How the hell do you get "out there"

It seems like no band has the drive to try and make good music and start from the ground up anymore. In my opinion it is foolish to be trying to be "out there" without a full line up, just a waste of energy that could be used towards writing or finding members. And when you have a complete lineup you guys should be playing whatever shows you can get on. If you have to open a show to 5 people, play to those 5 people and show them why you are worth their time. If you do a good enough job then people will take note and you'll play to 6 people, then 10, etc.

Play at clubs where there will be kids, my band use to play at Club Retro all the time. I am not sure if it's there anymore, but the shows there were always great. If you work hard enough at it, you will succeed. Trying to find the easy way to do anything is always the quickest road towards failure.

Good luck!
 
for the record the songs sound really good. I'd post a song with guitars and drums first though, because I think people will react more favorably. It's kind of like an opening track of a CD, you won't a level of energy and intensity that will captivate the listener and foreshadow the rest of the songs. The strictly orchestrated thing is cool, but I doubt it's going to string anyone in as well as the other tracks would.
 
AndrewPGlover said:
It seems like no band has the drive to try and make good music and start from the ground up anymore. In my opinion it is foolish to be trying to be "out there" without a full line up, just a waste of energy that could be used towards writing or finding members. And when you have a complete lineup you guys should be playing whatever shows you can get on. If you have to open a show to 5 people, play to those 5 people and show them why you are worth their time. If you do a good enough job then people will take note and you'll play to 6 people, then 10, etc.

Play at clubs where there will be kids, my band use to play at Club Retro all the time. I am not sure if it's there anymore, but the shows there were always great. If you work hard enough at it, you will succeed. Trying to find the easy way to do anything is always the quickest road towards failure.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Well hopefully you would know the area well enough to know how hard it is to find dedicated musicians that aren't amateurs or flakes. I joined a band that was a side project for one of the titans of the local scene, and that was the only real reason for the fame. The bassist's dad started one of the largest production companies in the local area. Unfortunately, he specializes in the 18/21 and over shows. Going with him for booking would provide us the most people to come and see us and given my standing with some of the guys in the "circle" we have more of chance to actually get people to see us.

Thats a plus, but due the nature of how things have drifted around here, all the good musicians don't pay much attention to new bands when they are looking for a project to get into. When we at least had a drummer shows were still possible, giving us the opportunity to play shows and get more well known to find the less essential members to fill up the lineup to what we wanted. its not like we have tried finding people, but when we advertise everywhere we can and call our connections we get nothing back and on adverts we put out we get kids that can't play up to par, do not have professional gear, or reliable transportation, or old guys 40+ who just want to jam with people and those guys are dudes who want to play technical death or prog even though we clearly state in all adverts that we are a melodic metal band looking for dedicated musicians with pro gear and transportation in their 20's. There's a shortage of those types around these parts.

Instead of do nothing while we have attempted to find members on top of having people quit over the years, we have decided to do whatever else that we could do, including write music, which is all about what we can do. We had a full lineup and we on the verge of booking shows but everyone decided to split, leaving us only 2 members left. Even after that setback we said fuck it, we aren't going to stop, so we are going to finish the album and get it out and make every attempt to get some hype going that is physically possible, in hopes that more regiment advertisement would reel us in some more dedicated musicians that don't want to treat the band as some hobby or side project.
 
the old fashioned way: SHOWS, SHOWS, SHOWS. arrange reviews and interviews in magazines. get a label. play more shows. practice your ass off and be good at what you do, trust me the word will spread if you manage to stick out from the crowd.

biggest myspace advantage is the player, the fact that you have bio pics show dates blogs and MUSIC all at a glance. it's nice as a support, you can spam your way through myspace with your album release infos etc, but don't rely on this shit as your only or major source of popularity. getting out there and doing it for real is the only way in my book.
 
Well I gave my guitarist the job of finding members, spamming wherever possible to find session or permanent members to play shows. We also will ask around for the bands in the "circle" if they want to session temporarily as some of us have worked with them in other projects as well. This will all go down when we are in the mixing process of the album which will probably be in the next two or three weeks. I definitely think that we should get a hold of them and tell them that we are releasing an album so that they will have some hype for it as well as get other people that they know to take a listen, especially if they session.

