Primal Fear

Meshuggah

Jorn

Firebrands

Eluveitie

A.O.T.W.

more interviews?

So how do you pull it off? Well, it is recommended that you spend no less then $60,000 on an independent release. Granted, most have no way of coming up with that kind of cash. That is just the amount that will get you into full ‘rockstar’ mode (if your music is any good). First though I want to talk about doing it cheaper. Now I know more about selling heavy rock, but most of these tools can be used to sell any kind of music. The cheapest way to do it is just to go through the website service CD Baby. They have a system that hooks you up to all the services that the label will charge an artist that 95% to get. Sure you could hook up iTunes, Amazon Advantage, and all the distro by yourself. It will just be a major pain in the ass and end up costing you more money. Then set up a few downloadable samples on the very front of the band’s website followed by a link to the Amazon page, the CD Baby page, the iTunes page, and whatever else. So far we haven’t really spent any real money at all except for the recording (more on that later). Now buy a ton of advertising to get people to that page and listen to your music. They listen, they buy, and no record company is involved at all. If you are talking about a heavy rock band, I highly recommend a satellite ad from Fixion Media. They do offer some very cheap rates, but I have learned some lessons that I hope you all benefit from. When I stretched out a $500 ad over a month I didn’t even notice the traffic. Stretch out the ad impressions (impressions are how many times the ad is shown) and you will stretch out the traffic. It seems that they work best if you keep it around $500 per week at least. If you do four weeks in a row of that and don’t sell a ton of music, your band must really suck. Spend any less then that and you are cutting dangerous corners. If you are not a hard rock or metal band, I would go with the Google ad words.

Now why is it important to be on Amazon and iTunes? You have to understand that people are very paranoid about what companies they give their money to. The mainstream knows and is comfortable with Amazon and iTunes. Not everyone is comfortable with PayPal. Most are not comfortable with sending a band the money directly. To get the most bang for your buck, you have to make your music available through the companies that the mainstream know and are comfortable with.

Now if you have a band where everyone pitches in and has good jobs, there are some extras that can work very well in your favor. You will want to tour to promote your cd if you can swing it, but how do you connect up with all those clubs, local radio shows, music rags, and whatever else? Billbord Musician’s Touring Guide has all that info for you. Because they print it up several times a year, the info is more current then the annual books that come out with the same info. Plus, if you want to take the wimp out exit you can send your demo to all the record companies listed in there as well. Either that or you can just do it to mess with those poor dying labels. Laugh at them when they offer you anything less then a 50% deal.

Taxi can help you get a little money for your music as well. You ever notice those bands that play the fake clubs on WB shows? You never heard of them before, but yet some of them launch careers afterwards. Ever hear of an unsigned band getting on a major movie soundtrack? Taxi is a service that hook you up with that. John Cougar Mellancamp recently said something about how he had to do the car company commercial because it gave him way more exposure than Sony ever gave him. Forget about the paycheck you get from something like this. The exposure is better then anything an unsigned band could get. How can you turn away a service that let’s you cash in from both sides like that? No record company would ever do that.

So you are all networked, you have a summer tour ready to go. Now you want to make sure you not only get proper coverage for the tour, but also hook up with press while you are out on the road. Why mess with the little guys when you can hire the big boys! Below are links to hire the same press agents that the biggest bands in heavy music work with. A three month 'campaign is recommended and the normal charge for that is about $3,000. Chipster, Mazur, The Syndicate, Ronin, V Entertainment, ISL, Laura Kaufman, Rhonda Saenz, Fly, Kayos Productions, Kerosene Media, Just Rock P.R., Covers Media, VQPR, Reybee, i.e. marketing, Adrenaline P.R., Earsplit P.R., Big Machine Media, MSO, Heavy Hitter Inc, Press Here Publicity, and a few more that I will add later. This list however should get you started. Please keep in mind that this is not information that is shared very often because some don’t want it out. These are the big boys! Some of them feel they are too big to deal with an unsigned band, but that is why you contact all of them and see what happens.

If you have a major press agent, distro, and a decent marketing campaign, what would you need the label for? Granted some of you are going to be overwhelmed with dealing with all of this yourself. Well, it just so happens that the above contacts will also ‘consult’ with you as well. No label needed. A label would own your music whereas this way you retain ownership. Some may be put off by the dollar amounts. Don’t be. Say if each band member adds $100 a week, plus the band puts $100 of the money from shows, you have $500 a month. $6,000 won’t pay for everything listed above, but it would be a good start. If you have any questions, want to debate anything I have said here, or add something that I missed, please by all means post it to our forums. We are here to help!