Trent Reznor's Tips for Musicians

I get asked by bands all the time if I can give them advice. Unfortunately every day that goes by makes me less and less familiar with the music business. There was a time, not too long ago, when I could tell a musician exactly how to do it. I would tell them to work hard, concentrate on their music, but never forget that the music business is a merging of art and commerce. It's a business. And very few musicians I've ever known want to be a part of the business, they just want to rock!

Well, 10 or 15 years ago I could tell them just to get good people behind them. A great manager and a great agent were the most important. And those were hard to find.

But today it's very different. There are very few managers left. And there weren't that many to start with. Strike that, there are plenty of managers out there. Plenty of friends that think they can manage. But very few great managers.

So if you are a musician, I'm sorry, but you have to concentrate on the business. You have to think through how to make a living playing your music. And guess what? You can't. It's impossible to make money playing music. At least not for a long time.

If you read Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Outliers" he'll tell you that you need to rack up 10,000 hours of playing before you can be great. And how are you supposed to survive til you hit those 10,000 hours? Well, you'll have to wait tables, take tickets at your local movie theater, learn to be a web designer, cut hair. You name it. You have to have a second job.

Ok, so you have a second job, you're making ends meet. Now how do you make it as a musician?

I can guide you back, as I have so many times before, to Kevin Kelly's 1,000 True Fans concept. And, I can keep pointing out what other musicians are doing. Specifically Trent Reznor. Trent has emerged as the voice of the new music business. The one that is slowly rebuilding even though the old one hasn't quite crumbled to the ground just yet.

Trent did a great interview on Digg Dialogue a couple of months back and he has been doing some great posts in the forums on NIN.com. I strongly believe that it will take some major artists to transform the music business into what it will become. It has to start from the top and work it's way down. I don't think an unknown artist will fully tip the scales, it will have to be a collection of major artists that turn the business upside down. But it's starting to happen. Radiohead did it, then NIN did it, and who's next?

Meanwhile lesser known artists are trying new things. Josh Freese gave away his stuff and his time if you bought his album. Many bands are learning that you need to give away your music to entice people to see you live and buy your t-shirts.

I could go on, but I believe Trent says it better than anyone:

my thoughts on what to do as a new / unknown artist

I posted a message on Twitter yesterday stating I thought The Beastie Boys and TopSpin Media "got it right" regarding how to sell music in this day and age. Here's a link to their store:

[illcommunication.beastieboys.com]

Shortly thereafter, I got some responses from people stating the usual "yeah, if you're an established artist - what if you're just trying to get heard?" argument. In an interview I did recently this topic came up and I'll reiterate what I said here.

If you are an unknown / lesser-known artist trying to get noticed / established:

* 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.

* Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.
To clarify:
Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this - 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.

Don't have a TopSpin as a partner? Use Amazon for your transactions and fulfillment. [www.amazon.com]

Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere. [www.tunecore.com]

Have a realistic idea of what you can expect to make from these and budget your recording appropriately.
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).

The Beastie Boys' site offers everything you could possibly want in the formats you would want it in - available right from them, right now. The prices they are charging are more than you should be charging - they are established and you are not. Think this through.

The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on - like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.
Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace - it's dying and reads as cheap / generic. 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). 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.

Hope this helps, and I'll scour responses for intelligent comments I can respond to.

TR