Recording with other artists to increase download sales & awareness

Back when grunge was on the verge of going main­stream,  I remem­ber being turned on by an album called Tem­ple of The Dog (Check out Hunger Strike). Wow. The two vocal­ists on that record had such pres­ence and orig­i­nal­ity – it was obvi­ous that there was going to be a shift in regard to the direc­tion of the music indus­try just by that album alone. Who were they? Eddie Ved­der (Pearl Jam) and Chris Cor­nell (Soundgar­den). Iron­i­cally, this album was released on A&M before both bands emerged on the national scene. Ini­tially, the album only sold 70,000 copies, how­ever once both bands became well known, the album was reju­ve­nated, and went platinum.

Nowa­days, team­ing up with other record­ing artists is com­mon. Lady Ga Ga and Bey­once, Sean Kingston and Justin Bieber – the list goes on. It’s smart pro­mo­tion, espe­cially in todays highly com­pet­i­tive music envi­ron­ment. Ques­tion is, why can’t bands on an inde­pen­dent level do the same thing? They can, and they should!

As the say­ing goes, there is power in num­bers and this can really help to increase your fan base and sales.

Two approaches for team­ing up with other indie artists

1) The emerg­ing and estab­lished indie artist. There really is a lot of great tal­ent out there and much of that tal­ent just needs an oppor­tu­nity. If you are just start­ing out, it is an obvi­ous ben­e­fit to team up with some­one who has a solid fan base. There are many advan­tages to this.

First, you’re com­bin­ing the tal­ent of both artists. A song­writ­ing part­ner­ship can breathe new life into a song because of the dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives two song­writ­ers can bring to the table. Addi­tion­ally, a song with two vocal­ists (espe­cially those whose styles com­pli­ment each other) can help to cre­ate a dif­fer­ent dynamic – one that could bring a com­pletely dif­fer­ent energy and vibe than if the song was just recorded by one or the other artist.

Sec­ond, both artists can pro­mote the song on their web­sites, MySpace, FB and other social media/promotional sites. It’s a very syn­er­gis­tic approach which makes sense.

Third – the obvi­ous boost in fans that an emerg­ing artist can get as a result of the partnership.

For the acts who have the fan base — don’t under­es­ti­mate the power an emerg­ing artist could bring to the table – espe­cially if they are tal­ented and unique. It’s easy to be in the mind­set that record­ing with an artist just start­ing out is like giv­ing them a free ride. That would be the typ­i­cal thought. How­ever, you need to think more out of the box. If the songs are good and you mesh well together, why not? It could be a major break and increase not only the sales of the song you’ve recorded together but your other songs as well.

2) Two estab­lished indie artists. This is the more com­mon approach. The idea here is that the two pop­u­lar artists can merge fan bases which will cre­ate more sales and aware­ness. Like above, both acts can sell the song on their web­sites and pro­mote the song in social media. Also, don’t ignore the tal­ent that sur­rounds each artist, includ­ing other band mem­bers (a great player can really help to enhance a song), pro­duc­ers, man­agers and pro­mot­ers. It is a truly a win-win sit­u­a­tion if you do it cor­rectly and uti­lize all your resources.

Other pro­mo­tional and mar­ket­ing aspects

There are so many dif­fer­ent direc­tions to go when form­ing a part­ner­ship with another record­ing artist. For instance, you may want to search out and license a song writ­ten by another song­writer instead of writ­ing your own. This is com­mon. Like bands and artists, there is no short­age of great song­writ­ers and believe me, they would be more than happy to let you record one of their songs!

There are also many pro­mo­tional strate­gies you could use that would boost sales and pop­u­lar­ity. Team­ing both artists together for a mini-tour, for instance. This way, when you play that dyna­mite song you’ve just recorded, you can per­form it together! The key is to obvi­ously book the shows within either artists estab­lished region or city. It’s a plus, if both artists are from the same area, or have fans in the same regions. Now that is power!

Com­bin­ing pub­lic­ity appear­ances with the tour, is yet another idea both online and off. A qual­ity video of both artists pro­mot­ing the song and tour is an obvi­ous and will serve as a part of your media kit.

If you as an artist have tried this approach, or have other ideas – by all means, let us know!

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