Posts Tagged ‘Music Manager’

In Part four, I discussed some best practices for turning friends into managers on a trial basis.  This option may not work for everyone though.  Perhaps as much as you love your friends they can’t seem to get out of their way long enough to manage their own lives, let alone your career.  It may be time to find your way into the office of a professional music manager.  This, however, is often easier said than done.

Approaching a music manager should be thought of like approaching an investor with a start up company that you are looking to get funded.  When trying to get someone to invest in a start up it is always easier to get people to contribute when a business has momentum and is well beyond the blueprint phases meaning it is either on it’s way towards being profitable or already profitable.  It is essential that you have this in your consciousness when you approach someone to invest his or her time in your project.  It is also essential that you have in mind exactly what your business selling points are above and beyond what your music sounds like – it’s very rarely enough that your music sounds great.

A great deal of being successful in your approach has to do with understanding the perspective of people on the industry side of the fence.  It is about appreciating how overwhelming it can be to sit behind a desk where dreams go to die and how inundated successful music managers are with people who want something from them.  Keeping this in mind here are some best practices in making an approach

1) Don’t go in cold:

If at all possible find someone who knows a music manager with a decent roster or another type of music executive who would be willing to make an introduction for you.  Not at all a revolutionary idea but surprisingly one that is often overlooked.  Begin to ask friends and acquaintances directly if they know people who work with music.  It really doesn’t matter if it is your friend’s cousin’s roommate – something about being vouched for – even if it is 2-3 degrees of separation can really help create initial contact.

2) Present well:

This is a snippet of a real email I got recently from someone looking for help:

“i luv 2 sing , it is my world &ill never giv up. im already doin dis thing myself&i hav a guy dats a friend dat sing 2. im thinkn abt goin 2 college n persue my career @ da same time.wat shood i do 2 b well-kNown??”

Needless to say if your point of first contact is through email – use spell check.  You aren’t texting a friend of yours drunk at some bar – you are trying to make valuable connections that will serve you in your music career for a long time to come.  Whether first contact is spoken or written however – take baby steps.  Your goal is to meet someone first – not to sign a management contract in perpetuity within the first 30 seconds.  There are just too many aspiring musicians to respond to all of them when you are a manager or an executive with successful clients – they have to pick and choose who they pay attention to.  My experience is that most people respond, even to cold calls or emails, if you present yourself well.

3) Be Specific and mention business accomplishments:

Write thoughtful and individually tailored emails to potential targets (Generic form letters often fall flat and also tend to reek of desperation).  Why are you targeting this executive specifically?  What did they do with their career or their client’s careers or who suggested you reach out?  Give them business reasons to reach out to you – it’s not about “I’m the best singer in the world” it’s about – “I’ve got a mailing list of 1500 people or “my shows are selling out” or  “I just did demos with a guy who worked with other artists you have heard of…”

4) Take it Slow & Provide Value

You could say -  “I want you to manage me…” but every manager has different ways of working – the person you are approaching could be the complete wrong fit in spite of their successes with other clients.  Saying this to a stranger is about as reasonable as proposing on a blind date prior to shaking someone’s hand.

You may be better served by saying “I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee and get your advice” or “I love what you did with the marketing plan on your client X and was curious if I could ask you a few questions…” or  if you are really crafty come up with another compelling business reason that this executive could benefit from knowing you.  Perhaps – “I would gladly do demos at my studio for some of your artists in exchange for some advice” or  “I am connected to a bunch of artists and producers that you should probably know about or “I can help you promote shows locally”.  These are all business reasons that I have watched artists use to further their relationships with executives.  It may not be necessary to do so- but it is a good option and can help build relationships.

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Where does that leave you?  Well – hopefully it leaves you-

• Asking your network for leads on introductions to qualified music executives.
• Thinking out your business pitch prior to sending email or picking up the phone.
• Determining what you do or who you know that could be good conversation currency for relationship building.
• Using Spell Check and keeping in mind that you are asking very busy people for their most precious commodity – their time.

