Earlier this week, musician Benn Jordan – who releases Aphex-tinged IDM under the name The Flashbulb – caused a bit of a stir on the blogosphere by claiming iTunes was effectively ‘pirating’ his music, selling his tunes without his permission. He was so annoyed at this, that he uploaded his new album, Soundtrack To A Vacant Life, to BitTorrent, allowing anyone to download it for free.

NFAB grabbed him for a quick interview to find out more.

Making a living

NFAB: You’ve managed to make a decade-long career out of making music at a time when the industry’s been in turmoil – how did you manage to do it?

Benn: My guess is because I didn’t grow up in a place where people were starry eyed about record labels and MTV notability. It seems like in the ’80s and ’90s, South Chicago was really secluded from the influences that built modern pop-culture. My Grandfather had branded me with the ethics of being a very tight businessman, but to work hard for the money I negotiate and deliver 110%.

I don’t want to make anyone think that it is easy to make a living as a musician, trust me, it is not. But it helps if you look at every single gig, contract, and transaction the same way that you would if you were running a different kind of business.

If I contacted an auto dealership and told them: “If you give me a new car for free, and if it runs perfectly without any mechanical problems for the duration of the time I own it, and if I’m not too busy, I’ll tell my friends that your car dealership is good.” Do you think they’d give me a set of keys to a new car or fall to the ground with laughter?

“Coachella offered me a lineup spot, but explained they couldn’t pay… I fell to the ground with laughter”

So last year when Coachella offered me a lineup spot, but explained that they couldn’t pay me for it… I fell to the ground with laughter.

NFAB: What’s involved in setting up and running your own label?

Benn: Ten years ago I would say that it simply takes good artists, a good startup loan, a good accountant, and a whole lot of positive energy. Now I think the an important ingredient is creativity in planning your business strategy. The playing field is leveled and there is no longer a standard procedure to get music distributed, promoted, or purchased. The “rules” are diminishing. As much as one might say it is a horrible time to start a record label, another might say it is the best time to do it.

Torrents and iTunes

NFAB: Why did you decide to put your new album on a torrent site?

Benn: My thoughts at the time were that I didn’t have anything to lose by putting it there. From past experiences, someone uploads a rip of the album the day it comes out (if it doesn’t leak). I’m also a firm opponent of certain copyright laws and politics, and if the copyright holder is the one sharing the album, it creates a gray area legally and maybe even a line of defense for the site administrator once the men with guns break down his or her door.

NFAB: The story has been spun by bloggers as an attack on iTunes, but is the beef not more with your label or whoever distributed your tracks to the iTunes store?

Benn: It is really funny how a story like this breaks out. Every blog or news site seems to copy parts of the story from another site, leaving out information and then making an assumption. The next news site reports the assumptions like they were confirmed parts of the story, and leaves out yet more real information. The end result is a story about an artist uploading his own album to a private torrent network turned into a story about a Scientologist blaming iTunes for his horrible major label contract. It is far too ridiculous to even bother me.

“My beef is with pretty much everyone involved between me and my listeners”

My beef is with pretty much everyone involved between me and my listeners. Sublight Records was taking 50% of my album sales, yet wouldn’t step up to the plate for me when there was a copyright issue with iTunes or the distributors. The distributors drove Sublight Records out of business through chargebacks, bought up all the remaining albums at less than $1 a piece, and are now hawking them at full retail price without paying the artists anything. Then for over 3 years, iTunes has been unable to put me in contact with anyone to figure out where the money is going from the Sublight releases. My contract (and other artists’) never included anything about digital distribution, and we were told that we were free to handle that on our own separate agreements. All of these companies are lining their pockets yet nobody cares enough to spend the 15 minutes on solving the problem that’s gagging up to 5 figures out of our income.

It is still piracy on Apple’s part. If someone is selling burned DVDs outside of a video store, it doesn’t matter who ripped the original DVD… they’re selling copyrighted material unlawfully. In fact, it is a federal offence punishable by arrest and sometimes imprisonment that many have been convicted of. But you can’t call the police when iTunes does it, only when a homeless guy does it.

Making good music

NFAB: What advice would you give to any band starting out now in terms of finding an audience for their music?

Benn: Not worrying about publicity and worrying about making good music. That way when you run into some publicity, your product delivers and the exposure will bring you life-long fans.

