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GETTING A RECORDING CONTRACT

This is the real deal. The facts below have been checked by A&R Managers with major record companies and the article has been published by Drum Media and BarFly. Take this to heart.

BACKGROUND

Until you can see it from the Record Company's point of view you will never understand why they do what they do.

IN THE A&R MANAGER'S SHOES

The A&R manager is the talent scout for the record companies. A&R stands for Artist and Repertoire.

If you were the A&R manager for a major record company then you have a job that is real hard to get and real easy to lose. Stuffing up investing in bands or other acts that don't make much money is one of the easiest ways to lose your job. As the A&R manager you are trying to make or exceed your earnings targets with minimum risk.

Record companies can be thought of as Investment Banks that specialise in music. History tells us that the majority of profits are made by superstars with all others counting for very little profit. Usually when a record company starts losing money they drop all but their biggest acts and sack any staff that are not essential to keeping these acts profitable. Superstars are where the profit is. Unless an artist has potential to becoming "the next big thing" then major labels usually have very little interest.

What percentage of new acts are profitable? In the United States it costs $US1,000,000 for a major label to launch a new act. Out of them, only one in twenty are profitable.

It costs less for a major label to launch a new act in Australia but only about one in ten new acts are profitable. For independent companies, they can make a profit out of smaller sales so they find about one in five are profitable.

OK, it is not all about money with major record companies. Every person who works there has passion for music. They would not be successful if they were just in it for money. They sometimes take risks and invest in loss making product to develop new markets or artists. They understand that there are no superstars tomorrow if they don't do artist development today. However, the bottom line is always there so there is no "free lunch", music has to pay its way and there are always share holders who want their dividends.

Given the huge amount of money required to produce a successful act it is little wonder major record companies often acquire successful artists by buying out independent labels with a couple of successful acts. The owners of the independent label can walk away rich and the acts get the benefit of an international marketing machine. {If you have a pile of money and are interested in starting an independent label to: find, develop and grow superstars, please call me}.

HOW MUCH COMPETITION IS THERE?

Go have a look at the ARIA charts for the year at: http://www.aria.com.au/ and the recent Gold and Platinum certifications.
What percentage is Australian music? What percentage are new artists? What percentage are hits because it is a spin off from a TV program? How many acts are people like you producing music like you? How many acts are there trying for those spots?

You have to answer these questions for yourself but the competition is tough. Less than 1 act in a 1,000 acts make it from the local level to the annual top 100 charts. Even if you do achieve this and have a Gold selling album then the profit for the act is modest, certainly not enough for a band to live on this alone for a year. (Your income has to come from your live work.)

DOING IT ON THE SMALL SCALE

There is a much larger group of people out there making quite a good living selling a few thousand of each album. They tend to record in home studios, sell product at gigs or the Internet and either self distribute or use niche distributors. If you plan a business around a couple of thousand sales it is possible to retain more profit from your music than acts selling millions through a major label. For example, TLC filed for bankruptcy after selling 8,000,000 albums worldwide due to the production and marketing costs being billed to the band.

If your definition of success can include making a living out of your music but without ever being a superstar, getting Top 40 sales or commercial radio play then your chances of success are much higher. When you finance it yourself you have total artistic freedom, retain the profits and have control over the product. This approach suits far more musicians than throwing yourself onto the production line of corporate machine.

DEALING WITH THE RECORD LABELS

Now you understand a bit about the machine that is commercial music how do you get the Record Contract and sell heaps of records?

The way to get a recording contract is to convince an A&R manager, at a record company, that your product offers a good return on investment with an acceptable level of risk. (This is cynical but any belief they have in the artist or their music is tempered by financial considerations.) Your task in getting a recording contract is a marketing exercise to an A&R Manager who is difficult to access directly.

You almost never hear of anyone getting a deal by posting an unsolicited demo to a record company. A survey published by Phil Tripp indicated that 85% of these demos are returned unopened with a standard rejection letter. Forget sending in demos, it is a waste of time and money. It is worse than useless as a promotional activity as it makes you think you have done something for your career when you have not.

A SURE FIRE FORMULA FOR A RECORDING CONTRACT

You start with GOOD SONGS, an interesting new sound and a professional, business like attitude. If you don't have good songs all else will be a waste of time You don't want to sound like last year's or last decade's 'big thing'. It has got to be fresh, new and interesting or nobody will be interested.

