Make Your Rock Band Successful
Making it in the music business is a difficult process. With this article to help, you should be well on your way to success.
Steps
- Make sure your band is skilled and that your show is together. Too many bands jump the gun and start playing gigs before they are ready.
- Take advantage of school events if you go to one. Promotion is easier and cheaper, and events like the talent show let people know what you're about before they have to pay to see a show. Don't brag about being in a band, but let people know.
- Play any and all gigs that come your way. All of the manageable ones. Even if you're just playing at some guy's birthday party, that is exposure. Even getting just one fan is important.
- Publicize yourself on the Internet. Youtube and Myspace Music allows you wide-spread promotion for completely free. Make sure, though, that you have mp3's to post on Myspace.
- Spend a lot of time playing shows and building a strong fan base before you send a demo to a record label. Preferably get a few reviews written, attempt to win some Battle of the Bands contests. Any newspaper articles, any sign of reputation is important to the label. Remember, you want a strong fan base before you attack a label.
- Stay committed. Making it is difficult, but it certainly can be done.
Alternative Steps
- Commitment is key. Commit to ONE band for the next 10 years. Make sure everyone in the band wants the same thing.
- Create your own web site. Make sure it has its own unique domain name like www.myband.com.
- Make your logo legible. People need to be able to look you up and find you. If they can't read it then they can't take the next step.
- Start promoting your band from the day you begin. Your potential fans are an important part of the journey and the story. They want to feel connected. Have fun letting them create posters for you and helping you name your songs and albums even.
- Mean something to people. Have a message people can live by. Even if that message is stupid and shallow like "shake your booty", it's still a simple message lots of people live by that goes far. Your band's message shouldn't be 'we're about getting our name out there and making it', it should have a message that means something to people and speaks to who they are and their aspirations.
- Put a demo on your web site. Create the best demos you can. Make them easy and quick to play. Something is better than nothing, but this is your main hook! You need music and/or videos on your web site and you need it to be there fast. Quickly appeal to your audience.
- You have 15 seconds to impress someone. If people don't like the music or the videos within that time frame, they won't care about you - end of story.
- Create a promotional poster. Have a contest among your friends to create the coolest poster or t-shirt design. Make sure the final design includes your web site on it (e.x. www.myband.com)
- Create a fan club with a mailing list. This is the most important part of your campaign. Call it something clever and use lots of word-play from your band title. Embellish your bands 'alter ego'. Make it seem really 'cool and exclusive', people like to feel they are a part of a 'special group' that helps define who they are.
- Incentivise joining the mailing list. Say "Free Poster" or "Free T-Shirt" and a picture of the really cool poster next to it on the web site.
- Get recognition. Really do spend the cash to mail out these promotional items. Make sure the 'promotions kit' includes stickers and, if you can afford it, pins and other decals that people can share and put on their guitar cases, etc. It will get your name recognized and make it easier to draw new fans in the future due to the name recognition.
- Get 'good' and sing 'good'. Make sure you play good music that doesn't make people want to hurl. If you can't sing get vocal coaching or find someone else. Good singing is the main thing people are looking for. They hardly realize there are bands behind those singers.
- Write lyrics people care about. If you sing it well but your lyrics don't mean anything to anyone, it won't matter. Learn from others what matters to people and what is not just your opinion. Use stories and visualizations in your lyrics. When in doubt, have another band member write the lyrics. Again, write lyrics that matter to people!
- Play shows. Now go play lots of shows for everyone and their dog. You'll find out what works and what doesn't work at shows. Involve the audience in your act.
- Incentivize coming out to shows. Don't just say "Come check us out" say "Celebrate the Summer Equinox, Best Hawaiian dresser wins a free hat". Make it sound like a fun and exciting event.
- Promote the mailing list. Your objective at every outing should be to sign people up to the mailing list. Mention the incentives. Don't ever be shy about getting mailing list members.
- Take a good photo. Get a special fan with a nice camera to take some nice pictures. Offer free tickets to them. These will be used in your 'press kit'.
- Do press and blogs often. Make sure you contact bloggers, TV, newspapers, and radio stations often, generating free publicity for your band. If you are touring call the local newspapers and radio stations ahead of time, spend a day in advance promoting your concert and give all the press and bloggers free tickets and again... incentives coming to the show. Make sure you have a 'story' to for the press when you call. They'll want something that people will care about.
- Develop good relationships with the press. That means always having a good story that will matter to your press contacts.
- Add most notable items to your press kit. Add the press kit to a special section of your web site. Your best items include awards, first times, and big well known events, places and publications.
- Keep your fans updated. Continuously involve them in the story of your band.
- When you have an excellent press kit and you have over 500 fans on your mailing list, congratulations, you are an expert. Set your booking price to $600+ and now try to book shows out of town at that price. If it's not working, bring your price down. If it's still not working consider the fact that may not be well known enough yet and should keep developing your mailing list.
