Trent Reznor offers sensible advice to new bands + WiN NiN tickets!
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Trent Reznor offers advice to new musicians and DiS gives away tickets so you can catch the final Nine Inch Nails UK headline dates.
If there was a DiS awards, Trent Reznor would win our "Most gay for..." prize every year. It's for this reason and many others, that we don't have an awards show. But the point still stands, the man is a living legend whose not only an alt- icon of this and the last decade but he's also one of the most 'on it' musicians when it comes to what the fans want, how people consume music and what the music industry of the future might be like. He shows us by doing it.
Oh BOOER, like Radiohead, he's a major established artist, it's alright for him, what about my band The Reprobates and our hopes of a career now that all music is free? Well, Trent has pondered this too and shared his thoughts, as a retort to new bands on their messageboard.
These are the best bits advice from his post:
Establish your goals. What are you trying to do / accomplish? If you are looking for mainstream super-success (think Lady GaGa, Coldplay, U2, Justin Timberlake) - your best bet in my opinion is to look at major labels and prepare to share all revenue streams / creative control / music ownership. To reach that kind of critical mass these days your need old-school marketing muscle and that only comes from major labels. Good luck with that one.
If you're forging your own path, read on.
Give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people's email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special - make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters... whatever.
Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere.
The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact - it sucks as the musician BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So... have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).
...Constantly update your site with content - pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any - Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.
If you don't know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. 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. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig - good luck, you're going to be waiting a while.
If you wish to respond or read the full unedited post you'll find here on the NiN messageboard
WIN NiN
Right then, wanna see Trent and his crew in action? We've got a pair of tickets to give away to see Nine Inch Nails at Manchester MEN on the 14th July and another pair for the London 02 on the 15th July. For a chance to win, comment below with your suggestions and advice for new bands and we'll pick entries at random. It could be examples of things bands have done that you've liked, things bands/labels do that you really don't like, links to articles to read or simply an idea that you're stunned no-one has tried yet. Oh and please include the city you'd prefer to see NiN in, in the subject of your post. Good luck.
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- Nine Inch Nails, Jane's Addiction, Mew at The O2, London, Wed 15 Jul
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Share on FacebookNIN tickets (London)
1. Have 'The' in your name
2. Wear eyeliner
3. Be bisexual
4. Be mates with a grafitti artist
5. Drink 'Cheeky Vimto' out of plastic bottles
NiN (Manchester)
01: engage with people who might actually play your music (in other words, perhaps try hunting out the DJs/nights that are a good fit for your music. You'd be surprised what happens)
02: Don't go playing gigs every week in the same city, or go for every support slot going. Patience gets tested quickly.
03: ...particularly if you play the same set every time. Even experimenting with covers if you don't have enough original songs might bring some variety.
04: If you are going to get photos done, get them done by someone who knows what they are doing, and have an idea of what kind of image you want to portray.
05: Same applies with gig flyers.
06: You can do better than a Myspace account for your web presence. Hosting and a domain name are not expensive.
NIN [London]
1/ Get a cool logo
2/ Make sweet badges - not just the band logo, but with cool stuff. I liked the Maxïmo Park ones in '05 of flailing figures and one of a cat for We Are Scientists
3/ Release 'ironic' covers of well-known songs - think Whitney Houston
4/ Mix it up a bit live, possibly alter the song structure or tempo to keep people on their toes
5/ Do what feels right - if you enjoy wearing cardigans and Topman tees then go for it, but don't try and be what you're not whatever the circumstances
NIN (Manchester)
use the internet as much as humanely possible. in your early days, give stuff away for free (we did this with a whole album), as it crops up everywhere and if it's good, people will share it and your name will spread. then you can start charging for things on the next one! it's all about building a name for yourself!
NIN London
1) Genuinely believe in what you are doing
2) Don't change you sound to suit what fads are around at the moment. For example if you are a singer/songwriter who plays the piano, don't start adding drum machine cow bell sounds and reggae samples about smoking dope to your tunes because you think it will make you more relevant, as it won't.