Like I said before once we have an album out we have blog site that have massive traffic wanting to do interviews as well as give out the music, and as soon as I book a show I can get TV exposure on a local show, which I remember geting a lot of attention unintentionally at my high school years back when I was on that same show as a solo artist.
 
Phase 1.) Fuck some chickens.
Phase 2.) Leave notes around town about said fucked chickens.
Phase 3.) You're out there.

(South Park anyone? ;))

Sounds like you've gotten some good advice man - good luck to you!
 
Wow.
This mentality is so opposite anything I've ever heard before.
Who cares about recording an album?
There is soooo much free music on the internet it's a complete waste of time. (At this point in your music career)
You need to play as many live shows as you can.
I can't believe there are no musicians in Sacramento! It's freaking CALIFORNIA dude!!
There are musicians everywhere. How many millions upon millions of people live along the I-5 / 99 corridor?
Playing live will quickly help you figure out what songs "work" and which ones don't.
You are performing for your audience. If no one in the crowd likes your music, then ummm.... No one is going to have any interest in your recorded material either.
Somewhere you have to go out and actually entertain people.
If no one is entertained by your work except for yourself, then you have what is called a hobby.
Hobbies are for your own enjoyment and are rarely profitable.
Not trying to slam you at all.
Reality is that your recorded work, available for free on the internet, will never garner enough attention that a significant amount of people will have enough interest to try to find you.
If they do they will be rewarded to discover you're a "band" of two people who do not perform....
The live shows fuel everything. Play live, be good. Develop a following. Then you may sell a few CDs along the way.
Edit: Your music sounds great but there are no vocals?? Really?
Your frontman (or woman) gives you your identity. Gotta write some vocal parts.
I don't think I would go pay to hear this style of instrumental music. After 10 minutes it's not interesting anymore.
You have talent and ability, but as a band, you're halfway there.
You need to put some work in finding the missing parts.
Again, not putting you down, just trying to help.
 
I totally dig your music! Instant fan right here, no kidding.

Like everyone else said, try to get some musicians and hook up some shows. I think that's the only way to grow a solid fanbase.

I love the Evergrey influence I hear all over the place, but yet you have an authentic style. sweet. :)
 
Chris_P_Critter said:
Phase 1.) Fuck some chickens.
Phase 2.) Leave notes around town about said fucked chickens.
Phase 3.) You're out there.

(South Park anyone? ;))

Sounds like you've gotten some good advice man - good luck to you!
Click to expand...

:lol: sounds like a solid plan.

Copper_head said:
I can't believe there are no musicians in Sacramento! It's freaking CALIFORNIA dude!!
There are musicians everywhere. How many millions upon millions of people live along the I-5 / 99 corridor?
Edit: Your music sounds great but there are no vocals?? Really?
Your frontman (or woman) gives you your identity. Gotta write some vocal parts.
I don't think I would go pay to hear this style of instrumental music. After 10 minutes it's not interesting anymore.
You have talent and ability, but as a band, you're halfway there.
You need to put some work in finding the missing parts.
Again, not putting you down, just trying to help.
Click to expand...

I-5 is huge, but within a drivable distance no one outside Sacramento wants to commute. Its been unfortunate because the guys who fit the bill the best are the ones who live about an hour a way and then decide that they can't justify the expenses of commuting to join a band and gracefully back down. We always joke that there is a bedroom dweller that is just as picky as we are in terms of who they want to play with in terms of skill and dedication and that eventually if we hot up enough places, they just might find us.

No one has to take my word on the lack of musicians in the area. Its widely talked about among other fellow musicians in the are, and we joke about moving to more music oriented cities in hopes of better luck. Again don't believe me, take a look at the Sacramento craigslist for musicians, you will find a bunch of nothing, its mostly old guys/hobbyists that are just looking to jam oldies or bands from every genre looking for drummers. Every other post is "we need a drummer". And I have never seen a metal post that hasn't been Tech Death except one "trve" black metal band that was looking for a keyboardist some years ago. other than that you have myspace adds, and I think maybe one or two good internet classifieds. In the real world, NO ONE uses the newspaper and the only real way to find people is, well you already have to know them, or their friends. Basically what I mean is if you know a tightly knit circle of people and you tell one that you are looking for a member, they might say "hey I have a friend that plays that, I will give him a call for you". For us we ran our resources dry with every person that was referred to us didn't care for the genre too much.

