everyone, list your master plan for building a name for a band

weatherbill

New member
Here's mine. This requires patience. First, you get the totally commited band Members. Anyone who wants to be a band whore and play with everyone else, kick em out fast. Once you have the band, get tight, no gigs till you're tight......you have to have great songs with great hooks...... oh yeah, get the music industry crap out of your band member's fantasizing heads.....ok, now you offer free gigs at frat house parties. This is your ticket into getting a fan base. You tell 'em, the first gig is free, no strings attached,but the second one is for 1k or 2k (frat houses have $ for such events), possibly they'll have you back, but if not, play the frat house down the street. Go to the next collage town over and play their frat houses. Do this for a year and every weekend you can for a year. Now get a web page up and running on your band. Collect as many emails as you can and addresses you can for post card updates. This is an absolutely sure way to build a fan base. Now you can start playing clubs and have people show up. Word spreads quick if your'e hot! If you're not, then either your style sucks or you have no hook.
Sell CD's at your frat house shows and stickers and whatever else you can. Again, after the first 6 months, kick the industry crap out of your band member's heads. The industry "opportunities" will destroy your band comrodery and most likely, burn your former band member.
Most of all, have alot of fun. You won't have to call the collage radio station to play your songs. One of your fans at a frat house will call it in and if you're hot, a bunch will call it in. And now, you're off to the races and you have a local or regional buzz going on. Once you have this buzz, you can now live off your music. Now some small industry cats are gonna come your way. You don't need them. You got the thing going yourself. But a big cat will come your way and now that you have a regional or local buzz going, you can now have some negotiating power if your choose to go that way. My advice is hold out. You don't need to sign the dotted line. You are making a living at doing what you love. Don't let industry ruin it. I could add alot more, but this is the jist of getting it going. Any advice or a better plan or uncomplicated addatives are welcomed. Now let's hear your plan.
 
. . .well I think I got my break today

I spent three years basically doing what you just described with decient success. . .but it takes a while too weed out the non hackers. . . and then we broke up because our singer had a nervous break down because the lead guitarist was always late.

anyway. (I'm in the christian rock industry) a bunch of bands break up this spring and the singer/songwriter of one (silverstar) wants to form another band. He tracks down a bunch of people who he thinks would hack it.

(I play drums) fortunatly all the drumers in the area either suck or are 25 year old kids so I get the spot. He gets a smooth name change so the fan base of silverstar is mostly intact and before our first practice together we have 4 decient lables stongly interested . . .and a crap load of booking agencies and 65 radio stations. We spend the next two weeks songwriting and then go into production working with two of the biggest names in the christian industry (Rick May and Toby Mac) producing and shopping (well toby prolly won't shop) for us We expect the high side of production to be $20,000 (no way in hell this is going to be done in my project studio :) )

## shameless plug##
The band is Angels of the Odd
http://www.angelsoftheodd.com
##end shameless plug##

moral of the story?

get hired into an already successful group after you prove your ability playing indie :).

peace
sam
zekthedeadcow@hotmail.com
http://www.Track100.com
 
I was looking to go christian with it, but.....

Hey ZEK, $20K, who's flipping the bill for that one??
My music is coded gospel. I feel I don't even want to get into the christian market, lest I be preaching to the choir. Plus the industry people in there can't hear my style of music becasue they're so hyped up with fleeting fad. If an artist came along with even more hit songs than Tom Petty, they would'nt even be able to hear it. Theire ears are so pumped up with flash and show that thay could'nr see something more deeper and genuine if it hit them in the face. And to prove my point as to how shallow the industry is, if I go online and look at aol's chat rooms for different big name artists, I will find no one or very few in those musically fad based chat rooms, accept the biggest names like nsync and spear britney, (12 yr old kids) but if you go to creed's chat room or the deadheads online, you'll find those chat rooms full most of the time, so I'm trying to build something more genuine and deeper than industry fad.
I don't think Toby Mac could hear something like I've got if it hit him in the face.
I wired Eddie Degarmo's house and we talked music and all he could talk about is his own little fat world and he cared nothing for the ministry that God wants to and is doing thru me. he's a steward of these things, but he's been unfaithful for when God sends him someone, he cannot see it becasue he was too engulfed in his own world. This is so throughout the christian music industry. They're all into flash and show and they preach to the choir. They have no stratagy to reach the lost. They're just pumping out "christian hits", but none of that reaches the lost , but a little. My plan is a much wiser plan and it won't get me in debt by $20k. I'm repelled by christian brethren who think this is ok with God, to put their brothers in debt to pump out all these things that are fleeting and flash and show.
In fact, if you're in touch with Toby Mac, print this out becasue I challange him on these issues. I'm totally open to be corrected if I'm wrong, but this industry not lead of the Spirit has got to go! Otherwise, at least I know who I'm dealing with on the secular end of it..........bill in nashville
 
I don't think we'll hit the 20K . . .but better to be high than sorry. . .err well you guys know what I mean. . .I think. . .