3) Play free gigs and give away free tunes to begin with (people love free stuff)
4) Gather up money via day jobs to release your own records and distribute them to willing music shops. Record labels are totally yesterday and may not even exist by the time I post this.
6) Be really really good because if you are really really good and people think you're for real, they will listen to what you have to say.
Damn! I need to start a band, where can I get some reggae samples about smoking dope from...
Manchester
Dress as Kedgeree and hand out free peas at your gigs
NIN (london)
Don't claim a break-up is amicable
Don't claim a break-up is because of musical differences when you have just released an album
MOST OF ALL....befriend the sound engineer/tech at gigs. DONT BE A CUNT
NiN (Manchester)
Put a donk on it.
NiN (london)
Make a nickelback style video
Have a flash mob
NiN London
Base all of your lyrics and chord progressions on The Ramones.
Nine Inch Nails (London)
1: Choose a name by making an anagram of Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine.
2: Get Josh Freese on drums.
3: Earn Buddyhead.com's one positive review of the year.
NIN (London)
The answer comes in a favourite lyric of mine (from Unified Theory, Keep On): 'To die, doing what you love is alright.'
NIN (London)
Don't be Vampire Weekend.
NIN (London)
1. Write and record stuff you would want to listen to yourself, as soon as you start writing stuff for some other purpose you've lost your way.
2. Believe fully in what you want to convey, ponder what you want to do and why.
3. If you feel you've nothing new or original to say then stop and go back to being a struggling writer / poet / director *
* Delete as applicable.
NIN (London)
It's hardly original, but you've got to get your music everywhere. New Media is great for this - obviously everyone has a MySpace, but get on Last FM too - that way people are gonna hear you by accident.
Radio One's Introducing is a good way to try to get festival gigs too, so make sure you send a demo to them. And play everywhere! Give our CDRs on the street, get to know local promoters and be prepared to have your soul destroyed playing pubs where no-one's there and everybody hates you...
Get to know other bands - email them, set up tours, help them out with promotion etc, and they'll do the same back. Be prepared to do stuff for free: it's the only way right now.
Oh, and write good songs - don't just be derivative as you'll fade out when the scene moves on. You need to stand out, and that might mean pissing some people off or alienating some people - but don't just be a Gallagher dick. You have to ingratiate your fans - garner goodwill, as Reznor put it - and then they'll want to spend money on your band.
Bloody tough environment right now, though...
LONDON!!!
1) finish off every line with a James Hetfield esque "ah" sound
2) sing with more brother tone
3) smellavision videos
4) have a name like Mew that makes me think they're actually really lame, so i don't get into them too early and then later get to find out that they play a tiny gig in my town a few years ago.
5) the only correct equation for optimum percussionists is P = B(GS/4) where P = Percussionists and GS is the number of guitar strings, and B is the bludgeon factor.
6) the word “knee” must be used at least thrice on any successful album.
7) once you’ve reached a certain age, you can start branding each tour as your last, and sell ticket at a 20% mark up from what they’re worth.
8) there MUST be a bit in a song where everything cuts out, and your singer growls something like “Disrespect your surroundings” or a simple but effective “EEEEEEYYYYUM!”, before a chuggy chuggy breakdown. (works best if you are otherwise a bit twee).
9) rhyme “Homer” with “Homer” at least once.
10) singers should all be cheekishly chubby antipodean like Luke Steele for full engrossing effect.
NIN (Manchester)
I'd advise new bands not to be utterly rubbish, too many seem to be forgetting this fairly basic step...........
NIN (London)
Play good music, and if you do...
gig. a lot.
NIN (Manchester)
Don't call yourself Jonny Wanker and the Disco Bastards. That is MY name, and you are not going to use it.
NIN (London)
i would recommend making your cd's/vinyl's available for as little as possible. i am more likely to buy something if its cheap. its as simple as that.