- Be smart with cash. Don't spend money on gear unless you KNOW it's going to help you GET MORE FANS. Think before buying a giant guitar rig "Will this increase the number of fans I get?". If not, don't do it. It will leave you in a hole and it will leave the band members who have less money but more brains than you feeling resentful of your frivolous, short-sighted purchases.
- Get fans. Your main objective is to get fans, sign people up to that mailing list like it's going out of style.
- When you go to studio. Make more songs than you want on the album and scrap a few of them and/or later release them as 'rarities'. Make sure each song means something to your audience. Make sure you have a video camera to capture the whole experience. Keep your fans informed and involved in this experience through your mailing list.
- Make your music accessible. Make sure your album is easily accessible to people with and without money. Upload to pirate sites regularly and keep an eye on how many downloads you get. This is your biggest viral marketing avenue in today's internet age because people who love you are going to promote you by listening to you constantly. They will recommend you with passion. Don't make them feel bad if they "didn't pay", make them feel welcome for promoting your band with such fervor! Pay what you want, works great too!
- Mailing list is more important than CD sales. If you do sell your album, continue to tell people to sign up to the mailing list and don't make your final message 'buy the cd at the front'. It's tacky and won't make you lots of money anyway. You want to CONNECT with MORE PEOPLE and keep them constantly aware of your existence. The best way to do that is to sign them up to the mailing list and keeping them an important part of the story and experience.
- You won't make money. Don't expect to earn a living doing this. One of my friends were on the top of the National charts on "much loud" (a popular music TV show in Canada) and they are still very poor and pay for their band mostly out of their own pockets.
- Casual jobs only. Don't expect having full time jobs will work with this. Keep a part time job and keep it flexible. Your whole band needs to be open to opportunities the moment they become available.
- Think from an audiences perspective. Constantly think about what makes a band seem better than the rest to you and do those things. The audience is never 'wrong', they are just very very shallow and have very short attention spans.
- Connect with your audience often. Send out letters to the mailing list on a fixed schedule. Do this consistently. If you send out post-cards once a month, keep doing it once per month for 10 years. If you post on your blog daily, keep posting daily for 10 years.
- Promote the mailing list. Promote the mailing list, promote the mailing list.
- Promote the mailing list.
- Promote the mailing list.
Tips
- Your band is a multi-media experience to people. Learn to embrace all the arts and release new pieces of art work like posters, albums, web sites and other things often.
- Gear gets stolen. On purpose and by accident, it happens all the time. Label all your gear with etchings and take pictures of it all so if someone steals it you can post a picture of it. Large pieces of equipment have serial numbers, write them down.
- Be courteous and professional at all times. Run your band like you would a small business.
- Every band needs a solid leader. Make sure everyone understands who that is. It is that leaders job to make sure everyone understands their roles and is learning new skills that are important to gaining more fans and honing your craft.
- When booking out of town, be careful about promoters you let book you. It's best to look into the venue and others involved as well.
- Festivals are great networking opportunities. Make sure you have a 'niche' when you go to one, something that makes you different and a bit better than everyone else there.
- Make sure you know who you are and aren't trying to be like something or someone else.
- Cheap gear never lasts. Spend your money on medium quality gear that is flexible to your needs.
- People are the hardest thing to manage about a band. Schedules, times, attitudes, egos, etc. Remember, you can't change a person you can only change what you do to motivate them.
- Bookings will be your main source of revenue. Not CDs.
- Learn to read and write! You can't write a poem if you don't know how to read and write English can you? the same goes for music.
- Gear you gig with will get beat up. Learn to minimize damage and learn to accept the fact that road gear feels its lumps and sometimes needs to be repaired and replaced.
- Reading and writing helps you communicate. You can write better songs if you can communicate with your members more efficiently. What's faster? " play... this one *points*, then this one... *points* and.. then this one *points*" or "play G C E"?
- Get custom gear printed on the internet or find someone closer to home.
Warnings
- Getting discouraged when an idea fails is a bad idea. Instead, learn from it and learn not to blame someone else for its failure. Commitment is the most important thing you can have.
- Don't get stranded in some town on the road when touring because a gig was cancelled and the promoter is an idiot. Make sure you do your homework on the people who are hosting you and the concerts you will be playing at on the road. When in the slightest bit of doubt, cancel it and look for alternatives. Don't risk stranding your band in some hick town {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} from the next gig with no gas and no money. All too often bands have to rely on the kindness of strangers and extremely dedicated fans to get them out of a jam. Way too often does this spell disaster to a tour and the band itself.
Things You'll Need
- A band
- Some songs written
Related Articles
- Get a Job Working for a Rock Band
- Form a Band
- Assign Instruments in Rock Band
- Get Your Band Famous
