FEATURE: Life As An Unsigned Band Part 1 - The Bands
Tuesday, 06 April 2010
Written by Daniel Lynch
You could argue that there would be no music industry if there were nobody to make music. However, people seem as motivated to make music in modern times by the financial gains available as by their love of music itself. It’s the old egg and chicken argument really these days.
From the earliest days it was the love of music that motivated people to create their own. Without this passion and belief in music they wouldn’t be able to commit to the endurance race that is life as an unsigned band. Countless hours of practice and writing material, then, when gigs come the uncertainty of payment, attendance or even decent equipment at the venue.
Many bands must come close to packing it in when, after so long, they seem to have progressed so little. I spoke to a selection of local bands, to gain an insight into life as an unsigned band, their motivations, dreams, sacrifices and the challenges they face in their bid to get noticed.
We all know there’s a career ladder of some description in almost all occupations and that it all starts with education, experience and, eventually, promotion. But what does it take to inspire a musician to lay himself bare in front of crowds of people. I quizzed local bands on their motivations and inspirations.
Anthony (Anto) O’Kane of one of Belfast’s best established bands ‘Tin Pot Operation’: Almost as long as I could play guitar I’ve played as a band, at the beginning just with friends… gradually this just became more and more serious and I started putting more and more of myself into the music and getting the rewards from that sense of accomplishment and expression, just completely overcame any nerves or trepidation. When you know you’ve been honest about what you’ve put into the music then you know you have a right to play any stage.
Anto’s band, Tin Pot Operation, is widely seen as one of the stalwarts of the local music scene. Looked up to for their experience and their to the point attitude that comes across in their music; it’s hard to find a more experienced group of musicians on the Belfast circuit. They’ve been through all the highs and lows of being in a band, and if anything, have emerged as a stronger unit, determined to work harder each time with almost nine hours practice every week.
However, practice doesn’t just mean rehearsing already written songs so they can be played at a gig. As Dominic Coyle of Pocket Promise told me, time has to be allocated to both the rehearsal of existing material, and the creation of new songs.
If we have been playing a lot of gigs then we don't really tend to practise our set as much… When we have the time we much prefer playing new things. That's always the way. No matter what, I think it's necessary for a band who are starting out to set aside at least 3 hours a week for getting together to write and create. At least 3 hours. Then when the sounds start working together you'll want to use every spare minute you can to make it better.
Unlike most local bands, Pocket Promise are currently recording their songs themselves for a follow up to their recently released album ‘I’ve Been Here For Ages.’ While the majority of bands have to pay in the region of £200 per day to record in a professional studio, the Co. Tyrone quartet have the rare luxury of their own recording facilities. Using the experience of recording their album professionally they have undertaken this next project themselves, which, as you’d expect, has both advantages and disadvantages.
Using a simple recording set-up, borrowed mics and other equipment we have been able to get a few new songs down which we intend to release very soon. We recorded the drum and guitar tracks in our practise room, which is set in a forest in Stewartstown, Co.Tyrone. The quieter parts have been recorded in our houses in Belfast. As we are doing it ourselves we are not confined by any budget, which is absolutely great. Every recording we do by ourselves improves in quality and this can only be a good thing. We have as much time as we need to get the right sound and it's mostly very enjoyable doing things ourselves. Disadvantages include not knowing everything we should. We are learning as we go along and this sometimes means that we'll encounter what is probably a simple problem to a studio engineer, but to us it may take long time to resolve.
Other bands go down the more conventional route of recording, using the advantage of vastly experienced sound engineers to achieve the best quality recording possible.
Anto (Tin Pot Operation): the first album was recorded entirely by ourselves as live as possible, and the results reflect that, but there’s an honesty and a real charm to it that we’ve struggled to recreate in the studio since then. Now, we go to Pete Pratt at Blueroom Studios to record. He knows how to make a band sound like they want, and the best they can rather than impose an ideal “rock” or “punk” template on them.
Getting the recorded material put on to CDs, printed and then released is another challenge encountered by bands who don’t have record companies to give them advances to do so. Generating funds is an incessant difficulty, but band members’ passion and self-belief compels them to push the boundaries of their overdrafts to get the next CD released as soon as they possibly can, and in as many formats as are available.
From the design of CDs, sleeves and covers, to the actual finished product, all the bands I spoke to seemed unanimous that seeing, holding and hearing the finished product was one of the most rewarding experiences of being in a band.
