Brothers in Arms - Group Issues

Well, being an artist in a band is much more complex than being a solo artist. Despite the fact that you have someone to share your difficulties and obstacles with, a band is a much more pain in the ass when it comes to management. And often when there arise problems in a band, this affects not only the managers, but the band members also.

Well, basically most of the problems show up when a band starts without any agreement. And they usually do. I guess 90 of 100 bands don’t give a damn about having an agreement of some kind at the start, they just want go and kick ass on the pub stage. Well, almost every band from 80-90ies started this way, without any contract between them. And, unfortunately, many of their members still continue to sue each other in the court. Though, on the other hand, many bands still continue peacefully earning tens of millions without any formalities, though this still bites occasionally.

Here is my advice:

The time to make an agreement between yourselves is now, when everything is cool and friendly. Even a bit of success makes some people behave in a strange way and say odd things, and you never know, with whom that might happen in your band. Some relative may tell your guitarist that he is the star of the band, or a rival manager may provocate your vocalist to “get on top”. Then, with millions of dollars on your table, you might find yourself insulting and beating each other, each of you crying out that without him/her the band would be dead (Btw, according to my observations, most of the bass players always choose to sit in the corner and silently watch the riot with tears in their eyes). And what’s next – you kill the golden goose, the band breaks up.

So try to arrange some sort of agreement until everything is neat, because you can do it in a friendly way. And it must contain at least these issues:

Key member(s) – This concept was created because you can’t treat a band member who plays lead guitar/lead vocals and is the songwriter of the group and a percussionist who appears on 2 tracks equally These are the people who have the most influence on the group. And some of the record companies treat key member’s decision as a bands decision and if a key member leaves the band, they consider it broke up. Key member can be one or several persons. Sometimes it’s every person of the band. If a band consists of 2 or 3 people, it usually is.

Percentages – This is what it’s all about. How much does each member get from every track. Sometimes bands split evenly, sometimes they split evenly only on live performances. A band may have different splits for record, merchandising, radio and TV performances etc.

Firing & Hiring – Who decides this? What kind of vote must a member have to decide to fire a band member or invite a new one? Get this covered.

Expenses – What kind of vote do you need for the group to spend money?

  

Сhange the agreement – What kind of vote do you need to change the terms of the agreement you’ve written?

Quitting – Is everyone free to quit at will? If you’re in the middle of a tour and it suddenly strikes your drummer that he was created to play cricket, can he walk out of the game? Or must he/she wait until you’ll finish the tour or the list of concerts? Will he be allowed to leave even after that? (he might not be, but my advice – when a band member definitely wants out – get rid of him as fast as you can) 

Former Members – What happens when you or other members quit? What about the percentages of your past activity? Do they still stay the same? Will you receive percentages from the band’s future activities? Do you take with you any songs that you’ve written or collaborated?

Another very important issue is the name of the group. Name is the groups trademark/service mark and is protected by it. At first, when you are looking for a bands name and have an idea, search it up. In the eighties there were many legal disputes about bands with similar names, driving fans from one another. But then there was no internet and a Liverpool band couldn’t be aware of similar named band in Canada. Now this is not an excuse. So do a research – begin with ITunes, Google, MySpace, YouTube, Bandcamp etc. There can be further researches done – in Patent & Trademark offices if interested. But usually, musicians don’t go this far. But don’t neglect this research! Because if there is already a mid-level band named do-mi-sol in Hawaii, and you begin to promote your band do-mi-sol in Istanbul and achieve great success, they may stop you from selling your records in the U.S. and other very uncomfortable things may follow. Another advice – never, never enter a quarrel about group name issues without a lawyer. This is a very complex and deep issue to deal with and needs a strong knowledge of law. A musician, or even a manager can not handle this alone (I myself gave up after reading about 50-60 pages of name/trademark issues without understanding much, and it was getting only deeper).

