Recording Artist Advocate: Relationships...

Have you ever heard a song compared to Sex? It’s not so farfetched.    

There is initial attraction and an intensifying leading to a release, and a winding down. (Knowing this you may not listen to some songs the same way again.)

Think of a body of work as the longer term relationship.

You have songs that attract your fans. You have the songs that tell them more about you. Like a relationship you work up to intimacy. When you’ve won them over you can explore deeper themes.

You may even challenge them to think differently… but not at first or too much at once.

You can grow with your fans and become part of their lives if you do it right.

A long term relationship is a good way to think about it:

Be honest about who you are: Real resonates, even with people who are not like you. You can be relatable without losing yourself.

Be realistic about yourself and what you want: It takes work and persistence… and then more work. More gigs mean more exposure and more money, but know your limits.  

Be able to give and take: Give too much of yourself and you’ll play out. (… and seem desperate.) Be too selfish and your fans feel taken advantage of.  

Find the balance in these areas and your relationship… your career can be much more satisfying.  

Recording Artist Advocate: Small or Large Vision...

Last week I talked about small and large labels on clothing and how that can apply to your career. I want to expand on that and talk about your vision for your career.

I’ve recorded people who choose a specific niche for themselves and people who think bigger.

An extreme example of thinking small is someone who just sings about being a welder or a cowboy without expanding out to the things that more people can relate to.

For me it would just get boring writing about the same thing all the time.

Smarter artist might start out with a specific theme, but there are things we all go through and those make better stories and songs anyway. Find and explore those things.

Life is happening all around you and we’re not all feeling the same thing at the same time. You could meet two people with the same backgrounds. One is having their best day and the person next to them is having their worst. Will your song mean something to both of them?

If it will… If it does; you just did something great.

Keep doing it and you can be very successful.  

Intimate, personal songs are great if you just want to play them for your own enjoyment. Expand out so that more and more people can relate to your music.

Find the balance that works between broad and intimate.

Those are the songs that go down in history.     

Recording Artist Advocate: Big and Small labels...

On a blog about recording artist you would think “Labels” refers to recording labels.

Not this time.

Today I’m talking about the labels that go on clothing. Have you noticed some clothing logos getting larger? I’m all for taking an iconic logo and blowing it up so that a specific feature is highlighted. My own Rough Wood Studio logo is a close-up of either the Texas flag or a super close-up of the American flag. But some clothing lines are just making their clothes look silly with 4 or 5 inch versions of their logos in place of the regular ones.

It’s lazy and it cheapens the brand.

This comes into play for recording artist in two places; sponsorships and merch.

Sponsors want you wearing their logo. You should think long term and realize that what’s popular today may not be tomorrow. You also don’t want to be all-in for a brand that becomes unpopular. You are much better off wearing really good looking clothes that happen to have smaller labels. Timeless good looking clothes don’t lock you into a time period. Seriously, who do you see wearing those 80’s rodeo shirts with flames these days?  

Apply this to your merch. Think authentic and timeless. Choose designs that would have looked good in the past and will look good in the future. Tie-in with what you’re known for. Find out what fans are saying about you and reinforce the best ones. Plant your flag, but don’t make it about trendy things that go out of style.

The main point I try to get across to artist is that you want a long term career. That doesn’t mean you have to be bland. But don’t be so current that you’re on your way out. The next big thing will be replaced by the next-next big thing. Be known for more than that and you can have a long career.   

Recording Artist Advocate: Criticizing Success

“The Trees” is a Rush song from 1978. The premise is that the maple trees are upset that the tall oak trees get an unfair share of the sunlight, and they pass a law that the sunlight must be shared equally.

So their “equality” is enforced by “hatchet, axe, and saw.”  They force equality by destruction, and everyone suffers.

Let me apply this to you and your own music career. Let’s say you write some great songs. Then you practice playing and performing. You play bigger and bigger venues and even get some attention from radio and music bloggers. Things start to happen for you. Great! Congratulations.

But then you’re told that’s unfair. You should share with other bands that don’t write or play as well. You have to let them share your bill and take part of your pay. You had an unfair advantage somewhere along the way. Natural talent or parents who encouraged you… or something in your past that made it easier for you. You unfairly took too much fame/money/sunlight.

So you share, but they don’t rise to your level; they won’t practice or show up on time. The shows suffer and the crowds quit coming. Now there’s nothing for anyone.

This same scenario was posed to college students. They were asked to share their GPA with less fortunate students. They all said “GPA redistribution” would not be fair to them.  They said, “I worked hard for those grades.” And, “Why should I have to give points off my grades to someone who didn’t work as hard?”

You may not be making much money now, but this is a business where you can go from making a few bucks a night to several hundred – to several thousand. It can happen faster than you think. You will work harder than you ever thought you could. If everything works out you can be very successful. With every success you’ll need to do more to top that. Keep doing that long enough and you’ll be a tall oak among maples. No one else can do it for you.

Do yourself a favor now while you’re working your way up. Don’t set a trap for yourself by criticizing the successful. When you become successful you could get caught in it.

Recording Artist Advocate: Authentic?

Think about any movie with a scene in a "young" persons room. The camera pans across the walls to reveal band posters and trophies - all the trappings of youth. Except it's always a set director's version of youth. The band posters are out of time or something just seems wrong. It's not authentic. Go into a real young person's room and you'll see something completely different.

It's as if someone said, "What do kids like? Lets put that in there."

I like to see establishing shots where it's obvious that people walking along the sidewalk, or otherwise living their lives, didn't even see the camera. They just do what they do without any affectation. You really see them just as they are.

We crave things that are authentic and hate fakery. We do like to make fun of the fake or insincere. And you don't ever want to be the brunt of one of those jokes.

Are the songs you write today going to make sense in 10 or 20 years? Would they have made sense 10 or 20 years ago? Strip away the things that nail it to right now, and you can write something that is truly timeless.

Anything that's new is on it's way to becoming old. So be timeless. Be sincere. Be Authentic.