal space.
EW:
I wanted to say on the filmmaker thing, we have to be creative about those partners too. I know tons of video directors and filmmakers that are used to getting budgets from labels. But MTV doesn’t exist and YouTube doesn’t always give the rev share people need to get the money back. For Chris, we haven’t set exactly how we’re going to release that content. But that filmmaker is an artist too, and that’s part of the donation process.
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