You also have to think about group name in such cases as: the drummer leaves, the group, the main songwriter leaves the group, the lead guitar/vocal leaves the group, 3 of 5 members leave the group, the group breaks up. There are many other possibilities, but most of them are regulated by one of these options:

 No one can use the name after the break up, doesn’t matter if some of you perform together

Any majority of the group can use the name. Let’s say band has 5 members, 3 of them together can use the name

Only the lead singer, lead guitar, or songwriters can use the name

Only the key members together can use the name (and if they perform without each other they can’t) 

So it would be really nice to regulate all these things among you straight from the start, and don’t ignore it – it will only lie sleeping until you’ve achieved something, then it might wake up and destroy the dream you’ve created together. But all this can be avoided by a simple agreement after a several hours of planning. So go for it.

The sound of silence - Submitting Demos

So, after several months of dedicated work you’ve came to the magnificent moment, when you must step out of the studio and begin showing & offering your songs (or demos) to record labels & the A&R. Heart beats rapidly, everything around comes in pink and you can’t help imagining yourself on the cover of Rolling Stones. Well, sorry for the spoiler, but all the glory will fade away very rapidly after you’ll celebrate your hundredth mail without answer. The main problem is that 90% of the record labels, even the small indie ones don’t accept unsolicited material. And another problem is that even the ones who don’t accept it, still encourage you to send your demos to them. So even if you spend a lot of time in a web research, you’ll still have no idea if your demo will be sent to the spam box or trash can automatically or not.

Well, in case if you don’t know - unsolicited material means materials the record label hasn’t invited you to send, or materials submitted by representatives with whom label has not had business association with.

Well, you do have a tough battle in front of you. Labels or A&R persons are not in habit of answering for several months even if they like your material. They have to check a lot of things until they contact you. So you never know how much time will pass until you get answered (mind you, this is the rare case when they get interested in you, in 95 from 100 sent emails you won’t even get auto responders answer). A middle-budget UK indie label receives about 150 solicited demos per week and 500-700 demos from guys like you. Feel free to calculate your chance.

Most labels encourage you to send your demos in a post envelope or an email. As a common rule, the demo package must content a bio, several tracks, photos and links. But even if you can provide all these, you still need the knowledge of the form of sending your demos. Because if you put something inappropriate in your package, you’ll definitely miss the tiny chance that you have. So here are the essential tips that will keep your demos as far as possible from the trash can:

Know whom are you sending your material to – If you are a garage rock band and send your demos to a hip-hop label that’s a waste of time. Do a little research of what kind of music does the label deal with.

Make everything clear and easy to listen and discuss  - don’t submit a link that they’ll have to join, search your name on or anything else that’s pain in the ass, they have no time for all that crap. Make it so that all they have to do is click play. Do not submit something that has an expiration date, because they might draft your email and get back to it in 2-3 months and get disappointed.

Check if you’re addressing the right person – most of the labels have several departments and do not mix them. Don’t send your mp3 to a technical director instead of A&R.

Most important - Keep it as short as possible: - short band bio. Not a 3 page booklet of how magnificent they are and how the vocalist stole his grandmother’s money to buy his first guitar. Keep it professional and not longer that 2/3 of a page. Who are you, what style do you play, where have you performed, reviews you managed to get, ingredients. Enough.  Do not praise yourself, just put down the facts. Short demo – go with 2 or maximum 3 of your best songs. More just won’t be listened. With most of the labels sound cloud and YouTube are fine. Several best pics – and check out do they prefer attachments or links in that case.

Don’t worry too much about the demo quality - As I’ve already mentioned, record labels do not expect to hear professional recording quality on demos form beginning artists. Well, though you must have some limits – a detuned acoustic guitar recorded through a 5$ Skype microphone doesn’t count for a demo.

Pick songs which have a superb start - Here’s a secret: most of the A&R persons listen to just first 30 seconds of a track. If it doesn’t grab their attention, they throw it away. So do not pick up a song which is mild for first 2 minutes but has a divine guitar solo in the end. It won’t be heard.

