Meatball sundae- it’s about them

If you’re an artist you probably have done your fair share of promoting your next show, album or newest youtube video with fliers and email blasts. That’s great, you are getting yourself out there and trying to reach someone. But, if you’re yelling at them (and its highly likely that you are) they will not only ignore you and feel angry about the interaction but the permission you once had to use their most precious commodity, time, is now at best framed badly (potential customers will consider you an option but be sure that you’re not the best choice) and at worst totally lost -they will unsubscribe, delete your emails and tell their friends just how awful you are.

Bands and artists do this all the time when we blast out show information to people who can’t make it with no other relevant information in the email for them (a video, news, etc). Somewhere along the line the fan opted to be on your email list but you have to realize it is not about you. It’s about them. They don’t really care about your music. They care what that music can do for them, how it relates to them, how it makes them feel and if they share your music with friends does that make their friends love them (your fan) more because they shared an exceptional product with them.

It is not about you. Not when you put out a record, not when you’re on stage, not when you write a song or write a blog.

This blog, if I’m doing this right, should be about you. It should help create a moment that takes you out of your systematic way of doing this and challenges you to grow and think differently about the world around you so you can grow. And that’s what the best records, performances and songs do.

Seth Godin’s book Meatball Sundae encompasses a lot of ideas from his other books and connected them for me. In the interest of writing a shorter blog than I did yesterday so you (like me) can get to implementing some of this stuff I’m going to bullet point what else I think is most important and how it applies to what you are doing and how you could do it better.

* In a few of his books Godin tells a story about being in a Walmart office and seeing “You can’t out Amazon, Amazon.” You can take from the greats but you will never be able to beat them at the game they created. For instance I can’t out Jewel, Jewel. I’m not even sure she could (most fans of hers are more fans of her early albums). So even when you’re putting together another album don’t try to outdo something you did before. Just make the best thing you can at that time. Maybe that means making only a video or putting out the story behind each song in the liner notes. Above all it means be authentic and be yourself.

* If you approach every interaction, from booking a show, selling your merch to fans, sending out emails and interacting with fans at shows with the question “How can I make your job/life easier?” how would that change your business.

* With email and interactions your clients and fans expect fast responses to their emails and questions or they will start to write you off. Short of outsourcing that to someone how can you get back to people faster to grow those connections.

* “Its not us and them, its us and us.” Old media used to be just a few people talking and selling to the masses. Now clients (and fans) are the media. With the use of forums, blogs, youtube and social media your fans and their opinions can be more important then a review in Rolling Stone or an appearance on Oprah or Late Night. Stop dreaming and instead ignite your network of fans by giving them the tools to promote for you. It’s far more realistic and profitable. Instead of yelling at your fans with a megaphone give it to the people who want to spread your music.

* Can you create merch or music that is new and novel? Something so different or the best that people will seek it out? Could you sign everything? What if you raised the standard of quality on everything? I personally don’t sell a CD if there is even a small crack in the jewel case and have been considering special shipping options so getting something from my store is like opening a gift. What if you wrapped your CDs and merchandise like a gift before shipping them out or if your music only appealed to a small but very connected group of people because it was all recorded and produced on an iphone. Do you feel confident enough in your product or performance to offer a money back guarantee? If not, why not? How could you change it so you did?

* “What are your self imposed (but unspoken) limits on your growth?” Did you say you couldn’t offer that guarantee? Is it because you think you’re not good enough? Could you ever be good enough if you’re limiting yourself? Maybe you limits aren’t how good you could be but realizing how good you already are a great artist and that you do deserve to be paid to perform. While giving away some stuff for free your songs are worth something. It goes back to creating moments and feelings that other artists can’t help your fans feel. “If you can’t offer something more than a commodity [CD / average performance / average love song] someone else will sell it cheaper.”

* “The web is the biggest haystack in the history of mankind and you’re just a tiny little needle.” It is useless to try to interrupt people that are disinterested. You can leverage what your doing and help people find you by creating something remarkable and then putting it out there where your fans would like to find things. Godin talks about how in the long run having more variety leads to more sales and he is talking about flavors of soda, cereal etc. but I want you to think of it as variety of connection. Some of your fans only want to be emailed but I be a lot of them would love to hear from you ever day via text messages or twitter etc.

Thanks again for reading. I hope it got some ideas moving for you. These books have been a blast to read and I’m very thankful for them being written by Seth Godin and I look forward to reading more of his book. Thanks again to Derek Sivers for choosing me as one of the artists for this project as well.