In terms of the music not having vocals, up to this point everything I produced has been less than par, however still completely god mode to 99.9% of the vocalists around here. With vocals being that only thing that I can't do, it becomes the one instrument that is not on the recordings. It sucks because thats my only "Kryptonite" in the music world and unfortunately the most vital element.

Steven Otto said:
I totally dig your music! Instant fan right here, no kidding.

Like everyone else said, try to get some musicians and hook up some shows. I think that's the only way to grow a solid fanbase.

I love the Evergrey influence I hear all over the place, but yet you have an authentic style. sweet. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks. Evergrey is an all time favorite of mine, between the and Dream Theater
 
my attempt at advice would be to look at success stories of bands and see what they did.

doing youtube covers helps
do something people hate that will bring in people looking for the lolz
then there's shows etc.

unfortunately i dont even have a band. or time for one yet. but i feel you about the no musicians thing. everyone within 3 hours of where i live sucks. in terms of skill/commitment etc.
 
sprack said:
Kind of sounds like you should get out of Sacramento if all the people you're looking for are 3hrs away.
Click to expand...

The greater Sacramento population is near that of Chicago, and about half that of LA, yet Sacramento's track record for famous bands is Deftones, Tesla, Cake and Papa Roach (which are actually from Vacaville). The local scene doesn't really have anything hot going down, and the outside cities being Redding, Reno, Marysville/Yuba City (Where Ivan Moody originally was from and moved to LA because he as a singer couldn't find a band in the area) which are a minimum of one to two hours away. While the bay area only being about an hour or so, but the mentality of the area is that people from Sacramento are scum of the earth. Meet someone in SF and they ask you where your from, you say Sac, you get, "oh, your from Sacramento" like some condescending hipster douche. The reality is though that someone even dedicated from the area I don't think would want to commute almost 4 hours both ways to practice for 4-6 hours in Sacramento in some dudes garage enduring the extreme weather, I know I wouldn't want to.

We have talked about getting out of Sacramento, but that creates a much larger issue in itself, considering other obligations that I have hear as well as the fact that I don't have the finances to even think about moving. I think I would definitely want to give the whole NorCal area one last go for finding members before we would discuss either moving or throwing in the towel, because most likely it will come down to that.
 
Get a lineup together and hit up Kenny Hoffman from Buried In Hell who runs his label and puts on tons of shows at On The Y and a couple other locations. There is also the Sacramento Pyrate Punks who put on tons of local metal/punk/hardcore shows. We always have a blast coming up there and have gained a lot of fans up there in the few times we've come and played. Sacramento (including surrounding areas) actually has a great extreme-metal scene. Much better than in the Bay Area.

Other ways to get your band "out there" is to pay. Pay to get ads in music zines and papers like East Bay Express, SF Weekly etc. Music, like any other business is founded on starting capital. It sucks, but it's life and just how it works.
 
I think Egan, Tony and mostly everyone else has it right. You don't even have a "band", not a full lineup, not a full recording. So you can't really expect to gain a fanbase with two guys promoting some scratch track demos as you said. Get a full lineup or die, that's my advice (as pretty much everyone else's). I had to leave my country and lost my lineup, my wife and I kept rehearsing, writing and recording until without knowing anybody in the whole continent we managed to get a full lineup again, out of internet and street ads. Now we have a full length album in the works (all drums recorded already),and preparing the new guys to push out as many live shows as we can. In the meanwhile, we have one of the most professional graphic designers I've ever seen doing our myspace profile, our album artwork and will do the full website when we're ready to take that step. Of course I am also working my ass off to have the best sounding album I possibly can with my limited equipment, and I'm also releasing a single and will be documenting the rest of the recording process to create expectation. Lots of shows, good, presentable web design, good music to promote the band, I honestly believe that is the trick to being "above" the masses of mediocre bedroom bands that flood the internet these days
 
As soon as the music is done, I am on the mission of finding musicians that want to play heavy music. I'm not going to half ass that shit because I believe there are a lot of people out there to find, we just haven't really done a lot of searching in the past, so as soon as I can I am going to be on the lookout for people and then we are going to play some shows and get the fuck out there dammit, I personally think that people are itching for something fresh in Sacramento and surrounding areas and we are going to give it to them.
 
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