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.
Pam Workman-Hilton is the Founder of Workman Entertainment and PR. Since childhood, Pam has been passionate about music, literature and the performing arts, but also very inspired the ideas behind business and entrepreneurialism. She first entered the music industry when she got an internship at MTV while pursuing a masters in journalism at New York University. This first internship deepened her interest in the music industry and led her to a second internship at VH1, which turned into a job in creative development and programming during VH1’s big “Music First” era in the mid-1990s. There, she was introduced to manager Bob Doyle (Garth Brooks) and his client, the renowned songwriter Billy Mann (Hall & Oates, Jessica Simpson, P!nk). She left VH1 to work with Bob as a management associate, eventually rising up in the ranks to creatively and administratively run his New York office.
When the bottom of the music industry as it had been previously been known began to fall out in 2000 because of the growing digital industry, Pam moved into the next phase of her career as a publicist. Thanks to her interest in technology and her vast experience on both the creative side and the business side of music, she has grown into a highly-specialized publicist who focuses on corporate music and music technology PR. With her own New York City-based company Workman Entertainment and PR, she now helps individuals in both corporate and entertainment arenas leverage modern media tools to build their brands and develop their careers. Most recently, she has worked with artists and entrepreneurs such as Eminem, Russell Simmons and Echo and the Bunnymen and also works closely with the New Music Seminar.
Pam spoke to me recently about her life as a publicist, the upcoming New Music Seminar and how artists can build their personal stories and their careers in a changing, digitally-driven world.
I want to ask you a little bit about your world view given you do a lot of events PR and corporate PR, although in many respects, the philosophy and underpinning is not that vastly different from what artists have to do to get noticed. Do you see your job as a publicist as helping pull a story from your clients and repackaging it? How do you look at your role?
PWH:
I look at my role as one that fits into all the crevices that aren’t being filled at any given time with any client, whether I am working with an indie band, a major label artist, a music technology startup or a national music organization. Granted, the larger organizations often have more infrastructure. But that’s not necessarily bulletproof in the sense of what one needs to be successful as a publicist. To be more specific, it’s not a cookie-cutter job. And I don’t believe anyone’s job in the music industry should be now. All of us have to be very creative and dynamic in terms of the services we offer and the skill sets we provide to the music community. The demands upon artists and companies to be successful are no longer linear. It’s this composite of things. For example, with an artist’s campaign, it’s not just “We have the radio in play, and you’re the publicist, and here’s the product manager.”
I remember the days where we would go about and there was just a cut and paste process. It doesn’t seem like there’s a specific process to an artist’s PR and Marketing campaign anymore.
PWH:
My point is that because there often isn’t a process, the team may be leaner, and the job may be bigger. I do traditional PR, and yes, my job is to get the story of the band, artist or company. But sometimes they don’t even know their story. Sometimes neither does their manager or label. It depends where they are in their career. And sometimes that story needs to be refreshed or reexamined. I think this is very 101, and I’m sure you’ve heard this many times, but having a great record does not a story make.
The line I always come back to is that “Dude Releases Record” is no longer newsworthy.
PWH:
That definitely sums it up.
What would you advise people that are looking for publicists or who are just saying, “I should do some blog outreach?” Is there an exercise or a process?
PWH:
Yes and no. I personally would advise any young artist or even mid-career artist, or anyone I work with to look for the unconventional opportunities. To me, getting a blog placement is fine. But getting involved with a charity you care about and being passionate about it and maybe getting the opportunity to perform at a charity event because you’re involved and you care, and then having your fans know you care about something other than your music starts to build a story about who you are.
I often advise people also that their music is unfortunately, or fortunately only one dimension. When you’re forced into a situation where you’re constantly generating some content or pitching to a niche, it involves living your passions as well.