And thank you to you for reading!
If you want to connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Myspace or by Email all the links are right here in this sentence.

Enjoy making music and sharing it with more people than ever possible.

The fairy tale ending

Once upon a time an A&R of a record label from a kingdom far, far, away would come down from the sky, tap you on the head, make you famous and shower you with gifts, trips to Neverland and even fairy “dust” for as long as they could pump advertising out to everyone in villages around the magic forest.

Everyone rejoiced. You road white horses who had white horses to carry your gear and Little Red Riding Hood was your biggest fan.

One day you were sitting on a wall and noticed a funny looking egg sitting next to you. “Oh! It’s the president of the record label, Mr. Dumpty.” You were very excited to see him and tell him about your new idea to save the villagers from the giants by giving away your music so they could play it when the giants attacked to put them to sleep. Not all the villagers had enough gold to pay the kings taxes and buy lovely lute stylings and the remix on cassette.

“‘Excuse me… Mr. Dumpty…’ He must not have heard me, maybe he’s asleep, after all he has been running Mother Goose Records since a long, long time ago. I really want to speak with him though. ‘Mr. Dumpty! Mr. Dumpty!! …Oh no!!! I must have startled him, he’s fallen and… Call the Kings horses and text the Kings men.’”

But they can’t put him back together again. It’s too late. The big bad wolf takes over Mother Goose Records, dropping you and almost all the other stars from the label.

You still have the idea and want to share your golden songs with the villagers. You start to make more lovely lute stylings records at home in your ginger bread house. When the record was done you burned them on your granny smith computer and gave them to the villagers for free. Taking care of their fear of giants and in turn they took care of you – giving you their frequent fairy miles to take a tour back to Neverland and sending owl post to relatives and friends far, far away spreading the message of your music. Everyone rejoiced.

Things will never be the way they were in Wonderland ever again.

The Beginning.

You’ve all heard that story before, or maybe a lot of those stories before. Why not compare the ridiculousness of the music business to a fairy tale?

As an artist I would love to find a great team and a fabulous label to handle the work they love doing while I do what I love to do as I said a few blogs ago. But before that comes together I need to sort out what my story and message is and make that work on a smaller scale. There actually is no need for a huge infrastructure till there’s a huge demand.

The latest Seth Godin book I read was All Marketers (Are Liars) Tell Stories. My job with this project from Derek Sivers is to talk about how this applies to artists and musicians and I think so far it’s a toss up between this book and Tribes, which has more hard content to help you grow your career as an artist.

As many of you know I am a street performer. That is a big part of my story. And I don’t just street perform anywhere. I generally street perform in the subway. I used to think it was the perfect way for me to let new people hear my music, promote my shows and that it was the perfect way to release how stir-crazy I get if I haven’t performed in a while.

The truth was though that is was actually one of the central themes of my story. I represent NYC for a lot of tourists that have run into me down there and in a way I have taken that on the road and branded myself with the street art of NYC in my promotional materials…

These are literally hand folded out of recycled Village Voice Newspapers and spray painted with a stencil I hand cut.

It was a ton of work but they were incredibly fun to make and they also work with some of the other messages and story I have: I care about the environment and recycling is one way I do that, I also like for someone to get one of my Cds, cards, t-shirts or anything from me and notice that it’s a little different and that I took the time to make it special for them.

I also took a lot of time branding my booth at a conference last year and got so many compliments that it was the coolest booth at the conference. It had maps of the subway instead of a table cloth and I had markers so people who stopped by could actually graffiti on the table while listening to my music. They also walked over a big yellow line to step into my booth representing a subway station. I even made a fake subway sign!

I’m telling you all of this because it was a big lesson in branding. The truth is it all happened by accident so I can’t really take credit but I realize it was the most important thing to establish a clear and easy story of who I was for these conferences. I had a new logo that a friend of mine www.KristenTerrana.com designed and knowing all about my street performing she made a beautiful silhouette of me performing between two trains with my initials. Knowing that would be my banner I kept pulling from that them and came up with some great ideas that I didn’t even get to use (a sewer rug by the entrance and a trash can for another table/listening station).

All of my promo materials either had that logo on them as well or a picture of me performing or in the subway. It was a simple clear message and in my follow up with attendees everyone remembered me as the girl from NYC with the awesome handmade CD’s. I actually booked a bunch of shows because it was different and exciting -and hopefully because my music was good too!