Include all the links – Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Sound cloud, Bandcamp, etc. They want to see how far have you gone while promoting yourself.

Be polite – Though most of the people you’re about to contact come from music (and frequently from the least academic music), they still won’t appreciate you being unceremonious with them. Vanity is the Devil’s favorite sin.  

Sending Demos is a cynic business. You just won’t hear back from more than 90% of your submissions. Also, you’ll hear “no” a lot. But don’t be scared and use every opportunity, even the negative answer – ask for a advice, suggestion of other label who might like you and so on. Look at this as a opportunity to turn it in a positive answer for the next time.

Common people - Producers, publishers and other persons in music business

So we’ve discussed the most essential themes already: Music market, major & indie labels and A&R persons. These are the points, that, in my humble opinion every self-respecting musician must be aware of in modern days. But, as I’ve already said, there are a lot of other players, some more important, some less. Nonetheless, I’ll try to give you short information about the most important ones, because probably you’ll need their services in the near future, if you intend to prolong your musical  career.

Let’s start with the Record Producers. This people carry the most responsibility for the product which musician creates. They try to convert the creative product and artist’s ideas into a complete recording. They are responsible for hiring the right stuff for a recording, choosing right songs, administration of the rec0rding process, booking and selecting appropriate studios and so on. They also do (or used to do at least) a lot of work on the musical side – arrangement, finding the right sound, right niche, getting new guitar or vocal sounds for the record and all other stuff which identifies the actual “sound” of the product after its release.

 Most of the producers used to be musicians, or people somehow related to music and the word “producer” is often mixed with “manager” - that’s because in the good old times, the musicians could not afford producers services and the managers had to do all the producers work for their artists. Very often, especially in modern times, producer’s influence on the final product is greater then the musicians There are two categories – producers for pop, hip-hop and urban scene, which often are considered more important then the artist which the produce and producers for rock, alternative, indie, experimental music where due to the fact that the music they deal with usually is original and more involves artists ideas and creative views, producers mostly is viewed as an additional musician and record arranger and has to reckon with the artists interests.

What does a Publisher do? – they take care of business while you burn yourself out in the creative process. If you publish your music with a publisher, he’ll find people who will use your songs (for film, radio, media, games, everything) and make sure they pay you (also they find songs for the artist who don’t write their own material). Thus you give part of the copyright (sometimes even whole copyright) to him on the product which you want to publish with him. The standard split is 50/50. In the past, these were the most powerful people in music industry. Today, due to the digital revolution, a lot of musicians do publish themselves without any help, also more artist write their own material, and don’t need a publisher to find a song to them. But they still have major influence and contacts in the biz.

Booking agents are the people that book shows and venues for the artists they represent, or want to represent. They are responsible for making all the arrangements with the heads of the show and present performance agreement to the producers or promoters. They’ll care about the sound, rider, lighting of your show, your accommodation, transportation of stuff and everything that will keep the your show going. For concert buyers, they work to find the right artist that will fit in the need and available budget.

Promoters promote live shows, they also organize shows and book and promote bands & musicians. The main duty of a promoter is not much different from a advertising agent – they must secure the shows and their bands being shown and heard in every possible media and non-media resource. This may start from putting up street posters or buzzing up the mailing list, to making a several hundred thousand media pr action about your next performance.

There are of course dozens of other jobs, but these are the most important and infamous ones. Most of the other  jobs subordinate under the ones we’ve already discussed and are their different branches. But still, in case of further interest, here is the greatest resource I’ve ever seen on this topic http://us.music-jobs.com/jobtypes/job-descriptions.php - There are almost 60 positions discussed here. Though frankly I don’t think it's necessary for a musician to go this deep. But let it be here, just in case of any information worms over there. 

With or without you - Do you NEED a record label?