PWH:
I guess we’re on the same page in the sense that I don’t want to say, “Don’t go after a blog hit.” And I think a blog would be more interested in a new band if they were doing something other than releasing their EP. I think identity is also really important. What’s your unique offering? And I don’t just mean the sound, but also visually, or literally “What do you have to say that’s different or fresh?” Maybe you’re from Hawaii and you spent your life surfing. To New Yorkers, that’s kind of different. I guess that’s why Jack Johnson is hip.
As marketing executives we all want the Jack Johnson story: “By the way, is there anything you do?” “Oh, yeah. I’ve been producing documentaries on the most famous surfers in the world for ten years. Does that help?”
PWH:
Right. You do have to start from somewhere. I think the people that are passionate about life and have things going on or are doing things beyond the realm of just putting a record out are at ground zero for the beginning of PR.
I’m going to switch gears on you a little bit. Tell me about what you’re doing for the New Music Seminar. As somebody that has that unique position to interact with all the panelists in a PR capacity, what are you noticing about the trends for the business? What have been some of your greatest takeaways about the changing music business?
PWH:
One of the first things that strikes me is that the story is still being written: the new business story. We’re in the middle of actually writing it. What’s exciting about the New Music Seminar (NMS) is that when you’re on the ground and experiencing it, you actually feel that happening. That is truly the unique takeaway that not only I get from the seminar, but that I think anyone who goes would likely get also. There is no pat answer today, so I think if you are excited by being a part of the solution and the conversation, the NMS is a very exciting place to be, whether you’re an artist, entrepreneur or an executive.
The other takeaway is simply that it’s a very exciting environment right now in that there are all kinds of new technologies and services that are being introduced, many of them at NMS. I don’t think any one of them will save the music business, but I do think there will ultimately be some composite of these services and this world that we’re learning about right now that will help us, if not succeed, definitely survive. Without them, I think we’ll see the value of copyrights continue to devolve, and I think the monetary solutions we’re currently attached to won’t grow, even on the digital side. There was a recent story in The New York Times that said we’re flat-lining in the digital world. I think all those things, if you’re an industry person, are cause for alarm. But if you’re an artist, it’s also concerning, because you want to know how to be heard, how to survive and how to make it work as a professional. I do think certainly that NMS will be educational to any artist that actually wants to understand what it will take to make music a career. Whether or not they can do it is a different story.
What’s refreshing to me about the seminar’s stance to me is that it doesn’t sound that anyone is saying, “We have the answers.” It sounds like you’re coming from a place of, “Here are some of the brightest people we know. We’re all trying to figure this out. Come and help us.” That’s the interesting thing to me.
PWH:
That’s definitely the most interesting thing to me too, and I think when I talk about the energy and the dynamic, that’s exactly where it comes from. You feel like you’re a part of making that a reality in action.
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You can learn more about Pam, her business and her roster of clients on the Workman Entertainment and PR website.
The New Music Seminar is coming up in L.A. February 14th-16th, 2011 in L.A.
Also, for the complete schedule of events at this year’s New Music Seminar and to register visit www.NewMusicSeminar.com. Use the 2 for 1 discount code by entering the secret code NMSLASE2322 when you select the Partner’s Discount tab on the registration page. You don’t want to miss this opportunity to take your career to the next level.
Amanda Cagan is a well known and very experienced music publicist. She started her career as an assistant at Levine/Schneider Public Relations – the firm that handled Janet Jackson, Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty among others in the 1990s. She subsequently worked with several different firms and has done PR for artists like Nickelback, Maroon 5, Green Day, Deftones and Korn among countless others. Amanda started her own firm called ABC PR just over eight years ago and she currently handles several artists including Silverchair, Jonny Lang, Sevendust, Dredg, Pierce The Veil, The Dear Hunter, The Cringe and American Hi-Fi. Amanda was kind enough to take time out of her day to speak to me about Music PR and how that role has changed.
Tell me about the challenges of a publicist when you first started in the 1990s. It seemed like so much more of a straight, Point A to Point B sort of business where you went out and developed your relationships with the journalists and editors that controlled the print media. What was your day in and day out like back then?