“When you build a beautiful new house on top of a 50 year old landfill, it’s still going to smell like garbage inside”

NFAB: Do you feel hopeful for the music industry?

Benn: There will always be a demand for music, thus the music industry will always exist. The RIAA has been replaced by equally as sociopathic companies like Apple and Rhapsody with clean and trendy public images. When you build a beautiful new house on top of a 50 year old landfill, it’s still going to smell like garbage inside.

NFAB: What do you think the future holds for how music will be distributed?

Benn: The good news is that popular music will continue to go through an evolutionary process as the content becomes more important than the promotion campaigns. People who were only exposed to the stuff they could buy at Target now have the opportunity to be more diversely cultured in their tastes. Also, there is a lot of room for new ideas and innovations. For example, when the CD standard completely vanishes, there won’t be so many bureaucratic and technical roadblocks when an artist wants to release an album in 5.1/surround sound. We won’t be stuck to this silly 44.1khz/2-channel red book-standard crap.

The bad news is that, in the near future, many governments are going to side with the large corporations… and more and more people will be forced to go bankrupt or sit behind bars for using an artist’s content in a way that they were told not to.

One of the best resources on the net for the DIY band is undoubtedly Andrew Dubber’s New Music Strategies blog. His free e-book, 20 Things You Must Know About Music Online, is essential reading for any unsigned or undiscovered artist looking to make sense of the changing music promotion and distribution landscape. NFAB grabbed him for a chat.

Promotion is the easy bit

NFAB: What would be your advice for new artists in need of a promotional push? Pursue traditional press avenues? Or just concentrate on the online channels?

Andrew: Actually, getting press/promotion for your music is the easiest bit these days. It’s just time consuming, and sometimes it’s worth bringing in a professional just because it’s such a job of work. As you say, there are so many avenues from traditional press to social networks — and a decent PR strategy should include as many of those things as you can muster. Online channels are different to offline ones — but they don’t replace them.

Crisis in the music industry?

NFAB: The media is making much of the crisis in the music industry – what are your thoughts?

Andrew: [They should] consult some of the smartest minds on the planet from organisations like Creative Commons and the EFF to talk about ways to make money from a more open, technology-friendly, Long Tail -ready business model. I reckon it will take around five years for this to work, and you’re going to have to start sooner or later if you want to still be in existence 10 years from now.

80% of the most powerful companies on the planet listed in the Forbes 500 guide 20 years ago simply don’t exist anymore. Their fatal error? Resistance to change.

Let’s not forget here though that I’m not talking about ‘The Music Industry’. I’m talking about the Record Industry, which is a small subset of the Music Industry. And even then, I’m only talking about a minority of organisations who command the lion’s share of the economics of that section of the industry.

“As long as people derive value from an engagement with music, there will be money to be made”

Let’s not make this mistake: the music industry is NOT in any trouble. By and large, the music industries as a whole are doing just great — particularly live music, music education and the community music / social enterprise sector. Mismanagement on a global scale may attract headlines, but as long as people derive value from an engagement with and experience of music, there will be money to be made.

Empowering the amateur

NFAB: Do you think that the internet has empowered the amateur to the point that it’s become almost impossible for the good voices to be heard above the noise? Is it about who shouts loudest or who has the best gimmick (e.g. Sandi Thom)?

Andrew: No. 90% of everything is always crap. The more stuff there is, the greater the 10% pile becomes. All we need are effective filtering systems to sort what we consider to be wheat from what we consider to be chaff.

“90% of everything is always crap”

Advanced internet users are advanced to the extent that they have better filtering systems than everyone else. RSS feeds and social networks with built-in recommendation systems (such as Last.fm) are examples of online filtering processes that bring the good stuff to your attention.

There’s a service industry revolution due in terms of customised and personalised cross-media content delivery. If it comes, and it’s done right, it will be of the same order as the call centre phenomenon.

Sandi Thom was a good story because it was the first time that particular PR stunt was done well. Like the million dollar homepage, everyone who tries to replicate that stunt will fail — because we’ve seen it and we know how it works now. That’s the great thing about the online environment. You have to be clever, and you have to be innovative every time you go to work.

Major vs. independent

NFAB: If an NFAB reader was offered a major label record contract tomorrow, would you advise them to sign – if so/if not, then why?

