Real Rockstars Wear Plaid
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rockstar. You know what would have helped? Talent. Other than that, a neat little guide telling me how to capture the love and admiration of fans would’ve helped. Through my past musical endeavors and the last year of working with a successful band, I think I can produce such a guide. As is with anything on the internet, these are simply suggestions and anecdotes from my experience. When in doubt, creativity and self-efficacy will always triumph.
Without further ado, here’s how to make your band famous with 5 simple strategies:
1. Content.
If you’re not writing great music, then why are you reading this blog? Shut off your computer, sit in your basement, and write some music. This should go without saying, but I have to mention it. People still don’t get it. You don’t even have to be a virtuoso. Shiny Toy Guns is not Led Zeppelin, meaning they don’t have the technical caliber that some musicians have. They do, however, write incredibly creative and moving music that, once heard, hooks listeners. They spend hour after hour crafting songs bit by bit, striving for the closest resemblance of perfection. You don’t need to be Steve Vai; just be you and perfect it. Blink 182 rode their shitty 3-chord pop punk to the top of the world, and they’ve been so busy with their craft they haven’t had time to look down. As with any product, find your niche and perfect what you’re producing.
2. Connection
Not only do you need to connect with listeners (via content), but you need to connect with journalists, venue owners, sound technicians, and other bands. Why? Because we live in an interconnected world, and other people can help pick up your deadweight. Think of your favorite band. Now think of 5 bands that are related to them or that have collaborated with them. It’s not hard to do. Ever heard of show trading? There are websites for this in addition to social media sites. Shiny Toy Guns has attached themselves to a diverse but strategic group of musicians that I am impressed by. They’re a pretty odd sounding band, but they do have similar demographics with many bands with different sounds. For their last tour, they took off with The Dirty Heads. After talking to some fans of The Dirty Heads in the crowd, I came to the conclusion that this was genius. Most of them hadn’t heard of the band before hand, but loved them and wanted to check out more of them once they saw them perform. Take your cues from Tim Ferriss, unknown to the literary world until he exploded onto the scene with 3 bestsellers in a row. How did he come from nowhere? He made crucial, in person relationships with people that could help catapult him to those lists. Get off of Twitter and talk to people that matter.
3. Focus
Another lesson from the efficiency guru, Tim Ferriss, is to define your focus. When it comes to getting the media to bite, spam is not very appetizing. Instead, using Pareto’s Principle, focus on the 20% of blogs and media outlets that will give you the most powerful exposure. This is not always the biggest media source. If you’re in a heavy metal band, a local Chicago blog may increase your exposure more than a feature in the Chicago Tribune, as it may just appear as white noise. In marketing for Shiny, I sought out blogs that appeared to be of similar enough interest. These were not all huge publications. They did, however, receive a lot more exposure and stickiness with fans than a small blurb in a Sunday paper would have. Choose your sources wisely, and don’t waste time on that which doesn’t matter. Hell, if you start small and local (because they’re desperate for content), you can snowball that attention into bigger stories. Just ask Ryan Holiday.
4. Cross Promotion (Mark Your Difference)
This is very much related to Focus. In fact, I could describe it as a hybrid of Focus and Connections. This is the step that makes all the difference in differentiating yourself. To be successful in anything is to be unique in a way that creates brand loyalty. To do this, draw upon your quirks and personalities instead of simply your music. First off, it is extremely hard for a music writer to make you sound any different in the form of text. All bands sound similar on paper: “edgy”, “dark”, “poppy”, “layered”. These words do not create emotional attention. The reason I like Blink 182 is because I can relate to them. They’ve given interviews about their tattoos, their handwriting, their belief in UFOS, and many other weird niche themes. These niche topics have niche blogs with close knit followers that love to discover people with the same interests. Use this. A prime example of my work with Shiny Toy Guns is Party.0. Carah Faye, the singer, is straight edge, and my good friend started an organization to promote sober partying and lifestyle. This is what an opportunity looks like. By setting up an interview, both Shiny Toy Guns and Party.0 flourish, and it took less effort than putting flyers on telephone poles or spamming my Facebook friends.
5. Organization
At this point you should have some fans. Seriously. Every person in your band has a solid base of friends, and if you took step #1 seriously (if you didn’t, write that fucking music already!) you should have a couple other people coming to your shows. The most common complaint I hear from local bands is that they can’t seem to jump from the local stage to the next level. Why do they have this problem? They aren’t organized. With social networking, the world has become more scattered and small tribe based, but it has also become easier than ever to form communities around a common subject. If you can create a community for your fans instead of isolated individuals who like you, then you’ve already won half the battle. Once you have your community, you are free to try your hand at creative marketing. With Shiny Toy Guns, we got people to play the role journalists and write articles about the band. We organized a fan community that got special privileges at concerts. The band became more involved with the fans that put the most effort into promoting them. It was symbiotic and it worked to the advantage of the fans and to the band. The fans actually created artwork and helped to codify the image of the band. Build a tribe and let everyone win.
These are broad themes. There are day-to-day chores, obviously, but I don’t think I need to spell these things out. These are things like choosing the right band members, managing finances, contracting sound engineers and graphic artists, and other back end duties that are unique to your band. Figure them out on your own. Oh, and if none of these rules work for you, feel free to break them. You’re a musician, not an accountant. If you have a trailblazing marketing idea, nobody is going to hold it against you if it doesn’t fall within the traditional realm. Like I said, creativity and self-efficacy will always triumph.
