How are you guys doing with labels?

[Olin]

Most of you dudes are in bands, and a really decent amount of you are in good bands that seem to be doing pretty well, and I'm not sure I get it.
Been spending the last few months trying to get people to listen to my music and seem to have, for some reason, amassed an almost exclusively Russian following, which is great, but when I try with North Americans in particular, it seems that unless you're friends with someone else they know, no one cares what you do. Almost all approaches I've made to labels have been ignored, which is interpreted as either: they think my music sucks, or that my approach was just weak. These aren't big labels either, these are small, 1000 fan labels who do their best to put out vinyl when they can. Having spoken to a few other artists in a similar musical area to me, they've all said that they've gotten where they are largely based on location and who they know.

So my question is to those of you who have signed with a label that you liked, or had help from them, or generally deal with labels/run them. How did you do that? Did you all have this same struggle when you were coming up as well? Any advice?

[Chankgeez]

I thought this thread was gonna be about being labeled as a band (genre-wise/stylistically).

Like, this girl told me she's in a pop punk band. I listened to 'em. They're not, IMO, a pop punk band.

(Maybe chalk that up to a generational difference in perception? )

Anyway, I've never been in a band that's been signed to a label. I've worked at clubs where bands that played there were on various sized labels. I've had friends who've been in bands on labels. I've had friends who've run labels. I've had friends who've worked at labels. So, I'm not really sure what my opinion's worth.

I'd think though that it'd be a one in a million shot getting interest from a label of almost any size by submitting an unsolicited submission of music. I don't think labels really wanna get asked to "check out my band". They'd rather see a band that's starting to do well on thier own. It'll take a lot of effort on the part of the band to do that. It's hopefully worth it.

Don't discount knowing people. That's actually a large part of it. Make lots of friends! (Location doesn't hurt either.)

TL;DR: Generate enough interest in you band on your own that a label will want to approach your band. Creat a *buzz* or whatever and they will come. I think. There's something to be said for that. That's probably the best advice I can give you.

(Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

[D.o.S.]

I tend to agree with Chank -- there's a much higher likelihood of getting shit done if someone who puts out records comes to you and says "hey, we'd love to put something out" rather than you approaching them and saying "hey we'd love to have you put this album out."

[PeteeBee]

Are you in a town of any decent size? Around here there are a handful of little labels that put out loads of cassettes and splits. If you creep the Internet, you can figure out who the people are and just meet them, like at a show of a band they are putting out a cassette for. That seems to be how it works around here. Everyone puts out their friend's stuff, but it's easy enough to become their friend.

[Olin]

I'm in a pretty small town in southern Ontario that I only moved to last year, so the music scene within a 90 minute radius is pretty dead, and I don't know anyone at all. Figuring out an "in" seems to be my challenge here. How would you guys recommend generating buzz? I'm very conscious about spamming my music places, I've not once listened to one of those bands that people just spam around everywhere because it's tacky and a bit invasive for me, like people trying to sell you CD's on the street. Of course playing shows more frequently would be a start, but even then, I'm not really at a stage where people will be interested. I may also just be being unnecessarily pessimistic for poor reasons.

I've had cassettes put out by two labels in Europe, one in England and one in Russia, but I, like I imagine most of us, want the seemingly elusive vinyl release/enough fans to warrant a proper pressing of anything.

Edit: I hope no one reads this and thinks I'm looking for a hard and fast, dirty secret way to "get rich and famous quickly" or anything; more just knowing there are people out there who would like it and not knowing how to connect with them.

[D.o.S.]

If you want vinyl press it yourself. If you want someone else to press your vinyl get your hot friends to bang record label types to your music. Or something.

BUT!

I'm in a pretty small town in southern Ontario that I only moved to last year

Move to California? It worked for this dude:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1woTG_DaTuw[/youtube]

He invented feedback, don't you know?

[Chankgeez]

How would you guys recommend generating buzz?

Well, that's a lot easier said than done.

What's the closest city to you? Spend time there cultivating stuff.

Like PeteeBee said, becoming part of a scene is definitely a good move. Making friends with other bands and people who put on shows. That kinda stuff. It's a long slog though and requires quite some effort. You'll get out of it what you put in. Look for like minded people/bands and it'll make things a little easier.

[Olin]

If you want vinyl press it yourself. If you want someone else to press your vinyl get your hot friends to bang record label types to your music. Or something.

Hoh boy I can't afford it and have no friends. As fun as becoming a pimp would be, it's also that the label would have a pre-built fan base to sell to, but I see your point and can't afford it lol. I only know one person who's pressed their own vinyl and he regrets it, which has probably tainted how I see doing it yourself as an "upcoming artist".


Closest decent scene is probably Michigan to be honest, not much further than Toronto for me. Heading over to the states to play shows every now and then would probably be the best bet. I guess, like most things, patience and perseverance are the key here. If any "Canadian's" see this, you are the contacts I'm now looking for.

