Interview with promoter and industry coach Simon Adams Pt 1

It’s my priv­i­lege to kick off the first inter­view on MIIM with music indus­try guru Simon Adams. Over the past cou­ple months that we have con­versed, I have enjoyed Adams’ expan­sive knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence that he brings to the busi­ness and art of music. Like myself, Simon is a musi­cian – and thus, his pas­sion for music is his life imprint – the essence of his pur­pose. Through his cumu­la­tive expe­ri­ence and accom­plish­ments, he is a cred­i­ble voice to those of us who are ded­i­cated to expand­ing our music careers. Orig­i­nally a UK native; Simon now resides in The Netherlands.

Because of the qual­ity of infor­ma­tion, I decided that this inter­view should be deliv­ered com­pletely unabridged. So, I’ve split the inter­view into two parts.

MIIM: Wel­come Simon! Good to talk to you again. For starters, could you give our read­ers some infor­ma­tion per­tain­ing to your back­ground in music? How did you get started and how did that develop into what you do now?

SIMON: Wow where do I start! I feel like I have had so many lives in the music and media indus­tries. I’ve been a musi­cian since I first picked up the gui­tar age 6, and started in seri­ous bands at 16 when I left school. Back in the 80’s in the UK, the first wave of indie music was just tak­ing hold, and I became big fans of the post punk new wave bands like The Cure, and I also fol­lowed some of the Goth bands such as Siouxsie & The Ban­shees, The Mis­sion and Rose Of Avalanche. My own new wave band Vol­ume III did the rounds in the UK in early 80’s but when the tech­nol­ogy explo­sion hit the record­ing indus­try I became intrigued with elec­tronic music.

I left behind my gui­tar roots and started pro­duc­ing and DJ’ing around the time that Detroit and Chicago was giv­ing birth to the orig­i­nal house scene in the USA. I’d col­lect pretty much every­thing on the DJ Inter­na­tional label, all the stuff from
Kevin Saun­der­son and DJ Pierre, Mas­ters at Work, these guys were the very first entre­pre­neur­ial musi­cians, and real trail­blaz­ers, but as with many inno­va­tors they got bit­ten quite badly at the time by their labels.

I started up an inde­pen­dent demo stu­dio in the UK and I recorded quite a lot of tracks under dif­fer­ent guises that I put out myself on cas­sette(!). A few years later, I was asked to set up a new com­mu­nity radio project in Lon­don, so I went off to set up and run radio sta­tions for a few years.

It was whilst in radio that I also hosted many inde­pen­dent radio shows inter­view­ing indie musi­cians and get­ting them some much needed pro­mo­tion. We
did live ses­sions in the stu­dio, artist inter­views and much more. Through the 80’s and 90’s the first inde­pen­dent UK record labels were start­ing to emerge, Fac­tory, 4AD, Mute and many more, although back then they all still relied on the majors for the dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nel. I started help­ing artists with their pro­mo­tion giv­ing them guid­ance through the first wave of the music revolution.

Fast for­ward to 2004 and I got the bug to be a pro­ducer myself again. After mov­ing out of radio, I paired up with euro dance vocal­ist Katy D which led to form­ing the band Kandy­s­tand. I started a new stu­dio, a record label, a pub­lish­ing arm and a media pro­duc­tion com­pany and we started up like many artists did dis­trib­ut­ing through CD Baby and going direct to the PRO with the publishing(firstly the MCPS / PRS in the UK and later GEMA in Ger­many). Then came the whole new wave of tech­no­log­i­cal advances, and the music I was mak­ing became an exper­i­ment in util­is­ing every new tool to get our music heard. Once again I was liv­ing and breath­ing a new music revolution.

As Kandy­s­tand became more suc­cess­ful (one of our sin­gles got to #2 in the West Coast Dance Charts), I found myself reach­ing out and help­ing other artists to pro­mote their music in the same suc­cess­ful way.

In 2009 I started MyMu­sic­Suc­cess, a music mar­ket­ing com­pany and through­out the whole year helped new artists get expo­sure using the same online tools I had used to get our own music expo­sure. We started get­ting bands online expo­sure in Japan, we went to the Midem music con­fer­ence and pushed a lot of bands there, and we even took a new inde­pen­dent teen artist by the name of Tay­lor Bright into the Bill­board Club Play Top 30 for 11 weeks through our remix work with New York DJ Mike Rizzo.