I’ll be back soon for the next installment of the music manager series where I go over the investor / manager and momager and dadager phenomenon.  If you missed it check out my interview with Music / Tour  Manager Dave Lory from the New Music Seminar

In Part three- I was discussing the different types of managers.  One could argue there are other archetypes and lots of people mix and match attributes from different groups but from my almost twenty years in music on both sides of the fence- these are the four basic types I have come across:

1) Friends and acquaintances turned managers

2) Professional music executives

3) Momagers and Dadagers

4) Investor / Managers

Let’s go over the friend turned manager option first as this is probably the most attainable type of manager.  I have seen this scenario play out many times and can tell you that if you are not careful you can damage both your career and your friendships if this is done wrong so pay attention and be open and honest with your would be manager from day 1.

This person should be:

• Responsible
• Trustworthy
• Free of drug, gambling and sex addictions (I wish this was a joke)
• Good at handling his or her own finances
• A natural networker who is great at meeting people and very like-able
• Willing and eager to learn more about being a good manager
• Someone who has a desire to make a living in music

Identifying your friend the possible manager isn’t always that difficult – it is seeing them with unclouded eyes that can be the hard part.  I urge you to go over the list above in your head with anyone you are considering.  If it becomes obvious that your buddy who is supposed to help you load out after the show often disappears only to resurface days later asking to borrow money and wondering aloud what herpes look like – keep looking – this is probably not your manager.

Unless you are 100% sure that this person is the only person you want to manage you- I would suggest you have a conversation with the friend turned manager that you are going to do some kind of trial period to see how things work out with the professional relationship.  In doing so you set up reasonable expectations for both sides and you schedule a date (the end of the trial period) to go over your working relationship.  Another reason to set this relationship up as a trial arrangement is that it is not uncommon for bands to outgrow management.  You have probably seen it your travels as well – the guy or gal who was great at making sure all the gear was packed up and that merch got sold started to be outclassed when questions like “How much should we ask for this Sync license?” or “What kind of door deal do most other acts of our size get?” started to arise.

Still, I am a believer in converting friends into managers if you are lucky enough to have hardworking friends who are eager to learn.  People who are willing to do this kind of work for a fledgling artist, usually for free, are worth their weight in gold.  There are many stories of very successful music managers who started out this exact way and, of course, there are plenty of stories about people like this who got blown out in favor of someone with more experience the minute things started heating up for the artist.  I suggest you remember not to put 100% of your expectations on a manager of any kind to make things happen.  Yes- they should be generating new business opportunities as well as managing your existing opportunities but it is also up to you to continue these business efforts as well.

Along those lines, don’t just hire someone and say “You’re our manager now”.  I see this all the time and it drives me up a proverbial wall.  If you are hiring someone and entrusting them to represent your artistic efforts when you are not around you had better have a very clear understanding of what you want from this person and please for the love of God don’t drop generic bullshit on them like “I want to get to the next level”.

The plan for your success has to start with you so instead of saying “we want to be big” or “we want to be successful”  (as if anyone with half a brain was formulating a plan to ensure that you were doomed to failure in the garage) you should have a roadmap of the next few months that you can communicate.  This is important no matter what kind of manager you have but especially with one who is rather new.  If you are having trouble figuring out what you need to start with – here are a few of the standard artist build hurdles

• We want to play live more often and in other markets
• We want to improve our live draw through promotion and marketing
• We want to build our mailing list
• We want to build our network of other artists for show trades and collaboration
• We want to record more music of better quality with better people in the studio.
• We want to have more products and merch to sell to people
• We want our own e-commerce website to sell products as well as distribution through all major digital service providers.
• We want our bio and EPK to look professional and be regularly updated
• We want to begin to establish relationships with Music Supervisors and Booking agents

To summarize – the friend turned manager is not a bad option provided that you

• Choose the right person
• Start on a trial basis (if possible)
• Be open and honest with this person.
• Be very candid that there may come a day that one party may outgrow the other and have an understanding that you will negotiate in good faith should that day ever arise.
• Have a detailed plan with regard to the work needed and the compensation owed to this person for that work.

I will detail the approach on more established managers in the next installment. In the meantime check out this interview with an established music manager

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.

Music Consultant:

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.

Music Consultant:

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.”

Music Consultant:

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.

