Greetings, everyone! We are thrilled that you were able to find time in your busy schedule to browse our blog. We typically run podcasts on Thursday, but ‘Inside Music’ is taking a break this week. Instead of letting the day pass by without an update, we decided to share a guest piece from our dear friend Andrew Jones of Checkered Owl.
This blog exists to promote the future of the entertainment industry, and to do that we need input from people like you and your entertainment-loving friends. If you have any questions about the content in this article, or if you have an artist you would like to see featured on this blog, please contact james@haulix.com. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
A lot of digital ink is spilled everyday on the “future of music”. Streaming vs. downloads, could Google+ ever matter, will EDM eat itself, can crowd funding last…etc. Quite frankly, I am a big fan of these discussions and I think there should be at least one person on every artist’s team who cares about, and participates in them. However, when we talk tech, engagement, and future; we often miss the one of the most critical pieces of the puzzle.
Making friends with other artists.
We all want to be in a community. Your fans want to be a part of a community. Real fans don’t just want to like a band’s music, they want to hang out with the band, to know their friends, their influences, what they are listening to. If you can invite them into some of that, by showing support for another artist, your fans will fall in deeper love with both. We all want to be a part of something larger; and feeling welcomed into a friendship between two rad bands fits that bill. It gives us a circle of belonging.
I can give a thousand examples, but here is one. When I was in Jr. High, I came across a band by the name of Five Iron Frenzy. It was my first exposure to Ska, and I immediately became a huge fan. As I dug up everything I could on the band I saw that they often toured with a new band called The W’s. So I grabbed their record as well, cool stuff, silly neo-swing that met me right where my little grade 8 head was at. Much to my delight, there was a hidden track (oh the forgotten joy of secret songs) called “Five Iron Frenzy”! Instantly I was a much greater fan of both bands. They were my favourites. Why? Because they liked each other and in some small way, I became a part of that relationship.
But why would I say this is the future of music? Isn’t wearing another band’s t-shirt a pretty old concept? Yes. But in an increasingly crowded noisy world, music fans get tired of self-promotional noise; however as soon as you say “You guys gotta check out ________, we played a show with them last night and they KILLED IT!” people’s ears will perk up.
Bands that support bands WILL shine out in this overly crowded market. People want to know what to listen to next, point them towards your friends, you’ll both be richer for it, and I guarantee it’ll stand out more than merely another post about yourself.
This post was written by Andrew Jones, editor of Checkered Owl. It originally ran on his blog, but we loved it so much we felt it deserved to shared once more on ours. If you like his work and want to read more of his writing, or if you want to be super cool and offer him full time industry employment, reach out and connect with him on Twitter.
