How To Start A Successful Band

www.sealegsmusic.ca

www.facebook.com/sealegsyyc

https://soundcloud.com/sea_legs

My name is Drew Jones. I’m 29 years old. I got my start in RTS when Warcraft 2 first came out. To this day, I am an avid player of SC2 – been in Masters League ever since it was created, often reaching top 8 if I can find time to play consistently. I’m married with a kid on the way. I’ve been playing music from a young age, and I consider myself a professional. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

I played in two pretty serious bands in high school and college. They both found a lot of local success. My 2nd band, created in college, recorded and toured professionally. We also played many gigs in Western Canada with some of the best Indy bands of the time hailing from Winnipeg to Vancouver. While going back to school to finish my degree, I lived in Winnipeg and honed in on my songwriting skills. After moving to Calgary to continue my relationship with my fiancée (now wife) I decided to start a new band. This seemed like a daunting task since I was in a new city and didn’t know a lot of people in the scene here. Despite the challenges, I set out to start a new band and have been very successful in doing so. My band, SEALEGS, has only been around for a year and a half and we’ve becoming a well-known local band playing all of the big stages in the city. We’ve made amazing connections, been in documentaries, recorded and toured. Some of our songs have won songwriting awards and have been recognized in the arts community. Captain - my band from college: http://www.purevolume.com/captain

I put the word good in quotations because good music is relative – someone might love Elvis, where other people might think he’s just okay or even dislike his music. It’s really hard to please everyone with one style of music… so it’s important that you learn what type of music you love to play and harness your writing skills and bend them to fit that genre. I believe the goal in writing music is to make it catchy. Even if you’re going to start a very unique art-band, you should still try to write music that people can enjoy listening to.

There are two primary ways to write music. The 1st is to get all band members together and actually write together. My band, Captain, used to write this way. If you have creative people in your band who can find time to practice and write, this could be a great way to create amazing music. On the other hand, another way to write is to have a primary songwriter who creates the songs and the band adds their own flair when everyone gets together to practice – refining the songs. My current band, SEALEGS, operates this way. I write all of the music, and propose new songs to the whole group. Often time’s small chord or word changes are made but the song is generally how I initially wrote it. It simply comes alive when everyone jumps in and plays it together.

When I started SEALEGS, I was hell bent on creating a folk rock band that could play drinking music in pubs. Bands like Mumford and Sons and The Avett Brothers were huge, and I wanted to “sell out” (for lack of a better term) and give the local scene a similar band to have fun with. I strategically started writing aggressive, catchy folk music that could easy be accepted by pubs. This helped us gain followers and opened many doors to local pub venues – and there are a lot of them in Calgary.

More quotations eh?! Yes… the word “right” could mean many things… Are you looking for someone very skilled? Perhaps skill isn’t the most important thing; perhaps a flexible schedule for practicing is most important. Perhaps looks are more important than skill. Perhaps your band just needs anyone who will play the xylophone so it doesn’t matter how good they are, what they look like or how great their personality is.

In my opinion, skill is not the most important part of a “good” band mate. Usually high levels of skill correlate with a high level of jack-assery, and, trust me, when you’re starting a new band; the last thing you need in it is a person who is jacked up on ego and think they’re the shit. You’re going to start small so you need people who are okay with that. You’re probably also going to be playing the worst venues in the city with very little people attending shows (unless you’ve got a lot of really supportive friends) so you don’t want to make false promises to a hot-shot who’s eventually guna pressure you to make hard decisions and in the end get mad cause your band isn’t very “good”.

Find a group of people (probably guna be young people – I recommend finding enthusiastic college students cause they’ve got lots of friends and lots of free time) who are willing to practice, play for free, have fun, actually show up to gigs, and not let the ego go to their heads. As you play music and grow together, your band will transform into something unique and special despite how skilled everyone is initially. Also, it’s okay to have an idea of the type of instruments you want in your band. For example, if you’re starting a blue grass band, you might want to find someone who can play stand-up bass instead of a regular electric one… search high and low to find the right person to join. Put posts on Facebook, the local music newspaper classified ads; anywhere that might draw the right person to your band – friends of friends are always a great way to meet new bandmates!

Depending on how quickly you can write original music and get settled with your people, you’ll want to record a demo as quick as possible. It’s not an EP, it’s not a full-length, it’s a Demo; so it’s okay if it kinda sucks. Find someplace cheap and quick with an engineer who is flexible. You don’t want a producer, you just need an engineer – not someone who is guna help you re-write your music, simply someone who is guna track it, mix it and, preferably, master it too.

The demo should be at least 4-6 songs longs. You need it to showcase a little of what you’re band is capable of. You need something to reference for gigs and bookings. SEALEG’s 1st demo was recorded in 8 hours at 20 bucks an hour; live off the floor – it is 6 songs long. Here is a song from our demo: https://soundcloud.com/sea_legs/the-sea

Eventually you will have enough material to make an electronic press kit (EPK - you can find ours in the SEALEGS Info spoiler above). Most EPK’s are in the form of a website/web pages or various documents you can send via email. Sometimes you’ll see them as info graphs or videos. Feel free to be creative and have fun with it. Reverbnation and a few other “popular” music sites offer a platform to build an EPK. DO NOT USE THESE FOR YOUR EPK. Yes, it’s quick and easy, but most promoters hate these sites.

This one can be tricky because some venues are known for only booking shitty bands… and you don’t want to associate with those venues because you may forever be known as a shitty band. But with that being said, you need to get your foot in the door so take anything you can get. If you have some friends who know some people, try and pull strings to get on a decent bill or into a decent venue.