Andrew: That depends on what you want out of your musicianship.

If you want to be famous, have a number one single in the charts, a music video played worldwide on television and a concert tour where hundreds of thousands of people turn up, buy your merchandise and sing along with your songs — then your chances are still much better with a major label deal than without it. That may not always be true, but it is currently.

“If you want to have all of the decision-making power about what you are, then your chances are better as an independent”

However, if you want to have a sustainable career, manage your own repertoire, have creative control, earn a decent living, not be in debt to a major corporation, have all of the decision-making power about what you are and aren’t prepared to do and — over the course of your career — earn more money and reach more people that care about your music, then your chances are better as an independent.

Statistically speaking, your chances of being generally creatively constrained are much higher in a major record company. However, there are some world class marketing people working in major labels who would be good to have on board if fame is your desired outcome.

Connecting with fans

NFAB: With all this drive to connect with fans, open up access to you and your music, sell relationships etc, do you think something of the mystery has been lost? Could you imagine someone as compellingly aloof and enigmatic as Dylan or Bowie emerging from the Music 2.0 era?

Andrew: There are people who are genuinely aloof and enigmatic — but to answer your question more directly, just look how accessible and folksy Bowie, Dylan and David Byrne have become, given the choice and the access through technology. Music is a form of communication and expression, and they have all made the most of the new music environment to enhance that aspect of what they do.

Most genuinely interesting artists (and I’d definitely include those three) turn out to be genuinely interesting, intelligent, creative and engaging human beings once they have the platform through which to express that side of themselves. I think that makes them more fandom-worthy — not less (and in a much more palatable and sensible way).

While it’s nice to have a privileged position as the artiste, and while for some there may be a degree of frailty of the image that’s been created, which comes under threat from accessibility and close scrutiny, I actually think that directness of expression, connection and communication has been a goal of most songwriters throughout history.

Technology doesn’t make you directly connect with fans, but it does allow you to.

Frankly, the alternative way for audiences to see behind the screen is through the lens of the tabloid. An information vacuum will lead them straight there. With that in mind, it makes a lot of sense to me that most artists are choosing to control their own message and be deliberate about what they reveal about themselves — no matter how famous or mysterious they are.

It’s an interesting week for the UK charts. Koopa, the unsigned band who crashed into the Top 40 in January and kicked off a media stink, find themselves at No. 16 today with their third single – and they’re still unsigned, confounding critics who claimed they wouldn’t be able to repeat the success of that first DIY release.

Meanwhile, the Official Charts Company have recently announced that, from next year, streaming and download data from UK music subscription services will be added to its current set of data.

And finally, a poll today declares that 74% of Britons think the charts have lost all their credibility and only reflect the marketing muscle of record labels, rather than the tastes of music fans.

The Koopa perspective

So where does this leave us all? Are those 74% of Britons correct?

“74% of Britons think the charts have lost all their credibility”

Koopa believe that making an impact on the charts is still important for the promotion of your band: “When we first got in, we made an impact, but we felt some people thought it was a one-off,” says frontman Joe Murphy. “So since then we’ve been back in the Top 40 to prove it wasn’t a flash-in-the-pan, which has earned us some respect. So it’s not as important as it was once, but still can’t do any harm!”

Selling your tracks via SMS

Koopa were one of the first unsigned bands to reap success from selling their tracks via SMS. For the uninitiated, this means distributing your tracks via a digital download service like Indiestore (find out more in this post), who will generate a code for your tracks that can be texted by fans. Payment is then taken from your phone credit, and you’re given a unique download code to use to redeem your MP3.

“We realised that some of our younger fans under 18, may not have access to credit-cards to purchase downloads,” says Joe. “But we did think that most have some form of mobile phone and that there must be a way for these people to pay for the tracks with their phone credit (much like when you purchase a ring-tone).”

Your chance for chart success

The addition of a chart based on data from subscription services, the OCC’s Martin Talbot told us, will mean the single will become “the pre-eminent format of the future, whether as a download or stream; and the charts will reflect both.”

“the single will become the pre-eminent format of the future”

This is good news for the DIY musician, as motivating fans to listen is much easier than galvanising them to buy your track – even if Koopa prove that, with the right strategy, sales chart success can be achieved by the unsigned artist.