Well, this was not a question until 2000’s. Record companies always were the key holders of the entrance in the showbiz. You needed someone to manufacture ship your records to the stores, you had to get yourself in media – TV or radio, because there was no other option of being heard by someone. What’s most important – you could not make a proper product without a record company. Recording process was far more complex and involved technologies, which cost several hundred thousand dollars, sometimes more. You couldn’t create anything material without the company.

Well, now the digital revolution changed everything. And it provided more than just the ability to have more songs on mp3 players. You don’t need a studio, producer, mixer and other staff to create a musical product now because there are dozens of sound programs which you can buy (or steal) for a couple hundred dollars, buy an intermediate soundcard and headphones for another couple and you’re all set. You may even record most of the instruments with just one midi keyboard. Well, of course a track recorded in a professional studio will always dominate in quality over the homemade one (doesn’t matter how good you are), but no one expects high-quality songs from a beginning artist. This is a golden rule. The labels don’t worry much about the quality of sound, the most important thing is to show them what are you made of and what do you have boiling in your head.

Even a bigger leap was made in promotion tools and politics. Here also, there are almost no more obstacles to get you music published and heard. Anyone can get their music distributed digitally.  It’s possible to get your music to ITunes, Amazon and other digital retailers. It’s possible to send out your material to music magazines, since every self-respecting one now has a website (many of them are even internet-based). You can send your “CV” to almost every music festival, every community or competition. What’s most important – when you make a deal with a record company (especially with if you sign with a major), you give up control of your recordings and give out a really huge part of your income. Very often from both record and non-record areas also. In fact – artist royalties with a major label are 13-20% in USA and a bit more in Europe. Well in case of do-it-yourself digital distribution, you receive about 70% of each song or album sold. Needles to say, difference is huge. There again, you also have the freedom of building your own image and promoting yourself as you want.

And the digital promotion ways are everything but complicated - you can start being friendly with a top radio DJ and personally sending him your latest track to play on his gig, or emailing up a well-known music blogger to offer her a cut from the proceeds of your latest music package. Some manage to make an ITunes top 10 sale that way, and that’s loads of money for a beginner.

Real paradise eh? But this all makes sense when you are a well-promoted artist/band already. And this is quite tricky, because commercially, if you sell 10 albums each month digitally at 10$ each and receive 70 bucks at the end of the month, maybe it would be better to sign to a tiny indie label, who’ll manage to sell 100 albums per month and to receive 150$ at least. It all depends on the success rate you have, promotion so to say.

And here’s the main catch – when you’re up to yourself, you can never, never match the power of a well balanced indie label on the digital market. Some distributors try to convince you in the opposite, now that’s just bullshit. Sure, someone sings with a major, they put his video next to Coldplay’s new hit single on YouTube, shoot a 200k$ video, book O2 Arena and make all the leading magazines review their artist. And how are you going to catch up, by making a free download of your 6 track album on your Facebook page?

 So the labels still lead the game. Though the digital market increases every moment, showbiz is a mistress who smiles only at the ones who have loads of contacts, power and influence. And in this field, the labels have all the horses yet.

And do not let anyone fool you - there's nothing especially revolutionary in the model of self releasing your record. You're not throwing away the label - you're really just starting a record label yourself.

So, from my point of view, signing with a label is still a best start. You may not need all the services that label provides – for example, you may have an already recorded album and a video, but you’ll need the promotion and contacts that the labels infrastructure allows. This is Essential for a good start. And when you reach the height where you have the fan-base and popularity to do on your own, it’s a good time to revalue your needs and demands and make a choice which suits you best. 

Battle Rages on - Major labels vs Indie labels

So, We’ve discussed the essential differences the Major and Indie labels already right here http://unsignedhelp.blogspot.com/2011/09/thanks-to-wiki-for-diagram-according-to.html (If you missed it, I doubt you’ll understand this topic). But besides invaluable theoretical knowledge, I guess the main thing you want to find out is which one is better to sign a contract with, to begin flooding their mailboxes with your material straight away. Now, this is an age-old argument and as it usually happens with age-old questions, there is no universal solution, but there some are obvious advantages and disadvantages and I’ll try to make them clear for you.

