Trent Reznor shares his thoughts on what to do as a new artist

I read this today and thought it important to share with the community.  The thoughts on what to do as a new / unknown artist from a leader in revolutionizing the artist-fan relationship:

Originally posted on Trent Reznor’s NIN Blog.

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I posted a message on Twitter yesterday stating I thought The Beastie Boys and TopSpin Media “got it right” regarding how to sell music in this day and age. Here’s a link to their store:

illcommunication.beastieboys.com

Shortly thereafter, I got some responses from people stating the usual “yeah, if you’re an established artist – what if you’re just trying to get heard?” argument. In an interview I did recently this topic came up and I’ll reiterate what I said here.

If you are an unknown / lesser-known artist trying to get noticed / established:

* Establish your goals. What are you trying to do / accomplish? If you are looking for mainstream super-success (think Lady GaGa, Coldplay, U2, Justin Timberlake) – your best bet in my opinion is to look at major labels and prepare to share all revenue streams / creative control / music ownership. To reach that kind of critical mass these days your need old-school marketing muscle and that only comes from major labels. Good luck with that one.

If you’re forging your own path, read on.

* Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.
To clarify:
Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this – give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people’s email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special – make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters… whatever.

Don’t have a TopSpin as a partner? Use Amazon for your transactions and fulfillment. www.amazon.com

Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere. www.tunecore.com

Have a realistic idea of what you can expect to make from these and budget your recording appropriately.
The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact – it sucks as the musician BUT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So… have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).

The Beastie Boys’ site offers everything you could possibly want in the formats you would want it in – available right from them, right now. The prices they are charging are more than you should be charging – they are established and you are not. Think this through.

The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on – like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.
Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace – it’s dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don’t autoplay). Constantly update your site with content – pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any – Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.

If you don’t know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first hand use of these tools. If you don’t get it – find someone who does to do this for you. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig – good luck, you’re going to be waiting a while.

Hope this helps, and I’ll scour responses for intelligent comments I can respond to.

TR

Featured Artist – NYLE

I recently posted Nyle’s video for “Let The Beat Build” and if you read the post you know how much I enjoyed the video!  I had to feature Nyle and get some background on how they pulled it off…and as expected..time, energy, planning, and talent.  If you missed the video, I highly recommend checking it out before reading any further!!  Here’s the inside scoop….

Nyle, I was turned on to your video “Let The Beat Build” by our A&R Scout Kiran and have probably watched it 50 times!  I sincerely love the creativity, passion, and what appears to be the unadulterated love of music and performance.  I gotta get into your head a bit and know what it took to make such an original piece.  So let’s dig in…

What’s so impressive is that both the video and audio is recorded simultaneously – LIVE!  How long did it take to plan and choreograph the shoot prior to hittin’ the studio and doing your first run-through?
Plan? Ha! The 32 of us were just sitting around one day and Chadd the director was like “Do guys want to make a music video, so we just did the whole thing that day.” Nah, actually the whole project from start to finish took around 3 months. Alot of it was just planning and booking equipment, the Director of Photography had to see the space and map out the lighting. We were assisted by 194 Recordings  (school run label) who coordinated all the people. … Continue Reading

Should we release an EP BEFORE singing to a label?

I just got off the phone with a manager friend of mine who works for a great firm representing bands most of you would know.  They deal regularly with both indie and major labels.  She’s great…very smart, works incredibly hard, and loves her bands.  One of her acts is in the process of figuring out WHAT to do.  They were dropped from a major-indie label about a year ago and have since continued to write, record, and play as much as possible.

They’ve found themselves, yet again, with a few label A&Rs kicking their tires… The band wants to release an EP…but do you wait for the deal to happen, if it happens, or just throw something out to your fans without any major push in the meantime?

THROW SOMETHING OUT TO YOUR FANS!!  I told her…look…IF a label signs your band again it’s going to take AT LEAST 12 to 18 months before the antiquated sloth of a business could turn around a new product.  You think your fans are going to wait that long?  If you do…best of luck.  Labels are dying.  I keep saying this and you know it.  You need to keep your fans engaged and entertained.  You cannot exist on your myspace page alone and assume people will come to you…you need to reach out to them.  You need to provide something worth keeping their interest…and that’s great songs.  That’s your job.

Get out of the album mentality.  When you have a great song…record it and release it…we have the means to do this now!  Albums exist so that labels can make money… I highly recommended to her, and you, to record what you have and offer it to your core fans.  By doing so, you’ll keep the fans you have entertained while the label drags along.  Further, her band will then OWN that EP…and if you own it you keep the money from it.  I questioned why she wanted to sign her band to a label again, but some still go for the gold…and god bless ‘em…but you have to understand what you’re getting yourself into at the moment..particularly with the majors.

Quality songs over quantity….I’d rather you offer me 3 great songs than wait for 15…from which I’ll most likely only buy 3 from iTunes…so why wait?  Get the songs out there….because if you wait…you’re A&R guy will most likely be fired, the album budget will disappear, and you’ll most likely get dropped and the album shelved.  And I’m not being pessimistic, this is what the current situation is and the reality for most new bands.  Bet on yourself.

Ben

War Stories – Hangin’ On

Evan Robinson (Singer) : “We’re not a political band by any means..in fact we’re the furthest thing from 4 politicians…but as artists we can’t help but be inspired by and write about the world we see.  So take from this what you will…it’s not a soapbox, only one perspective.”

Hangin’ On VIDEO

This is cool.   War Stories released their debut album 8/19 and is currently #15 on the specialty radio charts.  They’re playing locally, press is gravitating, and they are finding true fans one at a time.  They wrote this song after the album, but rather than just sit on it, wait for another 9 songs for an album, and miss the opportunity to impact at a relevant time…they recorded a follow up single, offered it digitally, partnered with a great organization, and made this video.  All for about $200.

Whether you like the song or not, there’s something here for you to learn.  Flexibility and striking when the iron is HOT!  Don’t wait to record and offer a great new song and product…keeping content fresh keeps fans engaged.

Ben