The music industry is evolving, and major labels are starting to develop new strategies to help adapt to the current DIY climate. We interviewed James Lambert-Martin, Digital A&R Co-ordinator at Sony BMG, to find out how one of the biggest major labels in the world is changing its practices to deal with the music 2.0 revolution.

Submitting demos

NFAB: First off, what does an A&R do exactly?

James: It stands for Artists & Repertoire. The main focus is to discover and develop talent. There’s more to the role than simply scouting, but there is a large element of listening, gig-going and collecting contacts of those involved with new talent. You are often the ‘face’ of the label you’re representing in the eyes of the artist and need to build a strong relationship with them. You can find yourself working with an artist to a degree before anything is signed, sometimes with advice or with introductions to others who may help them develop.

NFAB: Sony BMG is now only accepting demos from new artists via the Vox blog network – can you explain why?

James: It’s currently the most efficient way of handling demos by far. I can go through what would have been a whole day’s worth of demos in an hour or so. Their blogs update with new info and material, and provides me with an easy way of building a relationship.

Conversely, a demo in a jiffy bag doesn’t update itself and often doesn’t really reflect the band as best it could. Only the person who received the demo can experience the band and it’s not always necessarily the right person. This way, all staff at Sony BMG can explore and listen to our submissions.

No half-baked songs

NFAB: What are you looking for when it comes to submissions?

James: I get asked this a lot and my answer is always as unhelpful. Something good.

“if you have great songs and you’re amazing live then chances are you will spark interest”

Ultimately, if you have great songs and you’re amazing live then chances are you will spark interest. However, you can’t apply the same principles across the board. Sometimes something really gets you going and you don’t know why as it doesn’t tick the usual boxes.

What I can say is never submit something half-baked. We get too many demos with a note saying “This isn’t finished but…” or “With money this will sound amazing”. Those nearly always sound crap. Do something you’re proud of that is reflective of where you’re at musically – if we don’t like it then we wouldn’t be the label for you anyway.

NFAB: What’s the next step once you hear something you like?

James: I shortlist everything I like in Vox, and then keep going back to it and shorten the list again and again. I also go to the gigs I can get to, and do as much research as I can on the band. I contact the band, see what I can find out about them, what they’re up to and if anyone else is already involved. Once I’m happy with the info I have, I meet up with both Columbia and RCA once a week presenting my findings. They listen and decide on what happens next. Usually it means them heading to a gig.

Major label input

NFAB: With so many tools out there for new artists to record, promote and distribute music themselves, why are record labels still necessary?

James: I have yet to see much in the way of landmark albums that were entirely the artist’s own DIY effort. It’s a lovely concept to think someone could make a very important album from beginning to end without the help of a label. The truth is, you wont find a better collection of producers, graphic artists, film makers, marketeers, legal staff, A&R, Finance/Royalty Accounting Staff, International Sales Teams and more than at a label where it’s their job every day to get the best out of artists and support them. There’s always been a DIY element to the music industry which is very important, but one will never overtake the other I think.

“spending more time developing your MySpace page than your songs is not healthy for your music”

Labels represent a team and an environment which should act as a catalyst to an artist’s creativity. The better artists I meet concentrate on their craft first, their online activities second. I also know artists who spend more time developing their MySpace than their songs which I don’t think is healthy for their music.

Get on the radar

NFAB: What do you think is the most important thing any new band needs to get noticed, seeing as there are so many unsigned bands vying for your attention?

James: To get solid interest is to appear on an A&R’s radar in several places at once. Sitting in your bedroom with a few songs ruthlessly promoting yourself and adding ‘friends’ wont give you a high chance of getting anywhere. Everyone hates getting spammed.

However, couple that with regular gigging, striking up relationships with other similar artists, getting bits and pieces of radio or other media/online promo etc, and your music will draw the attention of the right people and fans. As with any industry there are taste-makers/influencers. The more of these people you can influence through promo the better.

Sony BMG’s blogging/demo submission community can be found at Columbia Demos and RCA Demos. This is the method of unsolicited demo submission for RCA and Columbia. Many of the staff at the labels also have their own blogs in the community and James’ is indieboy.vox.com. Once you have your own blog you can upload as much audio, video, pictures and artist details as you want.

Here we present part two of our interview with Drowned In Sound founder Sean Adams, where he discusses the future of record labels and why online battle of the band competitions produce “an endless reservoir of shit”.

