Running a band is actually like running a company. Yes I know so many artists always say things like, oh my music is art and that can’t be bought. The truth is yes it can.
A friend of mine had a workshop in school and was talking about that music is a commercial thing. And there was many in the audience that was in the field of no it was just art. In the end a student asked the question

– Are you not allowed to do music that no one wants to hear?

And that is the point. Sure you are, but then you don’t need to market the music. If it’s made not to be heard well then you don’t have to make any effort for people to hear it. I would guess that in 99.99% of all people creating art to spread this art to an audience is the goal. Then you are commercial. Yes you are commercial even if you just give it away for free. You still want as many people as possible to get it.

Then it it’s the size. So if I start a local restaurant that only serves vegetarian food in a smaller town with 4000 habitants. There is a certain limit to it to calculate with. First I really don’t expect that everyone in the village would now stop eating at the other restaurants and go to min. Like suddenly since I open this I would get all the focus.

Same when you enter a deal in the music industry, could be a booking deal, record deal, publishing deal. They won’t stop doing what they have done and just focus on your music. Sure they are happy to work with something new that they like, but still there will be others with bigger priority.

In the restaurant, sure there will be people coming to try this new restaurant. At the same time it won’t be everyone that is appeal about it. The restaurant is only open on evenings, not for lunch. Of course there are many people that eat lunch but want to be home in the evening. So I will miss those costumers. The other way is to open for lunch make some changes that you also do home delivery with the food.

So when the industry says that you might change things is that to get these people for lunch or home delivery. It’s not changing the concept of the vegetarian restaurant adding meat. It’s just changing to reach more audience. Many artist fight this battle like “they are changing us”.

People will try the new restaurant; still I don’t think everyone would like it. Especially if you just cook food that is bland boring but you can eat it. It has to be really good, appeal to people to succeed in a small village like this.

And that is why you can’t just do 12 minutes long ballads about dead cats all the time. This part is actually the most reason why people don’t get anywhere. The music is bland, boring and we have seen it before. Yes you can listen to it, but it’s nothing that stood out.

And working with a small restaurant I really don’t can do the marketing or the efforts like a big restaurant chain can do. There is no point thinking that I can get people from all around the world to get to my restaurant direct. Sure if you put it into be so cutting edge and being very cool. That takes time. Just a restaurant like that was Oaxen close to our office. It took them 17 years to build up that reputation. Then they could move to a better location in Stockholm and after 4 years there they now got two stars in Micheline guide.

The same amount of time would count into an artist career. If we say that they two stars are the top 50 of the artist in the world. The same amount of time would be used. And they kept their location for over 17 years. So working with the same company in the industry in 17 years. Jumping around with companies is like changing location of the restaurant. Yes it can get different opportunities, but you lose many options by changing.

Also marketing the restaurant is a two way communication. If the restaurant sends out letters about the menu but you never goes there. In the end they will take you off. Same if you try to hide the restaurant so it will be hard for the customers to reach it. It will affect that no one is going.

This is the most usually problem, communication it has to be done right. If the company tells you to get in to the office just for a cup of coffee. Well don’t ignore that, they are your work colleges.