20K is only 5000 CD's wholesale and that includes recording, manufacturing, distributing and promoting. . .and because the fanbase is already established we should be able to burn through it pretty quickly with a reasonable tour. . . trying to get away from the weekend warrior stuff as fast as possible. . . the nice thing about the christian market is no payola :)

Most likely Toby will be an "over the phone" producer but Rick is also going to be the engineer.

The demand for christian underground market is growing slowly and the entire market is different every 4 years as the kids go through school with practically 25% of your audience wanting to buy your album every year.

The christian market is a mess. . . a really fun mess. . but a mess. The trick with being in a christian underground band is being able to play bars. If you look at the play lists of many of the financially viable christian bands they play mostly in bars or similar clubs. To me everything is ministry, but music is also my job. If I can't pay bills I can't do it.

If you can handel the stress indie is still the way to go. There is an ohio band called Staple that doesn't really have an interest in being signed but they sold 1000 CD's in three months just playing weekend shows. . . no distribution, and no booking support. . . but they are good.

. . . also honestly if you think everyone in church is "a member of the choir" you've never gone to church :) kids at church are still kids.

peace
sam
zekthedeadcow@hotmail.com
http://www.track100.com
 
this is probably a real ignorant question...do Christian bands play at bars where people drink alcohol?

47ronin
 
well most of the rock bands do . . .you wouldn't find Plus 1 or any other CCM band in a bar but all of the punk, hardcore, underground, etc groups prefer to play at bars because a lot of church's expect them to play for free or manage a show so badly that they end up loseing money
 
The formula for domanace acording to ME!

Ok this Is the plan im currently embarking on with my Group DECONSTRUCTOR EFFECT...

STEP I - know thy scene

Evry city has a diffrent scene and a feel some citys are very well put together in terms of local support and a general enthusiasim for local music or example SLAT LAKE CITY you wouldnt think it but the way its laid out would astound you then there is the flipside TORONTO were there is the fragments of a scene there are bands there are clubs but evryones just sort of fumbling around in the dark theres a general sence of apathy on the part of club goers and would be local music enthusiests. (toronto is my current location)

STEP II - become the solution to the problem

The reason there is general apathy towards the local music scene is that there is a disgusting ammount of uninventive idiots at its helm i went to a show last weak at a local club called the reverb were the band (a serious band!) played a set of Nirvana covers and made an attempt at lynard skinnards sweet home alabama only to stop mid verse and admit it was too hard for them to continue AND NO THESE WERNT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS THEY WERE GOING TO COLLEGE FOR MUSIC!!! the scene is litterd with these cover bands or thier counterparts, the infomus coverbands ind denial.

the other half is there is no "glue" by way of local underground musiczine or anything of the like that lets people know whats going on with the local bands (you'd honestly think there would be in a city like toronto which spawns an international sucsess evry 1.2 years or so)

SO BE THE INVENTIVE BAND WITH THE KICK ASS SHOW IN YOUR SPARE TIME CONSTRUCT THE LOCAL MUSICZINE

why because if your in controal of the glue that binds the secene together then YOU ARE THE SCENE! spend off time producing other local acts which show promise of talent develop the sound create an overal apealing situation and make your band the flagship of the local empire which you have begun to create

STEP 3 - conquer

there is no reason why a local musiczine if done right wont take off YOU MAKE IT FREE! you put it in the local reccord shops were all the hardcore gutterpunk will rock untill i die kinds hangout (these people are your bread and butter they are the backbone of local scenes because they have tendencys to envelop themselves with music that becomes insparational to them) Money isnt even an issue the local zine pays for itself by way of advertising THIS IS A KEY ADVATAGE TO A BAND THAT CONTROALS IT because if you advertise clubs and as aresult they make buisness they will owe you a few favors which can be cashed in for stagetime. or local hole in the wall reccord shops will promote your cd if you bring them buisness WORD OF MOUTH IS THE ULTIMATE PUBLICITY CARRIER WAVE AND HOLE IN THE WALL RECCORD SHOPS ARE THE TRANSFORMERS OF THE SINGNAL

in a city were lable men do live work and watch (god knows why)
you will be the only legitimate game in town and you be a peice of evryone elses game Kinda like Don Corleone! they all come to you and live through you as a result you will be the first person the big fish come to see

this is a brief overview it may sound far fetched but i have done very little to explain logistics in this post.
 
weatherbill said:
But a big cat will come your way and now that you have a regional or local buzz going, you can now have some negotiating power if your choose to go that way. My advice is hold out. You don't need to sign the dotted line. You are making a living at doing what you love. Don't let industry ruin it.

Even if that "dotted line" belongs to a fat cat such as.... Interscope????
 
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