The business of music

NFAB: Are business and music mutually exclusive?

Sean: No-one should be in “business” with anyone they don’t want to be, and releasing records should be a partnership. We do all our deals as profit splits, as it’s the way things should be done most fairly.

“I think owning too much of anyone’s creativity is wrong”

I think owning too much of anyone’s creativity is wrong and if the balance is tipped too far the expectations are all misaligned, i.e. a lot of musicians stop feeling they’re doing anything for themselves and often self-sabotage their careers as they’re no longer in control.

NFAB: What do you think about labels starting to talk up the 360 degree model?

Sean: I’m really surprised that a live company – as that’s where the money is – hasn’t taken up the 360 model as yet and become the hub for artists careers, but I guess if the Madonna/LiveNation deal happens we’ll see the start of a exciting paradigm shift. There are so many revenue streams and I don’t get why everything is treated like Ghostbusters, but I totally get why people want to keep their pieces of the pie and rely on the record business to take the risk of investing in an act. But there’s only so long this can continue.

At the moment most managers invest in acts to ensure they can build something worthy of a big advance, and if you ask bands like the now defunct Hope of the States if that half-a-million-quid level of risk and the associated expectations were good for their lives, let alone careers, then I think the 360 model could have been better for them.

The future of record labels

NFAB: Do you see a future for labels?

Sean: I don’t see a future for any of the music business as it currently is. For one, it’s owned and controlled by the wrong people at nearly all levels, from shareholders investing to make money and not culture, to gatekeepers who gauge their TV/radio output based on sales, rather than the quality of what they’re broadcasting.

“I don’t see a future for any of the music business as it currently is”

As I said, I think the Starbucks model is something we’ll see more of. I think it’s strange that the penny hasn’t dropped for more companies, who all want to put on pointless award shows or web 2.0 battle of the band contests offering record deals – see mycokemusic and most mobile phone companies with their Myspace-like sites full of shit. Don’t they know that no-one cares about an endless reservoir of shit? Why would you want you company associated with rubbish music?

NFAB: So how do you think music will reach fans ten years from now?

Sean: I think, as marketing products changes, a lot of the stuff said in No Logo will become increasingly relevant, and in the same way brands invest in football teams, they’ll be investing in music. It’s interesting how Apple have ‘used’ music in such a covert manner (with the end goal to sell more computers), and how someone like, say, Levi’s could easily be the label releasing the songs on their adverts. I’d be stunned if in a few years time big companies don’t start buying up labels and the whole business become something really different.

The Radiohead example

NFAB: What’s your take on Radiohead’s new album release?

Sean: I don’t think anyone wants to buy music, to put on iPods, when it’s so readily available free, pretty much everywhere from radio, MySpace and Youtube to playing in Top Shop or on adverts. However, people will still want to own artefacts and represent their tastes or see an event to feel part of things. If there’s a way to steal anything, with very little chance of getting caught, then the value of it is difficult to justify.

I don’t think music could ever be like an honesty bar, nor do I think consumers paying for music is necessarily the right paradigm – but someone, somewhere, has to be paying for creating it (read Courtney Love does the math for a rough idea), be that a sponsor or an advertiser or even data transfer for bandwidth usage like we pay for water.

I do think we’ll reach a point where people would be happier to pay to be recommended music, much like the Rough Trade albums club, or pay to be first or have a better version, a bit like hardback and paperbacks. There is so much scope for innovation.

Drowned In Sound was launched as a highly opinionated music website back in 2000. Three years later, its founder Sean Adams started a spin-off record label, and went on to release early tracks by the likes of Bat For Lashes and Kaiser Chiefs, as well as signing Martha Wainwright and Jeniferever.

Now Form A Band collared him to find out what it takes to release your own music. Here’s the first part, with part two to follow soon.

The ultimate mix tape

NFAB: Why did you decide to branch out from the website and start a record label?

Sean: I’ve always felt running a label is like having the ultimate mix tape that you want everyone to hear, and making money was never part of the allure. It’s all about disseminating and communicating music to the wider world.

“Starbucks is the first sign of a real paradigm shift”

I think increasingly the inability to make money from putting out records has stilted the ability for labels to develop or invest in on a level playing field with the majors. However, I think there’s a real sea change happening and the transitional period at the end of the record label era will take things back to the philanthropic ways things began. I guess Starbucks is the first sign of a real paradigm shift.