Music Consultant:

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.

Music Consultant:

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.

Music Consultant:

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.

Music Consultant:

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.

Music Consultant:

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.

Music Consultant:

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.

Music Consultant:

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?

Music Consultant:

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.

Or is it great managers make great bands?  Chicken and the egg I suppose.

As some of you recall I interviewed Emily White of Whitesmith Entertainment about music and management not too long ago. She had just started working with a group called Family of the Year. Granted Emily is a gifted manager and got the band in front of the right people but I thought it would be interesting for everyone to see the progress they have made in the last few weeks. They are doing some interesting things to tie in show attendance with their new release and some cool promotion ideas.  I won’t tell if you decide to steal these ideas.

I suppose it might seem odd to interview a band that hasn’t made it but when I speak to people who have followings they tend to speak more about maintenance than building…

From Emily @ Whitesmith:

The band is releasing their debut EP, Where’s The Sun on their brand new imprint, Washashore, which will be available exclusively by donation on 9/22 at FamilyOfTheYear.Net and up on itunes/amazon via Tunecore, shortly after:

People who show up at the 9/16 Knitting Factory (LA) show will get an advance DL code for free (7:30 set time, fyi). The band also plays The Knitting Factory on 9/27.

After interest from various agents after playing only TWO shows, the band signed with Steve Ferguson at Paradigm on Wednesday. Steve immediately locked a support slot at The Troubadour (10/12) and The Great American Music Hall in San Fran (supporting World/Inferno Friendship Society) and is working on an East coast tour around CMJ.

The band will be playing the Whitesmith Entertainment/Indaba Music showcase at The Living Room at CMJ on 10.21 and Whitesmith/CASH Music party at Crash Mansion on 10.20.

To help fund the trip for CMJ, the band is doing an “Old-School Twitter” promotion. Next week, we are launching the EP promo page that will also allow fans to buy a postcard for $5.

The real postcard is a much better quality image

FOTY will send you a postcard from the road as a thank you to help fund their trip. However, before it gets popped in the mail, we will scan it and upload the various postcards online, so fans can look online where their piece of the tour story falls in the collection.

Also, we are collecting email addresses with Google Voice at shows. The band made this sign to show it off during their set.

I would like to say that this band is moving forward so quickly for three reasons:

1. They made incredible music. I say all the time “make great art.” We tend to get caught up in all of these business models, platforms, and strategies and sometimes I think both the artist and industry forget why were actually here.

2. They’ve been blessed with a team of volunteers and early supporters (not all Whitesmith) to help out with the band for the love of it. We couldn’t do it without them. But don’t over think this, it’s about 5 people total ranging from an 18 year old Boston University intern who is currently in classes and helps in his spare time.

3. The band all know their roles and are each bringing something to the table. Joe Keefe (lead vocal/guitar/piano) has his head in songwriting, that’s where it belongs. His brother Sebastian (drums/acoustic guitar/vocal) is the liaison from me to the other 5 members of the band. He makes sure everyone stays on the time line we set in place. Christina (keyboards) has a day job at a PR firm and helped to write the bio, skin the Twitter page, and runs the MS and FB page (so great when it’s genuinely the artist and not one of my peeps!). Vanessa (female lead) has been designing the EP and merch artwork as well as hooked up a film crew for their first show, who owed her dad a favor. Jamesy (electric guitar) is a sound guru and has been handling all of the mixing and mastering that we’d otherwise have to pay for, even though we self-recorded everything in their rehearsal space). And newest member Brent (bass) is a web designer. They are like trivial pursuit pieces of pie that all fit together perfectly. I am honored to work with Family Of The Year.

—————

The band also quickly wrote a song based on a Twitter trending topic (yesterday) RT @FamilyOfTheYear exclusive song for today’s trending topic: “When We Were Little”
#wheniwaslittle

I often get asked by clients about the best way to find a great
manager. It is no easy task attracting a manager who can really
deliver. I recently met Emily White of Whitesmith Entertainment at
the New Music Seminar and, having heard her speak, I realized that she
was very familiar with the business and was damn good at her job.
Whitesmith Entertainment handles Margaret Cho, Alina Simone, Sydney
Wayser, Family of the Year and others.