AC:
It was definitely different before the Internet became what it is today. When we were still Levine/Schneider Public Relations we had two computers for the entire music department that everybody had to sign up for to have their own chance to type up press releases. When I finally got my own computer myself, because I was Mitch’s (Schneider of Levine/Schneider) assistant and needed one, that was a very big deal. In 1995 when we moved to MSO (The Mitch Schneider Organization) that was right when America Online was starting. I remember a colleague of mine at MSO went to my computer guy’s office to learn about the Internet. We were blown away and had no idea what we were looking at or what the potential of all of it was. It was all very new to us. Before the Internet, I was making a lot more phone calls, faxing was a very big deal, because that’s how you got things out to people. I would have a fax trail of about 50 people, and I would have to stand there at a fax machine faxing a press release over and over again to all these different people like Rolling Stone and the LA Times and things like that.
My experience with publicity is that a large part of a publicist’s job is crafting a compelling story and pulling out their interests and their essence. Can you elaborate on that part of the job?
AC:
That’s what we as publicists have to grab from the artist. We have to look for what’s the particular story. If it’s just a matter a group of guys got together and formed a band because they are high school friends, that’s all well and good, but it’s not really very interesting, because frankly every person on every other block is forming their own band. You definitely had to dive deep into the artist’s mind and figure out what the good story is, and if someone has an interesting family background, if someone has famous relatives, if someone went through rehab, if someone went through the High School of Performing Arts and graduated with honors and won all these contests before signing a record deal, anything like that. That’s the main core about how we determine what is worthy to work and what’s not.
Once a band reaches a particular level, like when I was watching the rise of Alanis Morissette. People gravitated towards Jagged Little Pill, her first record, because of how brilliant it was. People at the time were learning about her story about how she was a Canadian pop princess and now was segueing into mainstream American rock and had joined forces with Glen Ballard who is a big time record producer. She signed with Madonna’s record label and that was a very big story, in addition to the fact that she is an amazing musician and wrote these incredible songs that were relatable to pretty much every girl in America. Then, of course, she went on to sell over 26 million copies of that album. It starts out with just the story, and then it explodes she had songs on the radio, and that’s when the press came calling. Everyone wanted to do interviews with her and book her on television shows. The radio success definitely helps. That’s still true- if a band isn’t played on the radio, it’s definitely going to make things harder when it comes to editors and TV bookers paying attention to them.
It really does seem that the more you have going in one area, the easier it is to get more going on- like rolling a snowball down a hill. What about for people who don’t yet have radio and famous producers etc.? In that case, what makes your job easier as a publicist? You can’t exactly say to somebody, “Go get interesting quick.” What have you seen from people that were everyday people, other than talent, that helps get press?
AC:
At the end of the day, it’s all about the music. If the music speaks for itself, an editor or anybody else in journalism will latch onto a band just because they like the music. It doesn’t matter if their story isn’t all that interesting or if they’re not played on the radio or not playing 300 shows a year. If they love the music, that’s what’s going to speak volumes to them, and that’s what they’re going to want to cover in order to expose the world to that particular artist. If you’re a band that is up and coming … that’s a good question. There are so many bands around that are trying to make a name for themselves, and certainly that makes my job a lot harder, because the more bands out there, the less space there is, the less time editors have to pay attention to the bands I’m pitching.
It’s almost like you have to do something explosive to get people to pause long enough to even listen.
AC:
Exactly. If you’re just starting out and don’t have the luck of being signed with a major label or don’t have the money to hire a publicist or a radio rep or anything like that, the best thing to do is to try to get in touch with journalists at the local publications, like the weekly publications, even if there are any city-based websites. For example, there’s LAist, there’s all of the Onion websites. Almost everybody lists email addresses on websites. If you look for writers that are writing about the same kind of music you’re doing, you can drop them a note and say, “Hey, I play in this band. I’d like to send you some music. Here’s a little bit about us.” With the regional publications, some are more open to getting in touch with local bands and have their own local coverage. That’s definitely a good way to start and get reviews.