After talk­ing to and help­ing so many inde­pen­dent artists, what they told me time and time again is that rather than have some­one doing the online mar­ket­ing and PR for them, they actu­ally needed the knowl­edge more than the leg work. For a lot of them –they had the time and the capac­ity to do things like press kits, press releases, and other pro­mo­tions — but not nec­es­sar­ily the bud­gets or the knowl­edge. To fill this void, I started up a new com­pany in 2010 called N2R Media, to expand into knowl­edge based prod­ucts where I could dis­sem­i­nate all of my 25 years of inde­pen­dent music expe­ri­ence and where inde­pen­dent artists could learn all they needed to know at an afford­able cost.

The first thing to come out of N2R Media was my new book 101 Ways To Mar­ket Your Music On The Web, which is a real in depth look at the best tools avail­able right now to save artists time and money on music pro­mo­tion, and also to give artists some insight into some of the spe­cial­ist tools avail­able such as online pro­mo­tion to Japan. Our future plans are to develop new books on the new music indus­try, and start set­ting up a whole bunch of sem­i­nars and work­shops around Europe. In addi­tion, if we can get enough peo­ple together in the US, we will be able to edu­cate many more musi­cians on the oppor­tu­ni­ties and pro­mo­tion tech­niques avail­able to them, and many other music indus­try related sub­jects too. We’ll be deliv­er­ing all these through the MyMu­sic­Suc­cess brand.

Our first sem­i­nar takes place at the Pop­komm Con­gress in Berlin in Sep­tem­ber (2010) where we are pre­sent­ing a Band­camp called “The Music Suc­cess Mind­set” focus­ing on devel­op­ing the entre­pre­neur­ial way of think­ing for suc­cess in the new music indus­try. We’re also at the Future Music Forum in Barcelona at the end of Sep­tem­ber (2010) pre­sent­ing a keynote on man­ag­ing change in the new music industry.

I sup­pose I’d cur­rently describe myself as a inde­pen­dent music indus­try knowl­edge coach. Every­thing devel­oped into what I do now, sim­ply by jump­ing right into the mid­dle of things as they hap­pen and rid­ing out the jour­ney, its how I’ve always done things, and most likely always will!

MIIM: You are quite the advo­cate for the indie artist! This is a refresh­ing change from so many in the indus­try who I see tend to offer more dis­cour­age­ment than pos­i­tive advice. To me, valid feed­back can be a plus if it’s offered with work­able solu­tions. So the ques­tion arises…how can an artist in today’s music busi­ness stick out of the pack? What are some things they can do to truly make a splash and sep­a­rate them­selves from the masses?

SIMON: Funny you should say that. Actu­ally, I dis­cussed this very same ques­tion today over cof­fee with my busi­ness part­ner, and we came to the con­clu­sion that the rea­son that I’m such an advo­cate for indies is that although I have run my own inde­pen­dent label, pro­duced, pro­moted etc., its all been indie. I have never in my 25 years in the indus­try worked for a major label or worn a suit (lol). I have always been a musi­cal entre­pre­neur and saw the whole major label machine as bureau­cratic and in many ways a sti­fling force for cre­ativ­ity. My atti­tude is why do I need to chase some­one else’s approval, if I think that my music is good enough, I’ll find ways of doing things myself.

As a per­son, I always assume 100% respon­si­bil­ity for every­thing I do in life; my suc­cess and fail­ures are totally down to me. So many artists in the past may have signed their records to a label only to see them never released, with the rights with­held so they could not do any­thing with the songs. That’s mad­ness! No other indus­try works like that and thank­fully, nei­ther does the music indus­try have to be shack­led to these prac­tices any longer.

The music indus­try has gone through mas­sive changes in the last 10 years and many pro­fes­sion­als have not learned how to cope with change. Change is scary so many peo­ple react in a neg­a­tive way hop­ing it will go away — it won’t. Change is inevitable; growth is optional as the great Walt Dis­ney once said.