Make sure your sound and image is main stream enough to appeal to a wide market.

Create a vibe and demonstrate effective marketing of yourself and your product. Ways to do this include:

Have good pulling power to every live gig you do. Get lots of bums on seats and feet on the dance floor. You have to do really good gigs. (Aim to play at least weekly with gigs from Melbourne to Brisbane and pull at least 150 people to every gig). Not just showcase gigs with 'rent-a-crowd' but lots of gigs with real punters.
If you don't play live perhaps you need to get DJ's to play your music in clubs.
Sell a couple of thousand self released CD's through a distribution deal. Even if you are only half good enough these deals are easy to get after all you have paid for everything.
Promote yourself to other artists. Give them CD's, business card, stickers, merchandise and tell them your story and LISTEN TO THEM. But be cool, be a friend not a stalker and you can approach anyone.
Have a good web site and e-mail list. Have links to other people's web sites and get them to put links to your's on their web site. Record how much traffic you get to your web site.
Use your e-mail effectively without spamming people and hide addresses in the BCC field otherwise you are giving away your mailing list.
Get radio play on Community radio stations, FBi, JJJ and ABC. Note: Check out FBi in Sydney on 94.5FM it has the same transmitter power as 2Day FM or MMM; this is really good news for local music.
Put out press releases often to maximise coverage in the media. There are plenty of books on how to do this well or you can hire a publicist.
Get reviews for your gigs and record releases in the street press and music pages of the main stream press. Invite these reviews by sending press kits and gig information to the reviewers.
Have your video played on pay TV, Rage etc. (Good videos can be done cheaply these days with DV cameras and software like Adobe Premier).
Have attractive merchandise that sells. T-Shirts, coffee mugs, caps, mouse mats, posters, stickers, fridge magnets, calendars etc.
Have a consistent visual image designed by a graphic artist. Include: Logo, posters, CD covers, bio, T-Shirts, business cards, stickers, back drop and everything else. Spend some money here as quality is worth paying for.
Advertise all the above in the street press and other places. (If you haven't worked it out, spending money on advertising gets you editorial space). One advertisement can be multi-use and promote: your next gig, CD available from XYZ records and, merchandise from www.mybandname.com.au
In your marketing to A&R people send them updates including press clippings and business updates (sales figures, web traffic etc)

All this costs money and a lot more than you are likely to earn from your initial gigs. You are running a business and you are going to need some start up capital but, like any business, there is no guarantee of a return on investment. Selling music is pure Capitalism.

Let me promise you, if you do all the above well and conduct yourself in a professional, business like manner you won't need to go to the record companies. They will be banging on your door begging for a piece of the action. Your manager and lawyer will then negotiate the deal.

BE GOOD ENOUGH

The world has a way of telling you if your music and its presentation isn't up to scratch - things never seem to progress. You don't get a second booking by venues and radio is not interested. Remember how tough the competition is, take the hint and do it better.

When a record company tells you to do this that or the other, they are really saying, "go and prepare yourself and your market so that we don't have to spend the time building your market." They are also wanting to see you develop as an artist.

Get lessons and practice your instrument for one to two hours every night so you can play it well. Work through relevant tutorial books, they are cheap lessons in a book. You will find some of the better ones at http://www.halleonard.com/. Learn to sing - all of you. Learn to do vocal harmonies. Only take lessons from qualified teachers as it takes some of the risk out of it. There are some really crappy teachers out there.

Learn traditional harmony theory it will make a HUGE difference to your song writing. Learning harmony theory will allow you to stand on the shoulders of the giants who went before you.

If you have a professional attitude and your songs are good everything else will go easy for you. I mean good, interesting songs played, sung and recorded well. Never settle for 2nd best. Strive for the highest standards. Be a perfectionist.

Once you achieve the recording contract life is not a Disneyland future (or Neverland). It is more of the same gigs, self promotion, song writing, recording and touring. Life really won't change very much.

FACTS IN THIS ARTICLE

I had this article fact checked by some of the A&R people with major record companies who did not wish to be quoted by name. One of them said: “We are not like Investment Banks, we are creative people who want to make good records. It is the business affairs and finance departments that make us like that.” They effectively said to me: “We A&R people are not like that but the company is.”

Another said: "You have it pretty well right."