Let’s start with the advantages of a Major label:

No boundaries and limits – If you’re signed with a major and they are really interested in your promotion, then the sky is the limit. The budget and power of a major is far more great than indie’s. They can do whatever they’ll think is commercially profitable. They can launch you in space if they want to.  They can release 30 million your CD-s at a time if they think it’s worth it. They always have the best options for high quality production, packaging, media, tours, etc.

Influence & Contacts – The publishers, managers and A&R working on major are welcome everywhere. For them every door is opened. They can summon best arrangers, video directors, hairdressers. They can influence the best media resources (a middle indie label would dance for the opportunity to have their band reviewed in Rolling Stone Magazine, when major-financed stars shine on its cover), best festivals, most popular TV shows and even the most visited websites.

Less problems to deal with – Another advantage of being signed to a major also is that as an artist all you have to do is to create and perform the music, stand still and look stupid to the photographers and don’t talk shit in interviews. The label handles everything else, especially business & promotion issues.

But not all that glitters is gold. Let’s now discuss the disadvantages of a Major label.

Cold-blooded approach to the artists - Major labels have a reputation for giving artists unfavorable deals and rewarding the business team greater than the artist who created the music.  Very often the artist does not get to keep the rights or even the creative control over the music. And most probably as soon as they’ll suck out all the money-making potential from you, you’ll be fired. Majors always try to offer as low royalties as possible, wine over every cent given to you and most of all make you think that you are kept as a winning horse, which will be sent to a tanner as soon as it shows signs of getting old.

Hard to get noticed – Even when you’re signed. Majors used to sign a lot of artists, but if your product doesn’t fit in immediately, probably you’ll get dropped. So you still have to prove yourself even when you’re signed. But you may be signed for a definite time, but never get real love.

“More business - less music” strategy – One of the main arguments against major labels is that they choose to promote and finance formulaic, unoriginal music, in order to safely sell music that is known to have high demand rates. Their work is based far more upon strategic and business calculations, then music. In other words, they are heartless evil people, who don’t give a shit about music and think only about money. But they are very rich and powerful.

Now about the cons of signing an independent label.

As you guess, every advantage that major labels have is a disadvantage to independent labels. Independent labels mostly lack powerful distribution networks that would promote their products in stores. They don’t posses the capital of major and this has its impact on all of the independent label’s operations, from the product management to the artist promotion. As already stated, independent record labels do not have the same leverage and access to radio and the media as major labels do. Ultimately, these disadvantages make it the responsibility of independent labels to seek out or develop new ways of promoting records, simply in order to survive and compete with the major-backed labels.

But they have their Pros of course.

To overlook the business model, independent record labels are run as small business. In most cases, the label is run only by few people who work closely with each artist they sign. These builds close relationships and removes a lot of obstacles when you want to contact your producer or sales person or whoever you want directly. This is very hard in a major.

Most probably when indie label signs a contract with you, is because it likes your music and thinks that it suits the labels needs. They trust that your music can sell with their help, and work to promote you as an individual, not the suitable image that they often create for you in major labels. As a rule, Indie label contracts, as their relations and politics, are far more artist-friendly and give the artists more royalties and percentages than any major does. Frequently, this concerns artistic rights and copyright issues also. Indie labels often have a particular sound and genre and fans of artists signed to a certain label often trust it to deliver music that they like. This provides artist’s influence over a certain market.

This is it. As you see both sides have their Pros and Cons. Well, as you remember, many indie labels are backed up by majors. You can try to get signed by them and have the best of all possible worlds. But keep in mind that the more the indie label uses majors resources and finance, the more the major interferes in its politics and course. “And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you” – F. Nietzsche.