Because I have never worked for a major label, I come to the new music indus­try with exactly the entre­pre­neur­ial approach that’s needed right now. What is miss­ing is indie A&R and artist devel­op­ment, peo­ple to coach and feed­back, give advice and develop a band or artist. A&R was pre­vi­ously per­ceived as the car­rot that drew artists to major labels, but where are all the major label A&R’s now? Look­ing for a job or cre­at­ing their own agen­cies! How­ever, because they come from a cor­po­rate back­ground, their brains are wired for the old music indus­try prac­tices; none of which work any more.

These are not the right peo­ple for the job any longer. How can some­one used to get­ting a reg­u­lar pay check from a boss for the last 20 years under­stand the needs of musi­cians who right now are hav­ing to get down and dirty into the trenches and build their careers from scratch them­selves? That’s why I want to chan­nel new ideas and knowl­edge in as real time as pos­si­ble through MyMu­sic­Suc­cess and N2R Media.

I’ve always prac­ticed entre­pre­neuri­al­ism. All my endeav­ours have started from lit­tle or noth­ing. Get in the cor­ri­dor with what you have today and grow like mad how­ever you can. That’s the best advice any­one will ever give you and exactly the atti­tude that’s needed right now.

There are some new ways that bands are get­ting noticed now. Firstly of course make great music. That’s a given. If you want to be the best in class you have to make sure your skills are up to scratch first. What­ever area you are lack­ing in, make a com­mit­ment and a clear set of goals on what level you want to be at whether you are a drum­mer, gui­tarist or vocal­ist or what ever your role in a band. Your com­mit­ment to increase your skills as an absolute priority.

Sec­ondly, you have to brain­storm some crazy ideas. His­tory tells us that the cra­zi­est most ridicu­lous ideas work the best. The reclu­sive Bar­clay Broth­ers recently ran a draw­ing to give 100 of the fans that signed up for their mail­ing list a cheque for $35 and got some really good press for that in the print and online media. OK Go did the tread­mill video…its an ideas soci­ety today.

Speak­ing of ideas, every band read­ing this go get a pile of blank exer­cise books and start writ­ing down every idea you have, or cap­ture it on your voice recorder app in your phone. Every idea is a poten­tial mar­ket­ing gem. You have so many ideas when you’re say, at a bar or in a café with friends. But, how many ideas do we actu­ally cap­ture? Less than 1% if that. Start col­lect­ing ideas in a jour­nal and you’ll be amazed at some of the inno­v­a­tive things you think of every day.

Seth Godin has a good answer — build a tribe. It still holds up today and is eas­ier than ever to do. The days of putting a mil­lion bucks from a label behind a band are over. I don’t believe artists like Lady Gaga will have the longevity of artists like Madonna. The world is mov­ing too fast for that. Instead of putting out 1 album and look­ing for 200,000 sales, you should be putting out 10 albums and look­ing for 2000 sales of each. The com­mer­cial results are the same, and yes its tougher work, but on the upside, you get to make more music, which is good for your craft, and good for your fans.

You can also adjust along the way with this method to. If you get feed­back from your first album, use it to improve your sec­ond and so on. The fans love the whole feed­back involve­ment, and what bet­ter A&R feed­back can you get than from the very peo­ple you seek to serve. Build your fan base steadily over a period of time, and make sure you build an email mar­ket­ing list which you reg­u­larly ser­vice with a newsletter.

There are no quick wins in the new music indus­try (my view is that there never was in the old indus­try, just appar­ent “splashes” that were mak­ing huge losses). Grow­ing a band organ­i­cally is a much bet­ter long term prac­tice and offers less finan­cial risk, as you have the oppor­tu­nity to change course quickly if something’s not work­ing as well as you expected.

MIIM: Some­times it can be advan­ta­geous to look at what “not” to do. What do you see artists doing that are deter­ring them from get­ting ahead?

SIMON: Too many bands are still chas­ing label deals instead of invest­ing in learn­ing the busi­ness side them­selves. Whether you ulti­mately build a team and man­age it your­self or get an inde­pen­dent man­ager to help you, assum­ing respon­si­bil­ity for your musi­cal career is some­thing that you must never pass over to any­one else. Even if you work with a team of peo­ple in the future and don’t do all the phys­i­cal work your­self, you still have to under­stand what every­one is doing.