The next year (this year) was the real proof that my branding and story worked. I applied to showcases at the conferences and with only a 6-9% chance of getting them each time I applied I got 5 out of 8 of the showcases I applied for with a video that was branded with my clear street performer from NYC message.

I’m telling my story and why/how I think it worked because I want you to realize how important it is to have something that separates your music and what you do so the people that do give you the time of day remember it even in the worst of situations – a conference where they meet so many other artists, magicians, contortionists you name it.

If you’re not good at realizing what someone thinks of to describe you try asking some other performers and friends, you family and your fans. Don’t take offense to what they might say. You may think you come across as an intellectual renaissance artist and people may just see you as an emo-folky.

I’m talking about this from a point where you already have played some shows and written some songs and decided you wan to make a go at being an artist because I also think there are so few mistakes you can make when you are just starting out. Its more important to get out there at open mics, house parties and wherever you can to try out what you’re doing and see if its working as you go.

One of the most important things Godin said in the book for me was: “You have to believe your own story.” If you aren’t sure that you’re the best emo-folker or the best renaissance troubadour from far, far away how are you going to keep striving to be that and gain your fans trust and love. I think using the power of manifestation through envisioning your perfect story is a great way to get moving in the right direction. If you want to find out more about that check out the movie The Secret or google Vision Boards.

Once again it is very much about authenticity but the story is what sells the song. If you heard Reba and Taylor Swift singing about hard times which one would you believe. I know I would want to hear Reba’s song. But if it was about young love I would listen to Taylor Swift.

The song is your most powerful marketing tool as a singer/songwriter or as a band. People will decide what kind of person they think you are based on the songs you sing. And if you have a hit song about living in the country and being one of the guys that’s what your image is going to be till you have another hit song about being the prom queen and going on to cheer for the Dallas Cowboys.

I’m using a lot of stereotypes here but I think you will agree that we are all really confused about who exactly Miley Cyrus is between putting out the beautiful country ballad Climb and the Popified Hip Hop song Party in the USA.

I think she can get away with that because she’s huge right now and I think as you grow your career you should try to define your sound and image clearly. Keep experimenting but make a definite mission statement and story about who you are and keep that in mind when your writing, taking photos, designing your website and even choosing venues to perform at.

I know I have written an incredibly long blog and if you’re still reading I applaud you but I really do want to stress that if you have no story at all you will reach the comparable amount of people. Sorry to put it pretty harshly but you must realize what it is about you that’s compelling as an artist and start magnifying those things.

That’s step one.

People need to notice you to even decide if what you made or the product your selling deserves any of their time to check it out. If your story is compelling they will. If you have a fabulous Purple Cow and treat your customers incredibly well they will come back to you. And if that story is easy for them to remember and tell they will tell their friends and family too and that will spread faster than any other marketing you could do.

I hope you’re never stuck inside a bad fairy tale but it just might be better than being no where at all.

Trick or Tribe?

Everyone wants to belong to something from the time we’re very little till the time we die. It’s part of how we cope with life. Its also important that we decide what we don’t want to belong to -though I think a lot of times that’s decided for us.

I grew up feeling like an outcast till I went to an arts high school and found myself in a group of outcasts just like me. I think a lot of artists and entrapaneurs can relate to feeling like they didn’t belong. Can you blame us? We’re usually the people that shake up social norms. Asking “Why?” constantly and challenging the world around us like it’s in the job description -it is. We should constantly be looking for a better way to write a song, tune a guitar or grow our fan base.

I’m going to talk about Seth Godin’s book, Tribes, which you might have caught on has to do with a tight knit community that is really excited about a cause, product, artist or anything really that matters a lot to them and the reasons, benefits and necessity for the tribe. The book was full of great content that a lot of artists can apply directly to building a group of not only fans but empowered allies that are within themselves incredibly connected to each other self motivated people to your mission as an artist. I realize that last sentence may have been a little dense but bear with me.

When you are a part of something, when you love a product, artist, movie, city… what do you want to do? Connect with other people who also love it. And if you can connect with those people you are persuaded that since you are both onto something it couldn’t just be a fluke. You can’t be crazy thinking that Patty Griffin (she’s my fave!) is the best singer/songwriter or that Columbus, OH is a surprisingly cool little city if you find other people who feel the same way.

Once you decide you know what you know, and your passionate about it, you’re going to tell as many people as you can. I know I have personally told at least 25 people how much each of those things are awesome and should be checked out.

So what does this have to do with you and your fans?