Emily started her music business career as an intern for Amanda
Palmer of The Dresden Dolls and began working as The Dresden Dolls’
tour manager. Before starting Whitesmith Entertainment with partner
Keri Smith Esguia, Emily worked with artists like Paolo Nutini,
Keller Williams and Amanda Palmer (when she went solo). I decided
to ask Emily about what she was looking for in prospective clients
and about how artists build businesses in general.

Musician Coaching:
I get artists often asking me how to find a good manager. Along those
lines, what makes a client attractive to you for management? How do
you go about client selection?

Emily:
For one, I don’t want to care more about the artist’s career than
they do. An artist needs to be passionate about their career and
have already displayed a willingness to work. We [Whitesmith
Entertainment] tend to go after artists that have more than one
thing going on.

Margaret Cho, who we manage, is a comedian, an
actress, an author and has a music album coming out. Another client
we signed a few months ago named Alina Simone approached me and she
had a book deal in place, an album done and lots of press and tour
dates lined up. So we also look for artists who need something or
who have an existing business that needs managing.
I get artists approaching me all the time but we’re not miracle
workers. It’s not like I alone can make tours happen without the
artist having already put the time into their own career.

Musician Coaching:
Speaking of tour, what would be your advice for artists just starting up looking to break out of their home market or just building a following
locally?

Emily:
Oh gig swaps definitely – Trading an opening slot with a band
in your market for an opening slot for them in a market where they
draw well. It’s so easy with the internet – start looking for bands
in other cities on MySpace and reach out to them, you know?

Musician Coaching:
What I did in my band’s home market was befriend the one guy
who started booking my band’s gigs and asked him what a good match
for my band and I convinced the promoter to let me in for free and
hand out flyers and meet the band and network that way. I met great
local and regional bands that were a good fit for my band. It also
worked when asking about bands in the next town over.

Emily:
I can’t stress enough how getting shows is about 80% artist
to artist and only 20% from people like us [she vaguely gestures
back and forth over our green tea that has gotten cold]
there is always this assumption that “if I get an agent I will get
all these tours…” For example Trent Reznor saw an early Dresden
Dolls video on MTV2 and it was he who put them on tour with Nine
Inch Nails.

Musician Coaching:
That was my experience playing on a local level but you have
seen this all the way up to major acts like NIN?

Emily:
Oh yea, I mean our (The Dresden Dolls’) management had good
relationships with NIN’s management so I mean having good executive
relationships helped but ultimately that decision came from Trent
Reznor.

Musician Coaching:
So you would say artist networking then is very important?

Emily:
Totally! I mean Amanda (Palmer of The Dresden Dolls) was
always great at that. We would be at European festivals and I would
come back to the trailer and there she would be chatting with Elvis
Costello…Good girl!

Another artist we work with, Sydney Wayser, was at the Wanderlust
festival. She’s 22, totally brand new and this was one of her first
big festivals. I told her “your job is to go out and give your CD
and chitchat with Andrew Bird and Jenny Lewis and all your favorite
people that are here.” Sydney is shy, but she did a great job. So
that is much more effective than me talking to Andrew Bird or me
talking to Andrew Bird’s manager or anything like that.

Margaret Cho is another great example of effective artist
networking. She had a list of about thirty to forty artists she
wanted to work with for her upcoming album. Keri and I reached out
to artists that we knew and all of their managers and followed up
but eventually we exhausted our resources as managers. Margaret and
I went to Bonnaroo together and I told her it that what we needed to
get out of attending Bonnaroo was her sealing the deal with artists
directly and she absolutely did. Yes, we had been talking to the
Decemberists but when she was trying on sunglasses with them at the
Kaenon booth and told them about her album…that’s actually how that
happens. I think artists definitely need to establish those
relationships.

Musician Coaching:
Bringing this back to a more local and regional level, would you
say that for bands just starting out that approaching the big local
band is acceptable? For example in the case of your artists, who
tend to be artists with a great deal going on, are they willing to
give out advice to smaller bands if they are approached?