Anto (TPO): The designing is all done by ourselves, and although time-consuming is one of the most satisfying parts of the game – from sketching the early designs to getting the finished professional product back in your hands is an amazing buzz! We release the songs using aggregators such as Record Union and Tunecore etc… this way our music is available everywhere from i-Tunes to Spotify and we take the vast majority of the sales income with no middle-men!
Dominic (Pocket Promise): With Pocket Promise, we have always managed ourselves, as best as we can anyway! All our releases to date have been designed by Cormac, with photos by Joe. We all play a part in deciding how the artwork will look and contribute bits and pieces such as our own handwriting for the text. And again with the pressing this was all arranged by the band. We spent the hours online uploading for I-Tunes etc, brought the album/ singles to shops direct, and set up online points of purchase.
I asked the same question to A Plastic Rose, who I met just after the sound check for the release party of their recent single ‘Kids Don’t Behave Like This.’ Unlike Tin Pot Operation and Pocket Promise, A Plastic Rose recently signed a publishing deal, and although not ‘signed’ in the true sense of the word, have received financial backing for the release of this single.
Dave: You could spend loads of money getting these songs recorded, getting CDs printed up, then you’d have no way of getting them out there. You could maybe sell them at gigs, or put them in indie shops where nobody knows you anyway, so it’s very difficult. It’s so much easier now that we’ve got help
Gerry: Yeah, now we’ve got a team of people sending off our vinyls, doing artwork, and literally hundreds of this single have been put on the desk of every radio presenter in the UK and Ireland. We’re still working our balls off doing the same thing, but it helps massively to have people with the right contacts. You can’t find these people, they find you, and all you can do is work as hard as you can and wait for that email saying somebody wants to help.
The life of a band is much like a vicious spiral. No money to record means little chance of securing gig slots. No gig slots means money can’t be generated to record, produce merchandise and fund the necessities like practice space or even petrol to get to venues. It is very much a circular chain in which every link has an effect on its partners and the removal or enhancement of one can have significant repercussions. With no secure income, or advances from labels, an unsigned band must generate its own funds. This is a difficult task, and as many bands will testify, it involves running at a loss most of the time.
Anto (TPO): We were in a position in 2008 where we had gigs lined up which would cover all costs for duping, distributing and promoting our album, then these gigs were cancelled through no fault of our own. Our finances have yet to properly recover! We could probably make much more money from merch and stuff, but these things take a lot of organising and time and we prefer to focus on the music we make, probably to a fault. Our advantage is that we give our fans something they can’t get anywhere else, so we’ll always be in demand on that front, and promoters will respect that, even if they can’t get their head round the noise we make!
I asked A Plastic Rose how they, despite the help of management with their recent release, still struggle to just break even.
Ian: We were throwing our own money in to record songs, not band money, but money out of our own pockets. Even now we still are; it costs a lot of money moving about and doing all the gigs. So anything at all we earn from the band goes straight back in to recording.
Gerry: We’ve literally spent thousands of our own money; it’s not a thing you get into if you’re expecting to make money quickly. It’s one of those things that, if you get successful, you could be loaded, but it will eat you financially. You have to be willing to be completely skint, if you’re not, you’re in the wrong game I’m afraid.
Axis Of, supporting A Plastic Rose at their single launch also had plenty to say on the issue;
Ewen: We always try to make the band pretty much self-sufficient and try to stay out of debt as much as possible, and take out of our own pockets as little as possible.
Niall: All of the money we ever make from gigs goes straight back into the band. We aren’t going to make any money out of this for a long time, we maybe never will, but anything that needs to be paid for like rehearsal or recording has to come out of the band fund because its difficult enough paying rent without having to pay that and for recording all the time.
Ewen: Probably our last single launch was our best-paid gig so far. We organised everything, so all we had to do was pay the venue and soundman. Even then, money from the door covered these plus recording and printing costs. It paid for itself really. It’s really testament to how a bit of DIY can be so effective.
Niall: We were kind of forced to do it ourselves. At the start nobody really wanted to put money behind the band or anything, so we had to learn quickly how to do everything ourselves. And even now that we do get a bit of help, it’s important that we have the experience of doing it alone.
Bands are now not totally relying on gigs, and sales of merch at the gigs to get their name into the public consciousness. The Internet now plays a massive part in exposing unsigned bands, and providing fans with a way to connect with their favourite musicians directly.