You have an opportunity as an artist or band to be the leader of your own tribe. I realize that can sound very daunting and like it’s a lot of work but if you have been getting your music out there performing live, releasing albums and getting involved with social media you have probably already established a small tribe without even realizing it. Quite often if I go back to a certain town to perform there is a small but definite group of people there I can not only count on to show up and make me feel like driving for 10 hours to perform for 1 or 2 was absolutely worth it. They are the people I think about when I book shows and look forward to seeing again and sharing new songs with.

The truth is that I have not been so great at actually leading them and I think they would feel a lot more appreciated if I got my act together and set up even more of a community for us. Seth Godin says in Tribes that one of the most important things to empower your tribe is to give them the tools to contribute, track the tribes progress publicly and above all be transparent. I titled this blog Trick or Tribe as a reminder of that last point. If you are trying to trick your fans and tribe or even yourself people will know and it just wont work. People wont respond to what you’re doing because they can sense the fact that you’re not being honest with yourself.

In the next few weeks I’m going to work to change that. I have been thinking about putting together a street team or exclusive fan group for some time. I’ve toyed with the idea of sending out a special email with exclusive news and I might still do that. It might also be great to start a forum and special section on my website that gives my tribe the tools to share my music and provides a home base for us to communicate as a group and gain some momentum. Like I said before, once the ball starts rolling, once I realized that other people thought Patty Griffin was –the best ever- I wanted to share it more and invite people to belong in my tribe.

I don’t think tribes are just for fans either. As a musician I know a lot of other independent artists that I regularly set up lunches and coffee meetings with to swap ideas and encourage each other. I think it has made a big difference in how my career has advanced and has helped the people I connected with because I shared as much as I could with them. I also took note of things they were interested in and try to regularly stay in touch and send a message if I see something they should check out.

Leading a tribe of your peers including not only musicians and artists but also business and entrepreneurial types can be extremely beneficial. Besides realizing how much you have to share with each other you will also find yourself lifting each other up as your careers progress. Reach out and surround yourself with people that are passionate about what they do.

Start your tribe, and then start a few more tribes. Make them as exclusive or inclusive as you want – there yours. Have fun.

Are you a double dipper? Don’t be!

I’m not talking about onion dip or salsa – by all means go ahead on that one. There is another kind of dip out there you should be aware of though…

In my last blog I quoted from Seth Godin’s Purple Cow: “Are you making very good stuff? How fast can you stop?” I started reading his book, The Dip, next without realizing it was about just that (quiting what you should), which I found pretty ironic considering that it encompassed one of the main points I took from Purple Cow.

As an independent artist I realized one day that I wear a ton of different hats that if I was just an artist (with a team or a label) I wouldn’t have to. I made a list a few years ago of all the things I do for my career that someone would do as part of my team if I had one: Marketing, PR, Booking, Tour Management, Travel Arrangement, Accounting, Production, Graphic Designer, Project and General Management, Shipping Manager… Coffee Girl. Wearing all these hats can be a bit overwhelming and depressing or maybe it’s exhilarating if you appreciate yourself for all your work on multiple and very separate tasks -or if you just have a unique affection for head accessories. The truth is though, that you need to quit the stuff you don’t do well or just shouldn’t be doing and focus on being the best at one thing.

I think that Godin would agree with me that it’s important to have a taste of all of those jobs and realize the work they entail because he recommends that everyone involved with a product be involved with it’s marketing. I think it has definitely benefited me and made me realize how important just the right people for the team I am assembling are to my success as an artist and as they come together I will appreciate how much work it takes to do any of them exceptionally.

I have gotten very good at a lot of those “hats” but the truth is I would probably be a lot better at the stuff that mattered if I didn’t do so many of them. Time and talent are my biggest resources and over time, if I’m going to grow, its absolutely necessary that I let go, quit as Godin would say, all of the stuff that I just shouldn’t do and someone can probably do better. Not to mention that they would enjoy doing it a lot more than I do.

It’s more important than ever to be the best at what you do because we have such a global community now and people have access to products, or music, that may be more of what they want. Going back to Purple Cow you should pick your niche and then strive to be the leader and the best at what you do.

Isn’t it a tragedy to go after something half-heartedly anyways? I know I have felt that way when I realize I am too immersed in the business of my career and need to just listen to music, play for people and write some songs about what I’m feeling and learning.

The bright side of all of this is that when you’re doing what you love and focused on that one thing that you want to be the best at the little upsets will matter less and The Dip won’t feel so tough I think. I want to say a bit about that because I know a lot of people haven’t read the book and don’t know what I’m talking about.