NIN Tickets London
My 5 suggesion would be:
1) Learn to play an instrument
2) Be yourself
3) Stick it up the mainstream's face
4) Don't be scared of hard work (cos it will be)
5) Have thick skin (you'll need it)
"NEVER CHASE TRENDS"
but utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any - Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.
...Are these not trends?
NiN London
Sell mp3s from your own website.
NIN London
Be lovely to reviewers. Bribe them if need be. Favourable reviews get you everywhere. Especially from Heat. You get a good review from Heat magazine and you're made for life.
Be fit. No one wants to see an uggo. That's why The Enemy are failing hard on the new album. Try and have a pretty lady in the band also. People are shallow and feckless. Exploit this.
Cover 'Mysterious Girl.'
freebies
Give me free tickets to your gigs! You hear me NIN?!
NIN london
Give me free tickets to your gigs! You hear me NIN?!
NIN MANCHESTER
I couldn't really give much advice as I don't have any experience, however i would agree with much of the stuff Trent has said.
'Dont follow trends' is a great piece of advice. They all dissapear.
The Avangelist Says
Don't forget why you started playing. So so many great UK bands have thrown in the towel because they haven't been able to make a career out of playing music.
Sure we'd all like to just play the odd show every month, ring in a few hundred or thousand people and make a fat wad of cash, but is that really why you started a band?
When it starts becoming about the money, you are already playing for the wrong reasons, if you don't enjoy it, and respect it for what it is, then you are already screwed.
Give away everything and it will be repaid to you tenfold, don't disrespect other bands or people in the industry, or the industries that support you and just be yourselves.
London
Don't write and subsequently post crappy hyperbolic biographies written in the 3rd person on your myspace.
NIN (london)
Give away mp3s, ill always download free stuff and then pay to see bands live..
London
Concentrate far more on the music you're making than your publicity strategy. Pretty Hate Machine was still a labour of love.
Manchester!
the unpopular but honest response would be find a gimick to get yourself attention. If your electropop find a wierd gadget to use on stage, littleboots. If your rock, get your picture taken doing somthing wild and crazy or just somthing involving blood, the blackout. Another example was the CCTV video band, etc. Have one member play the drunk drug idiot and promote his/her getting in trouble as rebellion, Libertines.
Then once you got some peoples attention TOUR!
(london)
N I NEVER CHASE TRENDS
London
1) Eyeliner and haircare products should not be fretted over as much or more than the music! Every band should study the attitude, looks and substance of Bring Me The Horizon. And if they try to replicate it they should be electrocuted via their genitals.
2) Gimmicks are fine, make sure you have an answer to the eternal question "well what else you got?"
3) Soundbites like "my dick is like a diving rod" and "I don't do cute, I do hot" will cunjour oh-please-just-fuck-off-and-die responses from potential fans. Engage brain.
NIN - Manchester
Make only the music, video, online content etc you believe in but then always try to see things from the fan's point of view when marketing and distributing it - is it as easy as possible for them to access this? How do they want it? When do they want it? What price is fair value for it? How do I help them build a community around it? etc. Ask them questions about what you do, LISTEN to what they think and what they want and then try and give it to them. The willingness is there, help them to help you.
NIN (London)
Get better with every album, don't get worse.
I did
I won the Manchester tix, anyway...
Be intelligent and cultured - read, watch movies, travel, be open minded, and listen to 10 albums a day... References are what attracts fans and critics.
Be violent or aggressive on stage. Unless you're neither violent or aggressive in life. Just be intense: think Kap Bambino. no one wants to see a boring band on stage.
Be surrounded by the good team: a devoted manager, a couple of journalists, a friend photographer. Get a good knowledge of the Media and the Music industry.
Have sex
In Photos: Monotonix @ Hector's House, Brighton
In Photos: The Specials @ Hammersmith Apollo, London
In Photos: Camden Crawl Launch Event @ The Blues Kitchen, London
In Photos: La Roux @ Shepherds Bush Empire, London
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