On the mar­ket­ing side, make sure that you are not wast­ing any time or money on pro­mot­ing your music to peo­ple who are not going to be lis­ten­ing. Spend more time focus­ing your atten­tion on your “ideal fan”. If you build your fan base organ­i­cally over time you will get to know who these peo­ple are.

MIIM: His­tor­i­cally, record dis­tri­b­u­tion was heav­ily guarded and con­trolled by the major (record) labels. It can be argued that now, more then any­time in music busi­ness his­tory, an artist has more oppor­tu­ni­ties to pro­mote their music online, as the dis­tri­b­u­tion bar­rier has been shat­tered. Do you feel that even though their are more oppor­tu­ni­ties, it is more dif­fi­cult for an artist to get noticed because of the bar­rage of bands com­pet­ing on the same scale, or is it eas­ier?

SIMON: It is true that the dis­tri­b­u­tion bar­rier has gone, CDBaby saw to that seven or so years ago. How­ever the biggest mis­take that indies can make is to just put their music on the down­load stores and expect peo­ple to come along and find them there. It never worked like that for major label CDs in Wal-Mart, and it won’t work like that in the vir­tual stores either. Putting your track into the iTunes store isn’t pro­mo­tion that’s pure dis­tri­b­u­tion; a method to deliver your prod­uct to cus­tomers. Once your music is in the dis­tri­b­u­tion chain, you have to go tell peo­ple about it and give them a rea­son to buy.

That’s the great thing about build­ing up a mail­ing list. If you have 20,000 fans on your mail­ing list and you announce your new release via a newslet­ter, even with just 10% of fans buy­ing, that’s 2000 sales from on source. That’s why organic mar­ket­ing over the long term has so much power. You’re build­ing trust and brand equity as you go.

There are also some clever ways you can use online tools like Twit­ter searches to find peo­ple who actu­ally buy music from iTunes for exam­ple. It’s eas­ier to com­pete in the music mar­ket­place, but only if you work smarter.

For­tu­nately every­one can learn the skills needed to suc­ceed. It’s not about sta­tus any more, it’s about seek­ing out the knowl­edge, and hav­ing the will­ing­ness to learn and exper­i­ment. That costs noth­ing except com­mit­ment and perseverance.

MIIM: Very few, if any artists go on to global acclaim with­out a team around them and the finan­cial resources to make it hap­pen. Do you see more indie artists in the future build­ing their empires from their bed­room to the board­room? Mean­ing, can the DIY artist truly make it hap­pen with the resources avail­able to them on the Inter­net and rede­fine how it is done?

SIMON: Artists have to accept the need to become entre­pre­neurs more than ever. That means that at first you have to do a ton of jobs your­self, build every­thing up from the ground, and then slowly farm out tasks and build a team as you grow.

The good thing about this is that there are so many ways in which you can work in a vir­tual capac­ity. Take out­sourc­ing sites like Elance for exam­ple. You can put up a job for a web­site design on Elance and get coders to bid against each other for the project; mean­ing you get a whole bunch of peo­ple you can vir­tu­ally inter­view, and nego­ti­ate the best price for.

The very first site I set up for MyMu­sic­Suc­cess cost me $200 to build. Once I started mak­ing some prof­its (which thanks to the cost effi­ciency of hir­ing vir­tual staff, was sooner than I could imag­ine) I could hire the designer again to make some new changes, which then brought in new work. It’s a keep the cost down, make the money, rein­vest, grow and repeat cul­ture out there right now for every­body, and musi­cians can take advan­tage of that too.

It’s a myth that you need huge finan­cial resources to win at any­thing. We use less than 2% of the most valu­able resource we pos­sess, our mind.

Another thing is sim­pli­fi­ca­tion. This is a process by which you strip away every­thing you don’t need that’s cost­ing you money that you don’t need to spend. Do you need such a big car, such a big place to live, can you reduce your rent and free up cash resources for a press cam­paign instead?

There are a lot of peo­ple who think that they need the lat­est gui­tar, the lat­est mic, he lat­est gad­get and that they can’t sur­vive with­out it. Think about every­thing you own and spend right now, is it totally nec­es­sary? How much cash could you gen­er­ate by sim­pli­fy­ing your life? Could the money you save be invested in your music career to bring long term results?

Go to Part 2 of Simon Adams Interview

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