The Dip is the time when after some success whatever you’re trying to do gets tough. It’s no longer fun like it was when you first started and you’re trying to decide if what you want is really worth all the work, fear, struggles and set backs your experiencing. We all experience those moments and those times in our lives. Right at the top of the book Godin says: “I feel like giving up. Almost every day, in fact. Not all day, of course, but there are moments.”

I read that and felt like I wasn’t so alone anymore. Here was a Bestselling author admitting that it’s tough. It would be so much easier to just lie in bed all day and be mediocre but that’s not what I want in my heart.

The point is, all the tough stuff, The Dip, is called a dip for a reason. If you work through it you will come out on the other side a much better musician and so much better at that thing you do that you will be the best at. Even better is, if you face it head on, realize it for what it is, and charge thorough it you will appreciate it for the challenge it is and get to your goals faster.

I’m going to do my best this year to make charging through dips a habit. I have been wearing a lot of silly hats for a very long time so hopefully you’ll see me passing those on little by little to people who will like booking, managing and dealing with all of that business stuff a whole lot more than I do.

I know a lot of you made resolutions for the new year and I want to implore you to push through any of your dips too. Whatever you do don’t be a double dipper. If your going to quit, quit early because it was the right thing to do for you and focus that energy at working through what you really want and the dip it takes to get there once. If you’re going to be the best at what you do or just loose those holiday pounds it’s not worth the time to quit, get momentum to start over and find yourself back in this dip some time in the future.

If you want to pick up the book or check out Seth Godin, he has a cool blog at www.sethgodin.typepad.com Tomorrow I’ll be blogging about his book Tribes as it applies to my career so stop back.

Indie interview: Butterfly Boucher

It’s not every day you hear that an artist is trying to shake their major label deal but that’s exactly what singer/songwriter Butterfly Boucher was doing for three years after releasing Flutterby on A&M in 2003. The album was full of catchy, melodic hooks and Boucher had all the makings of the next indie music starlet. Music supervisors from many popular TV shows took notice and songs were licensed to Grey’s Anatomy and Charmed. With that momentum, Boucher was off on a tour across the globe opening for Sarah McLachlan who was a big fan of Boucher.

Things looked promising but amongst all of the success, A&M, like many labels that fail to see the point anymore in developing an artist or seeing past the next quarters numbers, failed to promote the album. “They’d say that I was too indie for pop and too pop for the indie scene”, Boucher says in her bio. The label even made her go back into the studio to re-record the word “can’t” in a more American accent for radio.

Though those years and chaos Boucher was resilient. Fueled with a passion for music that was born amongst her close knit musical family and indie determination, Boucher sold over 20,000 copies of Flutterby on the Sarah McLachlan tour dates alone. She would stand for hours at the merchandise table meeting fans and signing the CD. 


“I’m sure from the outside it looks very indulgent”, Boucher said, “…it’s a very hard thing to be successful at.” What kept her going was a friend telling her to look up to the people she admires, Patty Smith and David Bowie, and realize “in their careers they never stop, they just keep going, they do music and that’s what they do.” So that’s exactly what she did. Boucher started working on her sophomore album when she finished the tour with Sarah McLachlan. Working in her home studio she recorded the pre-production guitar, bass, keyboard and all vocals tracks for what would become Scary Fragile, Boucher’s newest album released this past June 2nd.

Waiting to get into the studio with producer David Kahne for over a year was worth it. 


“This is exactly what I wanted… he had incredible respect in my project.” Boucher said that in conversations about her vision for the album he never took notes but he always remembered everything she said. “If something doesn’t sound quite right you actually physically feel it – it pains you… my stomach turns” said Boucher. David once spent almost 30 minutes finding a note that was missing in the song they were working on to perfect it and two hours working on a snare fill. That attention to detail as well as his and Boucher’s careful steps to keep the album fresh produced a great record that offers up fun surprises the more you listen to it.

Some of my favorite songs and sounds on the album are the tracks that were recorded in Boucher’s apartment. From the light switch in her apartment closet on “They Say We Grow” to the door closing on “To Feel Love” and there’s more I’ll let you discover! “When I hear that (the light switch) it really takes me back to that time of my life.” That personal, organic imprint is just one of the things that make this album what her fans have been waiting for so long.

