

Trent Reznor: What to do as a new/unknown artist - KC8ZKF
http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?30,767183,767183#msg-767183

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rivo
This is the most spot-on "tutorial" for today's musicians I've read so far. As
a musician (formerly on a major label) with a hacker background, I agree with
every single word. It is still hard for musicians, however, to give away their
music for free, especially if money was spent producing it.

My band has been working the way described here for 3-4 years now. We're not
famous but we have our fan base and we know there are people willing to pay
for stuff. It's not enough to cover our living expenses but maybe we'll get
there one day. Next stop: ramen-profitable...

Still, as the only Internet-savvy member in the band, it's hard to explain
this to my band mates. E.g. we get lots of requests from dummers for our songs
without the drum tracks so they could play along. They'd pay much more than
for a regular album. And they'd upload videos to YouTube which would be free
promotion for us. But I cannot get our drummer to agree to releasing these
versions.

Most musicians don't get it. Yet.

~~~
Xichekolas
You should link your band's site in your profile.

I read your comment and thought "hey, might as well see if they are any good",
but then you didn't give a link or even mention the band's name... so I
couldn't.

~~~
rivo
I'm here as a hacker rather than a musician so I didn't put the band URL in my
profile. Anyway, this is the band: <http://www.rivodrei.de>. We're German so
most of you won't understand the lyrics. (There's some English information
here: <http://www.rivodrei.de/en/>) That's also one of the reasons it's on a
much smaller scale than you would expect.

These are a few things we did:

-I built this website as a community website early on. There's some additional material when you sign up (e.g. demo recordings etc.). You can find out which other fans went to the same concerts and communicate with them. There's a shop, guestbook, Google Maps integration, galleries, and a forum. Couldn't find any off-the-shelve package that did all of this together so I had to code it myself.

-All our videos are zero budget. People like them anyway (they don't care about quality so much). We're currently shooting more videos for our new album.

-We gave away a few tracks in the past and I'd like to do it for our next album which is due in the fall. But like I said, I have a feeling I will fail to convince my drummer/bassist.

-Remix contest: <http://www.rivodrei.de/remix/> (And yes, we could give away all individual tracks of all songs but the demand doesn't seem to be as high as for the no-drums version where everything else is pre-mixed.)

-Live webcasting from the studio during our recordings for the new album (via former Mogulus.com).

-Some fun stuff such as this one: [http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2008/01/the-...](http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2008/01/the-hit-song-yo.html) (This is in English, btw.)

-We try to collect email addresses as much as we can, especially at concerts. Newsletters are sent about once a month and people can opt out any time.

-About the use of Flash: There's a little box at the top right with pictures of live concerts. I have a feeling that people thought they were ads because of the animation.

-We have a MySpace page but for many months now, we've been attracting mostly spam. I am considering deleting our profile there. We haven't used Twitter yet because it hasn't taken off that much in Germany yet but when it does, we will use it more. We have a Facebook page and that seems to gain some traction now. YouTube is doing ok. No Flickr account. (We have our own gallery and I'm too lazy to post all pictures twice.) I like to focus on our own website because all these services come and go.

-I answer all (serious) emails. This is very important. And it's funny how excited some people are to get an email from the singer and not from some management. ;)

It takes a lot of time to shoot on all these channels _and_ create new
material (music/videos) at the same time. I'm not doing this full-time so
unfortunately, there's not much time left for something else.

~~~
GavinB
Good stuff. Loved the nonsense english song especially. Being able to
understand the words sure helps, even if half of the lyrics are nonsense.

One thing that strikes me is that your recording sound is very "live." You
don't include any instruments other than your three and use minimal effects.
Is this an intentional choice to stay true to the live show? Adding a few
extras that don't fit into the live show might be really effective--especially
dubbing in some vocal harmonies.

That said, I think you're doing great. Just bought the one song you have on
itunes.