NFAB: Did having an audience on the website first help you in promoting the bands you signed (as Wired recently suggested it might)?

Sean: Personally I’m not sure in these increasingly fracturing times for mass media, whether a blog could build enough traction and depth of relationship with its readers for it to be any kind of shortcut to success (see also the MySpace label!?). However it’s certainly an interesting trend at a time where starting a label is financially insane, but where there’s an abundance of people starting club nights and labels. A few years from now it’ll be interesting seeing where these people will end up, or if we’ll create a world where it’s only possible to do this as a hobby.

First steps

NFAB: What’s the first step for anyone thinking of setting up a label to release their own/their friends’ music?

Sean: It should be really tentative step and one which involves a lot of research. Releasing music is a real responsibility as you’re dealing with people’s creativity and in some cases the starts of their careers – the last thing an act needs is a false start or early over-exposure before they’ve developed into being something special.

“Mindless enthusiasm can be a really dangerous thing”

Mindless enthusiasm can be a really dangerous thing and releasing music should be a really considered process – especially as there are far too many records released as it is, many of which serve little purpose but to smother the genuinely great ones. The impact of this is actually detrimental to not just the average quality of music but also has in many ways over-expanded the market into something so thin that it has inversely contributed to the demise of independent stores and actually strengthened mass culture in many respects.

NFAB: Why do you think that happens?

Sean: The concept of infinite choice, and the seemingly limitless militia of amateur culture, is partly why so few people of any quality are breaking through or at least developing their careers to a point where they can quit their jobs and become professional musicians or warrant sufficient investment to make the records they want to make. These things all lead to less investment in risky groundbreaking music and more to people taking the sure thing.

Check back soon for the second part of our interview with Sean Adams, where he discusses the future of record labels and why online battle of the band competitions produce “an endless reservoir of shit”.

In the old days, if you wanted a career in music, there were only a few ways to do it. And once you managed to get the attention of a record company, lots of other people – like managers, A&R reps, producers, label executives (even accountants !) – would get involved with your music. Some of those people were great. Some of them weren’t.

Things are different now. Music is changing.

The Campaign for Better Music is here to say: it doesn’t have to be like the old days. We’re going to show you how to produce, promote and distribute your music, without spending a load of money, and without lots of other people getting involved.

We’re here to call for better music. If you don’t like the music that’s thrown at you, then get out there and do it yourself. With the tools and methods we’ll show you, there’s no reason why you can’t make it.

Things are changing in music – you should be a part of it.

Now Form A Band.

Martin Stiksel, Felix Miller, Richard Jones

This is a website

Record: Luna Free is a freeware digital audio workstation. You can use it to record a song, mix it and then burn it to CD. You don’t need to hire an expensive studio or mix engineer – all the tools you need to get your music down on CD are included. See also: Ardour, Kristal Audio Engine.

This is another

Distribute: Tunecore will get your music on iTunes, eMusic, Napster and many other online digital music stores. Get your music where people can buy it effortlessly. See also: Amiestreet, Indiestore, CD Baby.

This is a third

Promote: Last.fm promotes your music to the people who want to hear it. Upload your tracks and within minutes somebody will be listening. Or use Power Plays to target individual songs to specific sets of listeners. See also: There’s nothing else like Last.fm! ;)

…Now Form A Band!

Our campaign is all about encouraging you to get out there and do it yourself. We know it’s possible, because bands like Lucky Soul exist and are thriving outside the traditional industry. We had a chat with Nat and Malcolm from the band, about how to run your own record label and make it big in Japan…

1. Take control

Malcolm: Nat (drums) runs our label Ruffa Lane and manages the band. Ivor (guitar) is the Ruffa Lane IT department – he did the web design and all the tech stuff for the shop. Ali (vocals) looks after the Myspace, replying to all the messages. Andrew (guitar) designs posters and flyers. I look after other websites like Last.fm and Bebo, and Toby (bass) and I do the street team stuff – putting posters and flyers out.

2. Get a promo team

Nat: The trick to releasing your music on your own label is to get a good promo team around you first. Make a list of PR and radio promo companies, send music to all of them, meet all of them and then get the best one for you. Get a distributor to get the record in the shops. They’ll only get on board once the promo team is in place – there has to be a reason for the record seller to put your record on the shelves. Then make the record!