If you can go to a prospective record label and say, “The San Diego Reader wrote this about our band,” and if it was an amazing review, that’s definitely something to add to the resume. That’s something worthy of doing. You’re not going to want to hit up the person that’s writing about Alanis Morissette and Vampire Weekend, because those editors are really busy with the A-Name artists, so they might not have the time to give you. For me, it’s always worth a shot, but just know if you send those editors a note or a package, they might not have the time to get back to you because they are so busy. I have to deal with that on a daily basis myself. Even though I’ve been in the business for almost 20 years, there are some editors, a lot of editors that are just busy. I just have to keep sending pitches their way and hope they will eventually get in touch with me, even if it’s just to say, “No.” That part of it never ends, but they have to at least let the journalists know they exist, if they feel like they’re in a good place where they think it’s time to be reviewed. If they just started a band last week and area already itching to put a demo together and get it out to people, they might want to wait a while and develop the band and make sure they’re submitting it when everything is on point. The editors will know when things sound amateurish or when they read something that’s amateurish.
Speaking of which, talk to me about presentations and marketing materials and dos and don’ts. I’m sure there are a lot of “Spinal Tap” moments.
AC:
You always want to try to be interesting, especially in photos. A band up against a brick wall, that’s definitely nice and boring, but if you’re working with a photographer that knows how to use filters or a fisheye lens or something that makes it interesting, great. Every band these days is all about making interesting photos. It’s not just about standing against a white wall anymore. That’s something to pay attention to. They could find a mural in their local town or go into an alley that looks beat up and use the scenery around them. If they’re a nature band, find a field somewhere and go take pictures there, or go into the desert or get all crunched up into the back of a car and take a picture there. The bio just should be the story of the band, how they got together, any of those interesting tidbits that might make it appealing to the editor: awards they might have won; if they’ve been able to open up at Coachella or any big festivals that were opening up in their town; if they won an unsigned band contest. Those are the kind of things to include in a bio. You just have to come up with something. If it’s just, “We really love music, and we decided to play.” That’s not going to be enough for some people. It’s not enough for me sometimes, and unless I totally love the band I wouldn’t necessarily sign a band that got together just because they love to play music. It’s like I said before, everybody and their mother is trying to do that these days. There has to be a hook. If a band was releasing a record today and are on their fourth record, I need some kind of story. It’s not just that this band is releasing a fourth record. It’s what did they do during recording? Did anything happen in their personal lives that I can use to make the story interesting to the editors?
What about the use of media? The assets? How important is it that a band collect B roll footage and photos and document their life for the purposes of distributing this content to social networks and to provide ammunition for a publicist or ammunition for themselves if they are their own publicist?
AC:
I think it’s very important. Most bands these days have flip cameras, cameras on their cell phones. So if you’re working on a song in a studio, record it. Do a tour diary if you’re going from town to town,. Record some of it and post it on a website, or, Myspace is still free, so create a really good-looking Myspace page and post video diaries and live footage of a performance. Sit and look into a camera and tell the story of who you are. That kind of thing fans really love, and I’m still telling that to my clients today to do that kind of thing. The fans eat it up. Even though me as one of the band’s employees might not look at that stuff every single day, there are kids all over the country that live and die by that stuff. They want to see what life is like on the road and know if bands are going to these cities they can only dream of going, what it’s like for their favorite bands to go and see. If a band is going into the studio for the first time ever, record it and say, “Our guitar player is laying down his first ever guitar tracks, and it’s the first time he’s ever been in a studio.” Make it interesting. Most people know how to edit videos. I see videos on Facebook all the time. Create those pages and get the word out, and tell your friends and they will tell two friends and so on and so on, and you create the buzz that way. Those online assets are very important.
Do you get a lot of mileage when bands are able to find their way into photos with more established artists, or for artists that are adept at getting themselves in a collaboration or in the same room with other artists? Is there an upside to this kind of co-branding? Does that make your job easier when someone is standing next to someone of considerably more celebrity?