Emily:
Sure. Amanda was open to it. There is nothing wrong with
approaching a big local artist. I mean, I hesitated in approaching
The Dresden Dolls in 2003 because they were a big local band and I
figured they were doing fine but when I met Amanda and I said “I
intern at WBCN and write for this magazine and I’m a music business
major. Let me know if you ever need help with anything,” her
response was “Can you please come over tomorrow?” You’d be
surprised. Even bigger bands always need help.

Musician Coaching:
Good one. Changing gears, I often get approached about music
licensing for artists on their own. You’ve had some success at
that. Where does that come from? Is shotgunning stuff at music
supervisors of any value?

Emily:
Most of my bands are a little too weird for that. The Dresden
Dolls got some placement in the show Weeds and in a commercial in
Austria. I think with regard to licensing the placements Moby got
cracked it wide open and it became acceptable and not selling out
and it’s great exposure so people began to flock to that.

Musician Coaching:
The moment things seemed cracked open for me was Led Zeppelin’s
music in a Cadillac commercial.

Emily:
Yeah, that is an awesome way you can get exposure and make
money. It’s an ideal route but everybody is onto it so it is
incredibly competitive. As a result, it’s just not at the top of my
priority list. I do have some incredible relationships with some
music supervisors and people that shop songs but, again, some of my
best successes with that has been music supervisors who are fans or
again from the artists themselves.

Musician Coaching:
Going back to building something and having people come to you?

Emily:
Yeah. For example, Family of the Year [a band Whitesmith
just picked up for management in the last week] already had two
films interested. Granted, one of the members is an actress but the
band is very licensable. In general, most of my artists are a bit
too unique. I mean, when it happens, it happens and when it happens, it
can REALLY happen and pay well and do well but it is just such an X
factor. It’s a hard thing to count on.

Musician Coaching:
Tell me about what you think are must dos for artists out there

Emily:
Email list is absolutely number one, data collection. Having your own
website is key, using Google analytics which is free, fanbridge is
free to start an account and have an email list… All the stuff is out
there, you just have to have it organized. It definitely helps to
have a web savvy friend.

Musician Coaching:
With all the online tools now do you utilize the online feedback
on MySpace etc for song choices or single choices from the fans? Does
that kind of feedback ever determine what winds up on an album?

Emily:
Not yet, but it could. I think if we did it that way there
would have to be a promotional tie-in, some kind of contest.

Musician Coaching:
So back to basics again, if you were to start over from scratch
with an artist, what would you do? What would be the plan?

Emily:
I am so lucky to be doing that with Family of the Year right
now. I have this amazing music that they self-recorded so we are
literally starting from scratch. We booked them a few shows in L.A.
and we are bringing them in for CMJ. We started growing the email list
after taking names from their old band’s mailing list.

Musician Coaching:
How are you growing that?

Emily:
The social networks, pen and paper at the merch stand. It
also helps to have a cute intern go around the room and ask for
emails. We also set up a Google voice number so that people can
text in email addresses. We used to just call out a crew member’s
cell number from stage and get email addresses texted to them.

As for the real basics of band business, they were already
registered with BMI but we have registered the new songs. We are
figuring out what domain names to buy and getting Google analytics in
place. I mean we had the MySpace page up first. It’s kind of a one-
sheet for a band. Here’s the music, here are the tour dates, here’s
the email list etc.

Musician Coaching:
I look at having a MySpace page as being in the phonebook and
not usually much more important than that but, then again, you have to
be in the phonebook.

Emily:
Yeah and that is something that is easy for a band to set up.
We are cleaning up all their web properties and we are going to
release a digital EP in September.

Musician Coaching:
What is your philosophy on getting fans on MySpace? Is that
something you actively seek out?

Emily:
We absolutely do seek that out, in particular with Alina
Simone because she is at home writing for the next six months and
she’s shy. She’s on Twitter but not on it as much as other people.
I’m having someone I work with reach out to fans of similar artists
(PJ Harvey, Cat Power) and asking them if they have heard of Alina.
We feel she needs it.

Musician Coaching:
Thanks so much for taking the time to sit down with me. I’d be
thrilled to know more about Family of the Year as the story develops
so please let’s have them check in or you check in again soon!