What should I do to become a band manager?

Sam sent me a message asking what I recommend for someone about to graduate high school and interested in artist management.  College or experience?  Sam mentioned the degrees in music and asks if that’s something he should pursue…he’s working with a couple local bands, but wonders what management companies, like mine, look for in new candidates.

Topic – Path to become a manager
Which is better, experience or a degree, to become an artist manager?

Advice:
Sam…go to school.  Seriously…go.   We are in an incredibly exciting time as all the rules and methods are changing.  I’m learning every day…and the biggest lesson… the way in which the music industry has functioned for over half a century no longer works.  WE get to redefine how to manage, develop, and possibly break artists.  So you’re most likely saying to yourself, “that all sounds like experience…right?!”

Here’s the thing.  When I was about to graduate high school, I was in your exact shoes…I wanted to manage bands but had no clue how to get there.  My high school band (I played guitar) was managed by Darren Lewis (manager of Everclear who at the time had their big album “Sparkle and Fade”) and I learned a lot by listening and watching and soon realized I liked what he did more than what I was doing in the band.  I decided management was my calling but had no clue how I’d realize it.  So, by default and buying time, I went to college until I could figure out how I’d land in either LA or NY.  In the process I graduated with both a Humanities and Business Finance degree…neither specifically related to music at all.  BUT, I’d read EVERYTHING I could get my hands on about the music business and self-applied what I learned in college to the lessons taught by industry professionals in these books.  So I had a rough idea of how things worked.  From there you can read the “About Me” section and follow the path…

As a manager, if you’re a good one, your job is to run businesses.  Your job is to find a way for your band to make more money than it spends…to develop fan bases, to build relationships, to sell product, to run an efficient machine, to brand manage, to target market, and so on.  Every day I’m grateful for my business education and even more grateful for my finance background.  It will be your job to build tour budgets, merch cost/revenue models, band operating expenses, insurance, studio budgets, marketing budgets, revenue forecasts, etc…there’s more to it than updating myspace pages.  Again, you’re running a business…get a business degree.

There are certainly some who jump in and run, and that’s great…but I’ve seen a lot of those guys fade quick…especially now.  It’s just too hard to “wing it” in today’s climate.  Now there are certainly some fundamentals you MUST know and understand.  I highly recommend hopping on Amazon.com and start buying every industry book you can find…and read every word beginning to end.  And don’t just read…absorb.  Take those as life lessons.

I also highly recommend interning during the summers.  Be available, open, learn, watch, listen…immerse yourself in what you love and want to be.  That will help with the “experience” side of your education and application of lessons.

I personally like seeing a college education on a resume.  It shows me you have the determination, follow through, patience, background, discipline, and character others don’t.  If you don’t take the time to invest in yourself by obtaining a degree, why would I think you’re going to invest the time necessary to build and develop a business for our bands?

Beside, when this all goes to hell you’ll have something to fall back on…you’ll thank me then! ; )

Ben

I was told to manage my band…now what?!

I received two similar e-mails, one from Elle who is just starting out as a manager and one from Joe who has been tasked with taking on the management role for his own band.  Both seem to have a good gut as to what needs to happen at first, i.e. book shows, work on music, begin recording, starting to see a draw… But both are now left with how to tackle the bigger picture…

Topic – Managing a band
How did I get stuck with this….and what do I do?!

Advice:
Run.  Just drop everything and run as far away from managing a band as possible!!

Hahaha…I kid.

I really like this question because whether you’re a new manager or the band member who handles all the business there are certain things you must address.  But before we go into the hit list, I have to say a couple things… As a manager, your primary role is to build a sustainable business.  You need to figure out a way to match your artist’s short and long term goals with results.  An artist put faith and trust in you to help them achieve their goals as a musician and that can’t be taken lightly.  Also, a bit of advice given to me by longtime manager, Andy Gould…One of your biggest tasks is managing your artists’ expectations.  It’s hard..really hard..and getting harder…you, and your band, have to stay focused, realistic, and aware of the current environment.  If you’re doing this for any reason other than the love of music…adios!

I can ramble on forever with this topic, instead I’m going to highlight a few key action items you need to begin with.

First, in order to create a business you need to make money, to make money you need to sell things, to sell things you need people who care about what you do, people who care about what you do are fans…Who are your fans?  That’s the first thing you must figure out…who is most likely going to love what this band does.  Once you figure that out, that’s called your target market.

Second, now that you have a target market…how do you get them to care?  You need to come up with every way possible to put the band, in one way or another, in front of these potential fans.  Who are these people?  What do they do?  Where do they work?  Where do they play?  What other bands do they like?  What other activities are they involved in?  Once you have a clear focus of who you’re trying to attract, then you present the band in their world whether it’s live performances, interviews in the right publications, posters placed in the right stores, stickers handed out at the right shows, supporting the right bands, working with the right sponsors, and so on.  You can no longer just do what you do and think people are going to magically gravitate to you.  Nope…done.  You need to find them.  My job is to get eyes and ears on my bands…and if the songs are good enough, people will react.

Third, just because you got them to react doesn’t mean their sold.  So congrats, you got people to see you, hear a couple songs, they thought you were cool…great.  Now what?  You have to find a way to retain their loyalty.  You need to accumulate data…e-mail is still so important.  You HAVE to create an e-mail list..there are some great, free, application out there for this…and cell phones too!  There’s too much competition out there to think you can coast…you have to be proactive in keeping your fan base.  There are many ways to help with this..all for another conversation.

So…1) Identify your target market. 2) Create impression within your target market to establish reactive fans.  3) Retain fans with data accumulation and continual communication/content.

Just a few action items you need to take to begin building your business.

Let me know how it goes!
Ben

Welcome

I’ve jumped in…I don’t have a myspace or facebook page…I exist behind the profiles.  I’m the guy vicariously living on the web through the bands that I manage.  I’ve committed the last 8 years of my professional life to music and the brilliant artists that create it.  When I moved to Southern California from Seattle in 2000 I contacted as many people in the music industry as possible lobbying my services to work as an intern, asst., scout…anything…and the response I continually received was, “Ben, you picked the WRONG time to move to LA and try to find a job.”

It was the beginning of the music industry’s “end” and I was just getting started.  I’m still “starting”.  However, I’ve been fortunate enough to work within the major music corporations, start an indie record label, manage artists on both major and independent record labels, and somehow find a way to grow a niche business within this “dying” industry.  I’ll get more into my background later as my goal of this blog is not to write about me (who cares!) but to help you.  I’m an advocate of the underdogs…the indie musicians who are truly inspired to make a career out of what they love.  All the tech guys out there are offering you tools to help your process, but few are opening their door to answer any and all of your questions.  That’s what I hope to do…answer your questions.  Why? Because that’s what I love.  I’m honestly motivated by musicians and their words and I want to share everything I’ve learned with you from recording, distribution, content, touring, marketing, you need a backline contact in UK..I got you covered.  You need a guy to make your posters…I got you.  You need referrals for indie publicists..I got you…you want to better understand what music publishing is…I’ll explain.  Music is more popular now than ever…as an Indie artists you have more tools than ever…I hope to help you apply those tools.  Why?  I think it’ll be fun.  I have bands coming to me daily saying, “we just recorded a CD, we have a mysace page, we shot a video…….now what?”  Lots.  You just need a little direction…so hit me up and let’s figure it out.