Originally intending to record with a live band, David decided that Boucher should play all the instruments herself and they even opted for some of the original home studio recordings on “I Found Out.” The James Bond style guitar lick on “The Keeper” is another personal snapshot of a specific time in a Boucher’s life. She said it was the first lick she ever wrote on guitar when she was just seven years old!

Scary Fragile was originally finished in January 2006, but because Boucher’s label didn’t know how to market it she was led to a UK label where she re-recorded the album for that market because the first version, which is what’s imprinted now as Scary Fragile, was too American. They ended up not being able to release the CD and for the years between recording and being negotiated out of her contract one of the only things that seemed to work in Boucher’s favor was the support of music supervisors. If the last track, “A Bitter Song”, sounds familiar that’s because it was licensed to Grey’s Anatomy in February 2007.

It’s hard to pick one or even a few songs on the album that stand out because they are all so melodically and lyrically beautiful. When I told Boucher how much I enjoyed her lyrics she was genuinely surprised saying that lyric writing is what she is least confident about. “I have to spend a long time on lyrics before I’m sometimes I get a line, or a sentence.” That’s exactly what she said happened with “Gun For a Tongue”, where the first line came to her and then she plotted out the rest over time. It’s a great thing she did, the single is the most memorable song on the album and Boucher’s fans seemed to have a lot of fun recently recording karaoke versions of the song for a contest.

Fans can catch Boucher on Twitter where she posts photos, tweets and replies regularly. She is incredibly humble and still celebrates all the wonderful little successes in her career. You don’t usually see someone at her level appreciating those things so its very refreshing and inspiring to see someone not jaded and overworked by the business but thriving in it and laughing it off. There seemed to be a lot of posts on Twitter about her drinking coffee leading up to the album release so I had to ask her: Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts? I didn’t get a clear answer but she did say she likes Americanos with one sugar sans milk.

And when I asked her what advice she had for other singer/songwriters she admitted what a hard question that is because everyone is so different but that the best advice she could think of would be to be determined. We also talked about the stresses of touring and got into how sad it is to come home to dead plants after being on the road, Boucher’s advice was to get some cacti which I am definitely planning on doing!

Boucher is currently touring on the West coast with more tour dates in the works. You can download Scary Fragile on iTunes or pick up a real CD at a live show.

Learn more at ButterflyBoucher.com

Gretel in the Podsafe Cafe

Hailing from Boston, the trio that makes up Gretel delivers eclectic Americana-folk music full of instrumental surprises that fit together seamlessly. I love the description of the music off of their website: “Gretel’s songs evince an honesty and directness usually reserved for confessionals and bathroom stalls.” In that directness, their songs lyrics paint beautiful pictures and scenes that seduce you to keep their CD’s on repeat. Their latest release, The Dregs, was released June 2, 2009. Reva, the lead singer talked to us about making of the album, being on the road and finding inspiration.

Each song you perform and record is perfectly arranged with sounds that set the song apart from the others while bringing them all together in your own eclectic sound. How much time do you spend crafting each song and what risks did you take on this record?



Recording is a long and involved process for us. We started the recording process over on each song on this record at least twice (after they were well under way), and most of them didn’t start sounding right until after the third attempt. Even just writing the songs takes me a while. I tend to spend at least twenty hours on a song before it’s ready to play for the band, and then it usually goes through many incarnations before we settle into how we want it to sound as an ensemble–harmonies, instrumentation, dynamic changes, and the like.  

Recording is a really terrifying and exciting thing to do when you’re doing it yourself. All the chances you take will fail or succeed based on your own skill sets and vision. It’s very scary to know that if your record sucks, you can’t just say, “Well, the producer thought…” or “The label said we had to…”  If any of our records suck, it’s my fault.  I’m the producer. We’re our own label. There’s no wizard behind our curtain to blame things on, which makes my knees knock.  At the same time, it’s kind of exhilarating. When you have an idea–no matter how farfetched it seems–you can try it and see if it works.  I just make sure that the players I record with (my bandmates Phil and Melissa fall into this category) are really exceptional at what they do, so that I can make a harebrained suggestion and know pretty quickly if it will work or not.  If the idea is a good one, a good player will be able to do what I ask and it will hit in the way I wanted it to.  If an idea sounds bad when a good player plays it, I know my idea was off.

A good example of a successful, sorta weird idea that worked out (in my opinion) is when the cello comes in during the middle of Renegade.  I told Emily Hope Price, the cellist, that I wanted it to sound like our ship was going to go down and she was the storm that was dragging us to the bottom.  I sound like a crazy person when I say things like that, but when a good player listens closely and tries to put into sounds the things described, the idea takes on a real and valid shape.  Her interpretation of my description really worked because she’s a great player and a good listener.  I can’t make records without people like that.