AC:
That kind of thing is definitely appealing. If you’re a new band and someone of a big name shows up at your concert, and you get a photo of everybody together or live footage of everybody together that is definitely a great angle to let people know what’s happening. It’s posting it on the MySpace page or contacting your local media outlet and saying, “Hey, So-and-So showed up at our concert last week and we have footage if you want me to send it.” It definitely helps. With any of my clients, if I ever get photos like that I always use them as much as possible. When I was working with Deftones and they were in the studio, and Robert Smith of the Cure happened to be in the studio at the very same time, and I wound up getting a photo together of the band with Robert Smith and sent that out to magazines and that was published in a bunch of places. That kind of thing is never ending, and definitely a really good hook. If you’re lucky enough to be in the same room with someone, try to get a picture or get it on video and work it.
Knowing what you know now, if you were all of a sudden 18 and an artist or starting your life over as an artist, what would you look for in hiring a publicist? There are so many people out there that are hanging up a shingle that have good track records or not good track records. What would you look for in a publicist?
AC:
There are publicists in most cities that advertise on their own. If you look in your local music publications, most of the time you’ll see advertisements for publicists that work with local artists. Even though they might not be working with the clientele that I might be working with, if they work on the street level and have delivered for other local artists, I would definitely give them a chance. They’re not going to charge you an arm and a leg, but they are going to charge something. The band just has to know that everybody has to have their services paid for and be realistic that way. Even if they are a local publicist, they still have to make money to keep their lights on, and frankly the band is paying for the traction the publicist has with editors and anyone else that they feel might be able to give them some traction. If they have connections at some websites that are open to covering unsigned artists, then might as well give that local publicist a chance, and maybe give it two or three months, because it usually takes that long to get coverage. Coverage does not happen overnight unless you’re Vampire Weekend or Britney Spears. If you’re a local band, it’s going to take time. You have to get music to the editor and give them time to listen to it, and then the time to actually get the coverage together to appear. I would investigate in your area to see if there are people like hat who will work with up and coming artists. If you feel you’re at another level, you could do an online search for other publicity firms. Most of us have websites these days. You go by the clients they’re working with. If they are working with the kind of music you’re playing, and if you feel you’re at a stage where you have a good story to tell, are going to be doing a lot of shows, have a manager in place, if you’re on the way to getting a record label or have investors that are working on getting you a label deal, definitely work the Internet. Look for companies that would be suitable for you. Otherwise, hit up your local people and develop that relationship. Maybe in the long run if things really explode, that publicist can grow with the band, and that’s a nice way to start a loyal team also.
If a band only has $500 a month to spend on services, they shouldn’t be contacting very established PR people. Don’t get me wrong, I’m doing this because I love it, my other buddies are doing it because they love it, but we also have our limits to what we can and will work. Everyone has their own set of rules they live by and guidelines for working with new clients. Hiring a publicist is really just a matter of getting a good vibe from someone, someone that has the experience in working the kind of music you’re playing and someone knowledgeable about who the proper editors are to be pitching- because that information changes daily. If you’re an up and comer and can find someone local who wants to take a chance on you and get you exposed to the people necessary to get the ball rolling, I would consider those people first and foremost.
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Fore more information on Amanda and her PR firm check out her company- ABC-PR
Jonathan Cargill is a partner in the Labels Jagjaguwar, Secretly Canadian, Dead Oceans and the companies Bellwether Manufacturing and SC Distribution. He makes management decisions for all of these companies but his areas of expertise are publicity and music licensing / placement. Jonathan and his partners have had a great deal of success of late with artists like Bon Iver, Black Mountain, Okkervil River and Antony and the Johnsons.
First of all – tell me how you got into the business and wound up running all these different companies?