As you see, there is no definite solution of which way is better. It is a matter of approach, position and circumstances. Well, everyone makes his own choice. I’ll not state here which kind of label I personally support. This is an entirely private decision for a musician and I don’t want to influence it even in the most humble way. 

Men of constant sorrow - the A&R persons

Well, As I’ve already mentioned  I don’t think that a musician looking up for a record deal needs to know all about particular  branches and functions of a record label  in details. It’s enough to be aware of the A&R system. But, it’s vital to be aware of it. Because, to cut in short, these are the people who decide whether you have chance of signing to their company, or not. In other words, it’s up to them to decide if you are cool and talented enough to get a chance.

The A&R job is one of the few jobs on earth, where age doesn’t matter. Mostly because of the many diverse types of music which have listeners from different age zones.  If you are a Cello player  in an orchestra you should not expect an A&R person younger then 35-40 years on your performance. On the other hand, if you are a 18 years old lead singer of a girl band and are performing songs named like  “Mama I’m big enough to pierce my ass”, you must rarely expect an A&R person older then 35. As widely accepted, an A&R of a specific musical style or genre is much alike the listeners of that style. 

There are different levels and types of A&R and all of them have different approach to music business.

Some of them go to shows (are interested in live performance), some of them don’t.

Some of them accept unsolicited material, some of them don’t (Well, in 90% of the cases they don’t).

Some of them accept authorized CD-s, some of them emails, some of them do both.

Some of them stick to one city (not necessarily where their company is), others spend 25 hours in a plane each week.

The biggest problem is that these guys (especially the ones who work on label) are really hard to get in touch with. They receive hundreds of emails and CD-s each day, hear stuff like “Check out, this is the New Nirvana” every day and generally despise people. Especially musicians. But mostly, these people are really busy. In fact, they probably are the busiest branch of the industry business. Reaching them without loads of contacts in the biz must be considered as sheer luck.

We’ll discuss how to get to these punks in another topic.

Well, some say that the days of A&R are numbered because musicians now can create and market their music online. Digital revolution in da Haus!!! Well many people (and me also) consider this point of view as being too simplistic. It’s right that internet took away the necessity of a middleman and musicians can get to their listeners without the help of a record company, but the main problem of a today’s artist is the difficulty of getting heard above billions of other, fighting for listener’s attraction. A&R here is nothing but a filter. Because they decide, which of these million artists have real potential to create unique (or highly commercial) music and who really deserves a chance (or who can bring loads of money).

The Skills and tastes of some A&R persons have greatly influenced the course of music history. Nirvana was signed when Alternative Rock was not favored by labels; Jackson was refused to be signed several times because disco music was going down. We all see the consequences. 

The A&R persons come in two different flavors – The ones who work on a record company and the independent ones.

The hired A&R persons  have the exact advantages that major label has over the independent ones (sorry, we haven’t passed that yet). They are mostly paid really well, have the opportunity to work without limits. Very often they even don’t have to listen to all new material, they just accept solicited CDs. 

But this can be frustrating too. A hired person may discover a unique band, but the president of the label, the head of A&R, or some other big player in the company may just decline the choice, despite the fact that the A&R are paid for one thing – choosing. Frequently they just don’t have the freedom to sign what they want.

Independent A&R persons are free from this burden; they can listen to whatever they want, whenever they want and as much as they want. But they don’t have the power of the record label backing them up. Let’s say, you are an indie A&R and you’ ve met a band which you’re sure will make an explosion in Japan. Or a female singer, who needs a high quality video clip to become another Lady Gaga. But without the infrastructure of the record company, the only thing indie A&R can do is to go back to the company and promote his artist.

Last but not the least – after 1990’s there is a growing tendency of more commercial and business-minded signings. The main factor to blame is that the most powerful names in modern music industry are no longer people with strong background in music, but business people. Traditionally, A&R persons came from music, being composers, producers, etc. In Today’s business, an A&R person with solid musical ability and knowledge has become a rarity. Which of course has its impact on modern music.