How is The Dregs different from your last two albums?


The Dregs is darker–in terms of theme and soundscape–than our last two records.  I think it’s the best songwriting I’ve done so far, and the arrangements are much more full.  I’m also a better engineer than I was before, so things just sound better at their fundamental wavelength level. The songs are a lot shorter, and they travel a more appropriate distance within themselves and within the record as a whole.  We’re getting better at making things sound like themselves. We’re getting better at making us sound like ourselves. Overall, I think this is the record that shows the band most accurately.

Where do you find inspiration?


Inspiration from a songwriting perspective is something that I think I just bank and wait on until I have the necessary time required to turn out a song. Life is so full of heartbreak and wonder.  My friends’ lives, the world’s chaos and confusion, my own incompetence at being a human being, good books and poems–these things all lend themselves to song.  I also feel inspired by my friends and the musicians around me–to keep working and to keep the quality of the work high. Some of my friends make records with really inventive arrangements.  Some of my friends put on really great, high energy live shows.  Some of my friends can let loose in a song like they’re possessed by the devil. All these things go into the hopper of what is possible and what can be attempted. Art is a peeling back of a cheap veneer to reveal the true grain beneath, and when I see and hear people doing that, or hear of things in their lives that force that upon them – those things are inspiring. Not inspiring in an uplifting gosh-now-I-feel-better way, but in a way that makes me contend with reality anew. Reality – when it gets really specific – is inspiring.

How have you used social media to connect with new fans and promote your music?


We’re trying to do better with this one.  I work a lot to try to pay for things like making records and going on tour, so the time I could be spending on utilizing facebook or twitter as marketing tools doesn’t happen like it does with some acts. For this last record and release, we had some good friends really throw their energy into online promotion, and it worked really well. It’s still something I’m coming around to because I didn’t start making music in order to spend a lot of time on the computer (or for that matter, to work a ton as a waitress to pay for making music), so the thing that I try to make sure I do enough of and do well is the music–writing, arranging, recording and playing out.  Things stack up and don’t get tended to in ways that I’m sure would really help us out, but I don’t want to forego the music in order to do the marketing.  But yes, we do use online social media outlets on a regular basis and hope to expand into using them more.

The personal touch you take to your music with the Deluxe edition of The Meteorite and the hand stitching on your posters is refreshing. What inspires you to go that extra mile?


I think the things I/we do always go back to trying to answer the question: What do we want to make?  If I’m not interested in the thing itself, I don’t know why other people would be. I don’t like mass produced things very much.  I like one-of-a-kind items–from clothes to coffee mugs. If the packaging of a product is specific and unique and one-of-a-kind, I think it says to a potential owner of that product that the thing (in this case, the music) housed inside that packaging is also specific, unique and one-of-a-kind.



I try to make things to sell (or promote us with) that I would be excited to own. For us, the extra mile isn’t really an extra one–it’s part of the mile we’re already trying to walk. It does take more time, that’s true, but it fits within our overall aesthetic. The reason to sew on every flyer is the same as the reason to change the harmonies at the end of a song, or add an extra measure of silence in the middle of another one–it’s to refresh the eye and ear, pull the audience and ourselves in closer; it’s an aiming for the beautiful for no other reason than that it’s beautiful.  It’s a strike against utilitarianism and against a cost/benefit analysis that would trade good art for bad art if it meant the stack of dollars would be higher.  As individuals, we’re after a high quality of life for ourselves and everyone else–the good, the beautiful, the loving and the true. Our music – what it sounds like and looks like – reflects that.

What are your tricks for being on the road for long periods of time in close quarters? What do you listen to on the road?


We actually spend a lot of time on the road in silence.  We do listen to music together (full albums) and podcasts (our two faves are This American Life and Radio Lab). We’ve found that for us, the trick to being on the road is not doing it for over three weeks at a time without a good break.  People weren’t meant to live in cars or vans.  It can be tough, but playing shows every night for people who love to hear us is amazing.

What are you most looking forward to in the coming months now that the CD is released?


We have no idea what our next steps are, but I’m looking forward to writing a bunch of more songs, getting them into the set, trying to get out on the road again, and making another record.  Being in a band–unless you’re content to be a local band only–is kind of like flipping a coin to figure out your next move.  Except, when you don’t have any funding besides what you provide yourself, you have to hustle like mad to find a coin to flip.  What’s next?  More music.