JC:
I knew I was going to be involved with music. I thought I was going to be a rock star, but I definitely learned very early that I wasn’t going to be a rock star. I was managing a cafeteria at a university dormitory, and one of my employees – someone I had connected with and who had similar musical tastes and career aspirations – ended up being my partner Chris Swanson. After talking for at least a year, we decided, “Let’s just jump in and do this.” So he called upon his brother, and we pooled our collective savings. We knew of an artist, so we raised the money to press his CD. And once we had the CD, we realized we had to do something with these. We jumped in and figured it out and made a lot of calls and found distributors and a store. We just got some lucky breaks early on to the point where we had distributors and their attention, and it grew from there.
About how long ago was this and which of these companies came first?
JC:
This was Secretly Canadian in 1996. Our first release was an album called “Gloria Hole” by June Panic, which came out September of 1996. It just grew from there, to give you more in-depth background about what goes on here in Bloomington, Indiana. After a couple years of doing Secretly Canadian, we connected with Darius Van Arman who was running Jagjaguar Records by himself in Charlottesville, VA. We connected with him because we saw some early Jagjaguar releases in stores that were compared to Secretly Canadian artists, which made us intrigued. We got to know Darius, and in 1998, Darius moved Jagjaguar from Charlottesville to Bloomington to hang out with us and have a little brain trust of struggling labels. From there, things kind of happened organically. We also have Bellwether Manufacturing and SE Distribution running out of our office. Those came about organically because we realized we were paying too much to get our CD’s manufactured. So we did a bunch of research and cut out the middleman and started working with CD manufacturing plants directly. That’s pretty much how distribution came about, because we a) didn’t have distribution and b) the people we worked with weren’t paying, so we took matters into our own hands.
Fast forward to today- we run the companies Secretly Canadian, Jagjaguar, Dead Oceans, Bellwether Manufacturing and SE Distribution out of our offices.
You are a partner in all of these companies but what are your areas of expertise?
JC:
From the beginning, we all realized that we’re all partners and we all make macro decisions, but we have to specialize and have a division of labor. We found that pretty naturally, because we had people that were interested or had the expertise. Since there were four of us with four different backgrounds, we naturally went to our own positions. For the first eleven years I was the publicist for Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguar. Then as we hired more publicists, my role morphed. That’s when I got into the film and TV licensing. That happened out of necessity because we were getting a lot of inquiries and not really knowing what to do with them or how to handle them. I stepped up to learn how to do all that.
I am guessing that because the phone was ringing you were able to build relationships and did a handful of cold calling as well to build up a roster of people to place with? Is that how that worked?
JC:
Definitely. I did it the same way I built up the Rolodex of publicity contacts but with film and TV executives. It was figuring out who’s who and how to contact them.
You really had to build this from scratch.
JC:
Yeah, but I don’t know what else I was doing, so I figured I’d just jump in and make it work. The first six years of Secretly Canadian, I also had a full-time job. It was just a super hobby, because the label was also another 40 hours. It got to the point where something had to give, and I decided to follow rock and roll. It was really a tough decision because I was taking a large pay cut and jumping into the unknown, but I just knew it was something I wanted to do.
Musician Coaching: What attracts you to an artist that makes you consider putting their records out on either of the labels you work with? What do you look for in an artist?
JC: It’s a mixture of things that makes an artist attractive. The gateway is the music, and it has to be unanimous that we’re feeling the same about the music. There are times where someone is on the fence or didn’t like it, but there’s a due process for any band that someone really likes. We all have to connect on it. The magic combo is artists that make great music, aren’t afraid to work, achieve the things they want and just aren’t assholes. That’s kind of the way we look at it. We’ve been pretty fortunate with finding artists who have these qualities.
The way we look at it is we’re not in the business to release one record by a band and then try to cash in and walk away from it. There are a lot of labels that do that, and that’s not what we’re about. It’s a partnership. “We’ll bust our ass for you and this is what we can offer.” We don’t tell them this, but it’s an understanding, “We hope that you’ll bust your ass and do such and such thing. Don’t be afraid to tour, connect with your fans with your website or MySpace. Do things that bands should be doing if they want to get heard.” I think symbiotic relationships are ultimately the most successful.