Troy (A Plastic Rose): I think the Internet has got a major factor in promoting bands. Before the likes of Myspace and social networking, trying to get your name out there was very hard; you had to be constantly promoting yourself. You’d be out in all sorts of weather with flyers, posters and such just in the hope that one or two people who see it may come to a gig. New songs and videos can be instantly uploaded, and fans can keep in contact with comments and blogs. Even now, promoting this gig, I think our promo video on Youtube has more hits than the song video itself!
Ian: And now that everybody has Myspace and Facebook and all, you always have to have better ideas than everybody else to keep people interested. It’s a constant pressure. A lot of bands have maybe gotten lazy, thinking the odd blog or whatever is enough. Even this morning, the four of us we’re out in town with flyers and speaking to people to get them to come to the gig.
Ewen(Axis Of): People don’t like to admit that they rely on these sorts of things. I couldn’t even fathom how bands booked tours without email.
Niall: Even when we booked our tour, we then Googled everything, just to ensure that it was real.
Any sort of sales of merchandise and CDs is vital for a band to survive, but the live performance is also of vital importance. Belfast band A Plastic Rose are well known for an unforgettable live performance at any gig and their crowd interaction is second to none.
Gerry: One thing Ian and myself really noticed when we moved up to Belfast and started going to gigs was that one thing was lacking was communication with the crowd. Coming from down south, the singer-songwriter scene was huge, and was totally based on interaction with the crow. What we kinda now have is a sound from Belfast, mixed with a southern sound, but also that really important interaction, that was maybe lacking in other northern bands we saw at the time.
Axis Of are also renowned for their explosive live performances, which more than compensate for their less than commercial sound making some radio stations think twice before playing their music. I asked them if their live antics were planned, or if it was more spur of the moment.
Ewen: For me that kind of comes from when we first started going to gigs and we just went nuts when the band came on. The exact same thing happens for us at gigs. We’ve never sat down and planned it. It just happens on the fly. It comes with the territory of such energetic music and as clichéd as it sounds; you just let the music take you.
Niall: It’s our only form of exercise, and it’s more enjoyable for us.
So when bands finally do get songs written and rehearsed in their practice rooms, get them recorded and distributed and get gigs to expose themselves further to a tough-to-please public, all this could be in vain if local media don’t think the band have what it takes to merit regular airplay and coverage. However, it has to be said that with the likes of BBC Introducing throughout the UK, unsigned bands have better chances of exposure than ever before.
Ewan (Axis Of): We aren’t the most musically accessible band, but I love the fact that we’ve gotten some modest support from local media. It’s good that they’ve helped us out despite our heavier sound, which some people accuse local media of ignoring.
Ian(A Plastic Rose): There’s definitely been a rise in coverage, but it seems to me that the local scene started gathering pace first. The scene didn’t improve because of media; media had to improve as the local scene grew and progressed. They didn’t go out and innovate before there was any talent. They enriched the talent as well I suppose.
The idea that we could get our songs played on radio is a big motivation for us. We’ve got huge support from local radio, especially for the new single.
Gerry: We got to play the unsigned stage at Reading and Leeds, and even Radio 1 daytime I’ve heard us, General Fiasco and Two-Door Cinema Club. So there’s definitely more coverage, and more talent especially coming out of Northern Ireland.
However, even when you do get up and running it isn’t all plain sailing, as Tin Pot Operation’s Anto points out:
You’ll find if you piss off or criticise the wrong person here, you can end up with a hundred doors closed in your face, just don’t let it get you down this is a small country and a small part of your potential audience.
Then again you get something like Belfast4Haiti, where a simple idea to raise money for Haiti turns into a massive citywide movement of support and solidarity and every door swings wide open to help! Belfast is a city of contradictions, that’s for sure!
The examples shown by just four bands here is probably typical of unsigned bands in any UK city. They all experience similar pressures, challenges and circumstances, and share the same goals and motivations. It’s a far cry from the average Joe Bloggs stumbling out of an X-Factor competition, and further still from signed bands embarking on world tours and topping the charts. For some of the successful ones, they may have experiences similar to those of today’s unsigned bands, others may be ignorant of the struggles involved in life as an unsigned band.
Next I’ll be looking at promoters and their role in the chain. How their job impacts the rise, fall or stagnation of unsigned bands. It is they who provide bands with an opportunity to play live gigs, and as such, they play a vital role in the life of an unsigned band.
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