Photos from Coverville 500

Photos from the Coverville 500 concert at the 2008 New Media Expo in Las Vegas. We enjoyed the show and hope you did as well…

Musician Diary: St. Louis

It’s been almost a week since I got back from the Indie Buzz Bootcamp in St. Louis. I had such a great time there and have been so busy since then working on my music that it took me awhile to sit down and write you about it!

First off I want to say hello to all my new friends from the weekend. Whether I met you at the conference, while street performing in the loop or six hundred and thirty-two feet up in the air in the arch looking over the flooded Mississippi, you made my weekend awesome and I love you for it!

It all started out Friday when I flew to St. Louis and immediately after arriving at our hotel Griffin and I took off for the arch. It was incredible to see it in person and I recommend taking the elevator/train/carnival ride contraption up to the top when you have a chance. And stop by below for some delicious hot cocoa mixed with a wooden spoon in the “old time” coffee and sweets shop below the arch. It’s delicious and the people are dressed up like they were when Lewis and Clark came through town in the nineteenth century. Correct me if I didn’t remember that correctly – I’m not good with dates.



After that I tried to pull Griffin over to the lake to look at the baby ducks but it was getting late and we wanted to walk through downtown more so we didn’t. On our walk we passed a fountain that was dyed pink in honor of the breast cancer walk going on. We wound up at Union Station where we tried some fudge after the employees at the shop sang and teased us for not participating in a fun call and response thing they were doing.

Most of the weekend was spent at the Indie Buzz Bootcamp. It was an incredible conference put together by indie music marketing guru Bob Baker and his girlfriend Pooki. They set up all of these great networking parties and events, fed us and made me feel very welcome. The speakers were all very motivating and super accessible.

I had the chance to perform on Saturday night with some hit writers from Nashville in the Behind the Song Café. I met Rylee Madison and Wil Nance who are both based out of Nashville. Wil wrote “She’s everything” for Brad Paisley. He teased me a lot about performing on the subway but he’s not so bad!

Sunday I must have woken up on the lucky side of the bed because I won a copy of the Indie Bible and thirty-six custom t-shirts from StickersAndMore.com. Look out for those soon! That afternoon Griffin and I got a little tour from Pooki’s son down to The Loop. If you haven’t been, I definitely recommend checking it out when you visit St. Louis. It’s this strip of shops and restaurants about a mile long and on Sunday’s there’s this happening hippy drum circle that you would never expect in St. Louis.

I like to think I am a hippy but after seeing these free spirits I know I’m nowhere close! One guy who was wearing a turtle shell for a hat that he had made after finding the turtle on the side of the road offered me his guitar string earring. He had taken an old string and cut it off to about 1.5 inches after the round threading and just put it in his ear and bent it around. “It has its own built in clasp,” he said. I couldn’t: 1) Take a prized possession like that and 2) Worry about getting some disease from the metal. If I didn’t realize that I wasn’t a hippy before, it became clear as day then!

Anyways, We hung around for a while listening to the drum circle and then headed over to a restaurant just as it started raining. I wasn’t expecting much but I had the most incredible salad at this place. The caesar dressing was made with curry and I think I freaked out the waiter by telling him how great it was about eight billion times.

After our tummies were full and merry I went out on a search for a place to play my music on the street and hopefully make some new fans. I found a shady spot under a tree where instead of competing with the trains I was up against about a hundred sparrows tweeting loudly because they were so happy the sun had come back out. I started playing and it was slow at first but some people hung around to listen and I met three stellar guys who jammed with me on the Uke.

In the end I got rained out and I had to run half a mile to the train. Griffin and I got back in the shuttle where we met the owner of the hotel we were staying at. He grew up with Sheryl Crow. Small world! Back at the hotel we wound up hanging out in the computer room with some conference stragglers as I entertained myself learning how to make paper cut out streamers of girls in dresses, hearts, fish and a guitar. I left them for some stiff workaholic to find the next morning.

I woke up late Monday before we left and spent about 30 minutes enjoying the Jacuzzi and pool before having Panera Bread (aka St. Louis Bread Co.) for some late brunch. The trip back to LAG airport was pretty painless save for a little two hours delay in Atlanta where we again went to Panera Bread (aka Atlanta Bread Co.).

After writing all of this I’m not sure who would find it all interesting but it put a huge smile on my face to think of all the fun I had and most of all the great people I met!

Till next time St. Louis!

xo
Natalie