How are you finding the role of being a label now that there are so many tools are in artists’ hands?
JC:
There are definitely bands that I don’t know why they come to us because they act like they don’t need us or necessarily want us, and that’s fine. There are plenty of bands that can do that. We’re really transparent and say, “This is who we are, this is what we offer, this is what we think we can do.”
In your particular case that’s your licensing and PR relationships. What do the others focus on?
JC:
We have robust and timely accounting. We’re very transparent. The steps we take can be seen by our artists. They get their statements from us, and they know what we spent and where we spent it and the money they made, where it’s all going. That’s a big thing. I think there are labels that don’t do well with accounting. We have in-house manufacturing and distribution, so we know they’ll get a quality product; their albums are going to look good and sound great. We also have a network to get their CD’s in stores or onto digital service providers.
I would guess you are getting good placement in the indie retailers that matter.
JC:
I think so. We’ve had relationships with these stores for over a decade now. That’s particularly good for us, because all members of the label are also project managers. We all have our own bands that we work with. If they have any questions or there’s any problem with the distribution, we can just walk over there and ask why there aren’t CD’s in a particular store, etc.
What advice would you give for artists looking to get more press and looking to get their material licensed?
JC:
I think for press, it’s easier now than ever. The whole blog explosion has definitely leveled the playing field a bit. First of all, I think it’s good for a band to be very realistic. If you think you recorded an album and now you’re going to be on the cover of Alternative Press, it doesn’t work that way. I personally think it’s easy for bands – especially unsigned bands – to create a ground swell that will attract the attention of labels, booking agents, promoters, bigger publications. I think that’s been the big revolution in media recently.
Do you think by going after enough attainable periodicals and blogs, someone can snowball that into getting bigger and better press and opportunities?
JC:
I think so. Especially f a band can couple that with being on the road a lot. It’s always good for a band to tour as much as they can and as much as they can afford. That’s where you’re going to connect with your audience. That’s what I want. If I hear a record I really like, I want to go see them and see how they do it live and get a sense of their personality. I think that’s what drives fans and what being a fan is. That’s how you attract them – by creating an attention. Blogs can do that, and if you have some blog in Minneapolis talking about your band and show up in a week or a couple days, it starts to connect. People remember your name and they tell their friends. I think the whole grassroots thing is incredibly important and very strong.
What about on the licensing front?
JC:
That’s a different beast. There are plenty of success stories of unknown bands getting key placements. With bigger magazines – if you’re shooting for Rolling Stone – you’re someone at the mercy of the editor. If the editor likes it, then he assigns it to a writer. I think it’s the same way with licensing to film and TV. You have to find the right music supervisor. They either have to really like it, or it just has to be the perfect song for the perfect scene. That’s the wild card with film and TV. It has to be right for the scene. It’s hard for some bands to understand that, and they ask, “How come we’re not on Grey’s Anatomy?”
I would imagine it’s a lot easier for you than for an artist doing this on their own, because you’re calling constantly and not just with one band’s worth of material.
JC:
Right. I also get a lot of searches for supervisors that will call looking for the perfect cue for a scene, and it’s incredibly specific. A lot of times, I just don’t have anything for that. 90% of the time it’s that way. That could be anything. But that connection is, you just have to get you music heard by the right people. Because when the right scene comes up and you have the perfect song for it, it’s going to happen. You just have to make sure they know to look for your song.
Any advice on doing that? Get your music heard in a way that’s not obtrusive?
JC:
Finding these people is not that hard – that’s what Google is for. There are hundreds of people selling mailing lists. I don’t know the validity of those places, but when I started, I went online and for $30 bought a mailing list that had music contacts of film production and TV production companies, or directly to music supervisors and just started sending them music. Sending the CD in the mail is not obtrusive at all because that’s these people’s job. Their job is to absorb as much music as they can so they can find a perfect home for it. They are actually seeking music, you just have to meet their demand. It’s obtrusive if you’re calling them every day saying, “Hey – place my music in Grey’s Anatomy.”
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