Walking in and talking to a promoter (or whoever books at a venue) in person will help you find more success. Shake their hand, give them your contact info and where they can find your band and take their contact information. Don’t be scared to follow up with them in a couple weeks via email or whatever. Try not to get discouraged and burn bridges – ultimately, you’ll want to book there again in the future so keep every contact close to your heart and build relationships! Once you’ve played a show, write them again telling them how much fun you had and how accommodating the staff was.

Try to book as many shows as possible. You don’t want to oversaturate the scene… depending on how big your town is. SEALEGS played roughly 45 gigs in a year. We played every weekend from May – October 2013 and we still didn't “over play” in our city. However, Calgary is a pretty big town with a ton of venues to play at. Try and find a healthy balance of playing as many shows as possible without overplaying.

I’m not guna lie, it’s pretty valuable as a new band to h00r yourself out on Facebook… just do it. Take live pics of practices, shows, and hangouts – whatever! Also, get as much live footage from shows as possible – especially your best songs. Eventually your live footage will be more important for bookings than your Demo – if you rip an album; it’ll trump the demo and the footage, but in the early days, good live footage is crucial.

Get everyone on your band as an administrator on FB and invite all your friends to like your page. Also, sharing posts is huge for getting more followers and building momentum.

*Remember, in the early days, image and “looking” popular is actually more important than being popular… if people think you’re a good band, it doesn't really matter how good you actually are. In the long run it is important to actually have skill and create a legit fan base but that should happen naturally as long as you and your people have integrity and drive to be the best. You’re going to learn very quickly that some bands really suck, and they just have the right people pullin for them… if you can’t beat em, join em, but climb above the rest with skill in the long run.

Do not have a guarantee. + Show Spoiler + You’re not good enough. If you’re a new band and you’ve got members who think you should have a guarantee – kick them the fuck out, and spit in their face when you do it too – just for good measure. I don’t care if you’re “the best” group in the city after 1 month of playing, if you start off by guaranteeing anything, you’re guna limit yourself. Start small and work your way up. Play parties, benefit gigs, do free shows for rad people and eventually build some real cred. Once you feel you’ve achieved a level of professionalism and cred; then you can start to charge a guarantee for shows. But don’t shoot yourself in the foot right out the gate.

Do not be an asshole to people just cause you’re in a band. Never throw a bandmate under the bus. If something goes horribly wrong at a gig, don’t bring it up with a bandmate for at least 3 days. 3 days? Where did that number come from? Trust me, wait 3 days, then bring up the horrible solo or harmonies. Emotions run high for a while after each gig… don’t dash your bandmates good vibes too soon – even if they know it sucked, just leave it and bring it up in the near future.

This next one is a bit controversial – stay single (?). If you’re actually getting a lot of traction right off the bat, it might be wise to stay single for a while… I’ll let you figure that one out on your own.

So you wana start a new band? You want to be in the scene? Then get in the scene and hustle! Get to know people, build relationships. Go out to other band’s shows and show some love. Learn how to book shows yourself and support the scene – hell, book your own band if you’re doing shows (we did this a lot in the early days).

There’s a good ol saying, “If you want something done right, you gota do it yourself”. Make connections and pull as many strings as possible. Ya can’t pull the strings if ya don’t know what they’re connected too, so get on that! The scene isn’t all take, take, take, take for you and your band. You’ve gota give some back to get some more. You have to hustle if you’re guna find much traction.

From my experiences, your bandmates will probably be your biggest hindrance in this case. They’ll just want to play music, they won’t care about helpin other people or actually put work in… Just kick those lazy rock star fucks out of your band and find kids who are stoked to play music and get active. Your band should be a hobby or an art not a platform for douchbaggery.

The scene is like an open field, you can plant your seeds and toil to ensure your harvest. When the time is right, you will reap the fruit of your labor. Your band will mature and then you can start to reap the harvest that you’ve planted over the years… don’t get ahead of yourself.

Try to smile and have fun – this is the most important thing. If you look like you’re having fun, people will enjoy your music even more. I HATE watching hipsters get up on stage and frown their way through a set cause they’re “too cool” or “artists” or whatever. It’s bullshit. Get up there and have fun! Enjoy yourself, your bandmates, the crowd, the booze – it’s all good!

You’ve only got 1 shot at each performance; you can’t go back and fix your mistakes. So if something goes wrong, or if you start to get insecure, just forget about it and have fun. I’ve played music with people who can never have a good show. No matter how well we play, they’ll get off stage and pout about one thing or another. They disqualify themselves and self-sabotage all the time. Settle with yourself before you go on stage that you’re guna try your best, give your best and if something goes wrong, it’s okay. 9 times out of 10 the crowd won’t even notice a mistake – only you will because you know the ins and outs of the song.

Thank everyone who was involved in the show – the promoter, the sound guy, the other bands, significant people who came out. Give shout outs and dedicate songs to people like the bar staff and sound guy. When SEALEGS plays, we give shout outs and dedicate almost every song to someone – why the fuck not?! It shows that we care and we are attentive to people attending our shows, it also shows the crowd that we appreciate them being there and that we’re good guys. A lot of artists get on stage and go into autopilot, get nervous and forget to talk to the crowd, or get caught up just playing the next song and forget to communicate with the crowd. Take time between each song to show some love to the people who paid to come see your band, calm yourself and talk to the people, it’s not that hard.