[Disarm D'arcy]

I've given labels a fair amount of thinking time. Always seemed easier and more compatible with my mindset to go DIY. But we've taken a new step with other DiY friends to create a small label for ourselves, to direct our very small respective fan bases to the other projects thanks through a common website and mailing list. Somewhat works and might be a first step you could look into.

[Muff_Diver]

Play shows. Make friends. Tour.

Signing to a bigger label alone will not generate more fans. It may present you with better opportunities to get more fans (label festivals/showcases, industry folks take you more seriously), but if people dont care about you before, they're not going to care now that you're on "label x".
Unless you have mad internet hype, hard work is gonna be the only way to get a label to consider investing in your music.

You gotta remember, at the end of the day a label is still a business. They're not going to make the investment if they don't think they can at least break even. You have to show them that there are enough people that care about your shit to make it worth their while. And yes, it is soooo much easier to get signed by a friend/friend of a friend than some rando. Every friend I've made in the "industry" Ive met at a show, or through someone I met at a show. Play some shows. Meet some people. Tour so you can play more shows and meet more people.

I also totally feel the struggle for you though. I'm from the north east so every major city over here can be traveled to and back in a day. Touring was super easy because of good scenes and short drives. But to be 90 min from a scene is a tough spot to be at. Maybe try to book some bands in your area? Do show trades. But again, biggest thing is to meet people and make friends.

[Olin]

Play shows, make friends, tour.

This seems like the best next step from here, just going to be a real rough first step I think. I'm not really against the travel too much, it's still nice to see new parts of the continent, so that doesn't really bother me so much, it's just finding bands that would work at least relatively holistically. Thank you all for chipping in though, I guess I really underestimated how much getting out and about physically made a difference.

D'arcy, I've been kind of pursuing that, but not through making my own but by contacting others who have already done it. It's a pretty small musical world I'm in, so similar bands are already affiliated, and none of them are very big at all, all working day jobs etc, it's just figuring out how to approach those circles, because as has been mentioned, it's better if they find you and want to work with you than the other way round.

[D.o.S.]

If you want vinyl press it yourself. If you want someone else to press your vinyl get your hot friends to bang record label types to your music. Or something.

Hoh boy I can't afford it and have no friends. As fun as becoming a pimp would be, it's also that the label would have a pre-built fan base to sell to, but I see your point and can't afford it lol. I only know one person who's pressed their own vinyl and he regrets it, which has probably tainted how I see doing it yourself as an "upcoming artist".

Ok, so: you can't afford it because you won't sell them i.e. if you have $2000 to spend on 500 LPs and you sell each album for $20 you will come out in the green -- very much so given the arbitrary math of this example, but also true in real life.

So if you don't have confidence in your band selling enough records to turn a profit, why would a label?

[Olin]

So if you don't have confidence in your band selling enough records to turn a profit, why would a label?

Definitely see the logic there, and it's pretty sound, I also just think that because of the nature of this type of music/that it is, at it's highest, not far above DIY that the audience from a relevant label would be interested in a new artist they were working with. I'm probably wrong, and that's fine, but I don't think it's quite as black and white as "be someone before you're signed so that you're not a fiscal liability", could be naivety, could be romanticised optimism of a community with "punk" ethics, could be straight ign'ance, but I would like to believe that some of these smaller labels are more interested in the music being made than whether or not they'll flip a profit; there has to be some kind of middle ground?

[D.o.S.]

Oh, yeah, I think most people that run labels (particularly indie labels) are very concerned with putting out good albums that have whatever 'it' defines their ethos.

Some context to illustrate my point: like six or seven years ago I ran a gear blog that generated a not-insignificant amount of traffic which I abandoned because 1) real life got in the way, and 2) because I was getting a deluge of bands that weren't the sort of bands that I was looking to feature, and they usually fell into two specific types.

In the first case, they were bands that had relatively significant followings that would bring clicks and, if I was more business-inclined, more money.That would have been a good problem if I was looking to put out anything beyond words and pictures on the internet, but because there was no final physical product I could pass on them.

The other half of the bands that burnt me out were the "it's just me and my homie spending money on siqqqqqqq gear" bands. That's awesome, and there are loads of places for that (ILF, sometimes, is one of those places. Just look at UG's posts), but that also missed the mark for what I was going for with the site because, predominantly, I was looking for bands that people, you know, actually cared about. Obviously there's a fine line between the two camps -- but those were the bands that I did feature, because they were fucking awesome bands that weren't something you'd just stumble across through more conventional channels and they were using rad/out-there equipment... which was the mission statement, if you like, of what I was doing.

It's not a perfect parallel because, again, no physical media being created, but unless you are A) a 'real' band or B) working on something that is exactly what a given label is looking to put out, you're probably going to get a lot of "thanks, but this isn't a good fit for us." Even if you know that it would be.