3. Own your publishing

“I just need Christina Aguilera to cover one of the songs and we’re done!”

Nat: We control our own publishing. A lot of publishers watch the record label do the work and count the mechanical income – so we thought why don’t we too?! There are so many independent companies out there ready to promote your music for lucrative usage in film and TV.

This was formerly the preserve of the publisher; now there are so many people made redundant from the big music companies, who are setting up their own businesses and becoming quite successful. If one of them can get my music into film and TV without me giving my rights away forever then it is a no-brainer. I just need Christina Aguilera to cover one of the songs and we’re done!

4. Live is paramount

Nat: There are still ways to get noticed without spending a lot of money. You still hear stories of people pestering radio DJs or busking, or doing some crazy publicity stunt, but the best thing still has to be playing to people and winning them over.

Malcolm: It’s a nice ego boost to be able to say we got the album in the indie top ten, and we need to sell records so we can give up the day jobs, but nothing beats the buzz of playing live. I think that’s still the best way of building a fanbase.

5. Build relationships

Nat: You have to build things through word of mouth, getting people to recommend the band to their friends. When you aren’t getting a big marketing push, it all comes back to the music and getting enough people to like it.

6. Try Japan!

Nat: I met a lot of music people on a BPI organised trip to Tokyo last year, and gave out a lot of singles and demos of Lucky Soul. I came home to several deal offers for licensing the records out there. The album hadn’t been made yet so it was promising from the word go.

“We have shifted 20,000 albums in Japan since the release 3 weeks ago”

I knew I had to hold out for the right deal, so rather than go with the deals I had, I sent a CD out to every music company in Japan and one of those was Sony. After a phonecall from the VP of Sony Music Japan and six months of negotiation, we have now shifted 20,000 albums since the release 3 weeks ago when the licensed debut Lucky Soul album entered the international chart at No. 6.

7. Keep at it

Malcolm: Be prepared for a long hard slog, and keep at it. There’s a lot of frustration and bitterness when you see other artists selling lots of records, with their faces on big posters everywhere. On the other hand, it’s very satisfying to see the record in the shops, having had an involvement all the way through the process.

Lucky Soul are on tour throughout October and November. Check out their website for more.

Decrepit rock critics are always going on about how fantastic the Sixties were.

Well sure, the music was great – but as musicians, you’re much better off today. We’re in the middle of a golden age of creativity. Don’t believe us? Take a look at this comparison:

Recording

THEN: The Beatles had reel-to-reel tape machines to mess about with at home. The result? Revolution 9. Oh dear.

NOW: Today’s laptops and digital audio workstations mean that you could create an entire symphony in your bedroom if you wanted. Kate Nash recorded songs like ‘Caroline’s A Victim’ using Garageband, while Liam Howlett composed some of the last Prodigy album entirely on a laptop running Reason.

Publicity

THEN: Nobody wrote seriously about music until magazines like Rolling Stone and Creem (and, possibly, Teen Pin-Ups) appeared in the late Sixties. Up until then, you had people like Maureen Cleave asking nonsense like this for the Evening Standard.

NOW: There’s brilliant writing about every genre of music all across the web. Some argue that a favourable mention on a well-read MP3 blog is more important than college radio play these days.

Reaching Fans

THEN: In the Sixties, if your fans wanted to listen – on-demand – to your non-radio-friendly seminal psychedelic rock noodling before buying your records, they had to go to places like this, or listen to crackly emissions from pirate radio ships (bit like Myspace really). And if, once they’d bought your record, they wanted to listen to it outside of their bedrooms, then they could fork out for something like this.

NOW: You can reach your fans instantly now – pretty much as soon as you’ve finished your track. Upload to a site like Indiestore and start spreading your widgets around.

Promotion

THEN: Endless press conferences where you’d have to answer inane questions about your hair. You could only make music videos if you were the richest band in the world.

NOW: How easy is it to make a music video these days? You can even create a video from your photos and music, automatically, with this new website.

Ringtones!

THEN: Didn’t exist.

NOW: Actually, maybe it wasn’t so bad back then… Still, it’s pretty easy to sell your own ringtones now, if you so wish.