Get your
story right

I saw an
interview with the Swedish megastar Zara Larsson. It was some famous magazine that
was getting the grand tour of her apartment. Then she was in at least Swedish media
coming out that she smokes a lot of weed lately but stop doing that.  Strange I first saw we haven’t heard from Zara
for long while. I looked in both interviews but non said anything about new
music.

Then just days later I saw an ad for her new album “Postergirl”. Of course
Zara Larsson has great smart teams working around her to get her exposure. The
two interview looks like they are just taken out of the blue, that she just one
day felt like showing off her apartment for a magazine or doing a “dark”
confession. The truth is that in today’s media world the fact that you release
new music is not good enough news.

This is a
trap that really many new artists fall in. I get a lot of new press releases
and you can easily see when you get it from a bigger established artist is usually
a story around it. The story very often contains things that have nothing to do
with the music. On the opposite to that is what the new artist does they ramble
on which producers they had, what plugins they used, and what the songs mean to
them. The problem is that information is not so sexy to write or speak around. Yes
of course if you use a mega-producer it might be fun asking about how it was to
work with that producer. Unfortunately, most of the time it’s a producer that has
some obscure connection to an album with a semi-big artist.

You need
that story even as a small artist. I have worked a lot with my bands to try to
create those stories and with the time you have them automatically. When you toured
enough and have big things behind you, this comes with the career. This is why
it’s so easier to make an interview with a legendary artist. They have all stories
to tell. When you are new you just have to make them up.

In some
cases it’s just pure lies. How many people haven’t heard that Dee Snider from
Twister Sister had sharpened his teeth to look like thangs? It was a rumor in the 80:s maybe it’s true
maybe it’s not. Another rumor was that Marilyn Manson had operated out his
bottom rib bones to be able to suck himself off. I spoke about this subject in
a panel at a conference once and mention just that it probably was a rumor but
had worked to his advantage. Then the guy next to me in the panel confessed he
was the one making that rumor.

He was the
pr agent for Marlin in a smaller country in Europe. He had done a deal with a
newspaper to give them a new story around the artist for a couple of weeks
before the concert in that country. Back then Marlin Manson was fairly new and
was just famous for his stage show and strange look. Of course, they run out of
stories to tell. They knew though that this newspaper was very Christian and
as we all know Marlin Manson is kind of the opposite. Out of desperation, they
created the story that he had to operate out his rib bones. They thought it’s a small
country the paper also was in the direction that they wouldn’t write it because
it was too shocking. But even they did not write it they had fulfilled their deal.
This was too good of a story to miss so the newspaper just blasted it out. Suddenly
all the newspapers in that country had the story on their first page. Tickets
to the show were sold out in minutes. They had thought to call Brian (Marilyn
Manson) to tell him what they had done. He just laughed and, in the interviews,
later while he did the concerts he never denied if this rumor was true or not.

It still
lies around on the internet.

In this
case it was somebody else that made the thing up. But many artists create a
rumor in one interview to then deny it in the next to make it be more
mysterious.

No, I don’t encourage
people to lie or make up stories. What I’m pointing at here is that you need to
have another good story than that you release new music. Also that the story
doesn’t really connect with the music. I should be able to stand on its own.
Also if you are doing different magazines create this story to fit whatever
this magazine is about. If it is a lifestyle magazine you just tell them about
your big collection of toy elephants that you have at home. If they want to
have a phone you just hurry down to a couple of thrift shops and buy every
elephant you can get your hands on.

Even if a the story is not true, if it’s good enough it will be told, and you need that people
are talking about you to get your music heard.