~~~
rivo
The "nonsense song" was recorded by ourselves during a rehearsal so it's
pretty much just the three of us. On our first album, there are many more
additional instruments, background vocals, and overdubs. That was when we were
with SonyBMG. Our producers wanted to get that commercial radio sound (which
didn't help much in retrospect, it was still too rough for German radio - go
figure).

Our fans often say it's too much and they'd rather like the raw sound of our
live concerts. I think the next album will be a lot more like that. (Still
more than just three tracks, though.)

~~~
GavinB
That makes sense. It's probably a case of focusing on what you're best at,
rather than trying to fit into someone else's mold.

------
mahmud
My girlfriend is a musician and my one wish from the startup community working
in the music scene is to kill both "management" and the bookies.

If anybody is working on democratizing event organization, marketing and
ticket sales, you have our full support, participation and feedback. Ask away
and I/she will tell you.

~~~
leviathant
You should check out Martin Atkin's book "Tour Smart." It should be mandatory
reading for anyone involved in live music in just about any capacity.
Seriously, a really, really good read, something I wish I had when I was still
gigging.

------
dan_the_welder
"Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times.
MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don't
autoplay)"

Brilliant. All websites should adhere to this advice.

I despise autoplay anything. It's the Internet not Television.

~~~
abesapien
I don't agree with the "Remove all flash from your website suggestion". If you
look at Pandora, Lala.com, Amazon, YouTube. They all use swf format as an easy
way to deliver the music and video.

It's not without drawbacks however, but you will have a good idea of what the
users experience will be when they recieve the media. It is probably not a bad
idea to have multiple ways of viewing the media IMHO. With the user having the
option to get the file itself alongside the sandbox be it Flash, Java , etc.

I don't think the Iphone supports flash right now though.

~~~
DanHulton
I'm pretty sure he's referring to Flash as navigation. Leaving Flash in to
play songs makes perfect sense, but having those ridiculous all-flash front
pages and navigation "flash app" is retarded and should rightly be abolished.

------
ktharavaad
His advice on \- giving music out for free at un-DRMed format in exchange for
email \- and using the email address to sell premium goods such as signed
personal items..etc

sounds remarkably like the advice in the Seth godin's "Permission Marketting"
book.

~~~
Xichekolas
As a NIN customer, I can attest this works.

I have always been a fan of NIN, but not enough of one to check the website
and keep up with tours and stuff. I'd occassionally catch a show and generally
found out about new albums through my friends.

Then one of my friends pointed me to the Ghosts release, which I could buy
online, DRM-free, for $5. I thought this was the greatest thing, so of course
I bought it.

Then I started getting emails from Trent whenever they released something new
or posted new tour dates. The emails were decidedly uncommercial... just plain
text, as if he was emailing a group of friends. It's easy to dismiss other
weekly emails ( _ahem_ Amazon and Borders) because of all the fancy graphics
and marketing, but the NIN emails were both infrequent, personal, and very
relevant.

So far, these emails have led me to buy The Slip, Niggy Tardust, the new
Street Sweeper Social Club album, and attend two concerts. I'm definitely more
involved as a fan, and love being told when things are happening, rather than
having to follow the band's website.

I think the trick is not to overdo it. I think most people look at marketing
as an activity that has to be constant... a daily/weekly barrage of offers,
deals, and news. That's a quick way to get me to unsubscribe. But when I get
an email every couple months from Trent telling me a new album is up for $5
(or more if you want signatures and stuff), or new tour dates are posted, I'm
glad to know.

------
jasonlbaptiste
" The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first
hand use of these tools. If you don't get it - find someone who does to do
this for you."

Opportunity to be had being the "someone" who does this for artists?

------
trezor
Easily summed up as the the opposite of what the rest of the music industry is
doing with an emphasis on being realistic all the way.

I'm still wondering how much more time it will take before the realize they
are on the wrong track and reverses on their actions and listens to their
actual customers.

