Help me help my band friends! (in secret)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a number of friends who are in a very good band in the UK. I won’t mention the name in case anyone worries that this comes across as advertising.

Basically, they’ve been gigging for about a year, been in the recording studio many, many times… but have had really horribly bad luck in getting the right recording labels to the right gigs and giving the right performances. But they are good. Honestly. :slight_smile:

Is there any way I can clandestinely aid them in their quest to get signed to a label? I don’t want to do too much work, but I’d like to help if I can.

Thanks for listening!

2

Offer to be Simon Cowell’s live in houseboy.

3

keep sending demo’s to the record companies. Keep gigging. Work hard.

Join the musicians union and sort out publishing NOW.

Get involved in Band exchange programmes and play in as many places as possible.

There is a huge luck percentage involved in getting signed.

The opnly thing you can do is keep trying.

4

Do they have a website with mp3’s on it? If so, you should give us a link. That way we can tell you objectively whether they suck or not, so you’ll know if you should keep trying.

5

keep posting their demos to john peel.
seriously. worked for my mate. he’s got a 3 album deal and a single coming out in january, thanks to airplay from mr. peel.

6
  • I have read on many different bulletin boards online (while I was looking for answers to my own friends who have a sort-of band) that taxi is the only place that doesn’t screw you over. They provide constructive criticism of submitted material by pros, only charge a small up-front fee and don’t guarantee anything-- but that’s a way better deal than everyplace else in the business of “getting bands into the business”.
  • Also, typically radio stations and MTV will not play anything not sumitted by a major record company, with the local radio eception being possibly if the band has gotten popular locally. People who have worked at record companies have often said that sending in material to record companies is wasting your money for nothing: very little of unsolicited material ever gets auditioned by a producer, let alone a night janitor.
    ~
7

You can get stuff solicited for you as an indie artist, but you need to hire a good publicist. This, however, is not easy. First you have to convince the publicist to work for you - the good ones (who can actually get you airplay) will not want to waste time on acts they don’t believe in. Secondly, publicists can be very pricey - and when you are working as a musician, money for promotion is often scarce.