Rough Draft

This is a rough draft of an article I'm writing for Substream Music Press.

Welcome to Music Business 101. Let’s dive right in and talk about the one thing that every musician needs to know about the music business before they can do anything else. I call it The Approach.

As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression. This is especially true in the music business. Make a bad first impression and you might as well change the name of your band, move to a new city and hope no one remembers you so you can start from scratch.

So, how do you avoid making a bad first impression? To begin with, people in the music business (or any business) are extremely busy. Don’t waste their time. Have something to say, say it in a professional manner, and then allow them time to respond. Start with a concise email that briefly outlines who you are, what you want, and why they should care. Briefly list any achievements that might be relevant to the person you are soliciting. Be polite, courteous, and please, please, please use proper grammar. If you’re asking people to invest their time and money into your band, the least you can do is take the time to write a grammatically correct paragraph and hit spell-check.

Let’s break this down further.

Who are you? Obviously include your band name and links to your websites. You may also list any famous or semi-famous band members or previous bands that members of your current band have been members of, if they have achieved any level of professional success.

What do you want? Whether you are looking for a record deal, a booking agent, a manager, an interview, a review, or a spot on a sampler, be sure to spell out exactly why you are contacting this person or company.

Why should we care? You’re dealing with people who say “no” for a living. Your job is to give them reasons to say “yes”. Don’t blow smoke and don’t talk about how great you are going to be someday if only they will give you a chance. Instead, give them concrete reasons to pay attention to your band. How many units of your CD have you sold? How many tour dates did you play last year? Was one of your songs used on an episode of a popular TV show? Is your song in heavy rotation at your local 50,000 watt fm radio station? The goal is to get their attention. You need to have a “story” before you approach people in the music industry. If you don’t have anything that might get their attention then you probably aren’t ready to approach that person or company.

Easy enough? Good. Now, let’s turn our attention toward what not to do when approaching someone in the music business.


Never, never, never send the following email (which I received last week):

“What’s up, do you guys except demo’s?”

Honestly, this person just wasted my time and his. He took the lazy way out and tried to put the responsibility on me to write back and tell him what he needs to do. To reiterate: people in the music business are busy. It is much easier to hit “delete” when an email like this arrives than it is to respond. Give your band a fighting chance by taking the time to write a professional email.

Another email that I receive frequently is of the “our demo doesn’t do us justice” variety. If your demo doesn’t do you justice, then you shouldn’t be approaching companies at this point in your career. Wait until you have recorded material that you are proud of and then approach people in the industry.

Here’s one of my favorites. I call it the “let’s ask my girlfriend” approach. This is the email that I get from a girlfriend of the band that goes on and on telling me how great her boyfriend’s band is and how I should drop everything and sign them today. In the history of the music business, do you think a single band has ever made it big using this approach?

Finally, just a few weeks ago a band called Jadacana decided it would be a good idea to have all of their friends email me and tell me about this great new band they just saw that I just have to write about. So after their friends filled my email inbox with messages which all arrived over a three hour period on the same night, I checked out the band on myspace and determined that they were not a band that Substream fans would dig but they did ask me to write about them, so here you go. Be careful what you ask for. One concise email from a band representative listing a myspace link would have made a much stronger impression.
I know some of these examples are funny, but the sad truth is, they are all real. So remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Take your time, do a little research, and send a professional email when the time is right in your career to approach that person or company. Good luck, and when in doubt, spell-check.