Music Industry Blog: a Band is NOT a Business
After all, the business mindset is poison to the art mindset. They’re just completely different things.
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Is a Band a Business?
People love to say “A band is a business.”
This refers to the idea that any successful, self-sustaining band needs to earn a lot of money. If you want to put four people on tour for six months a year, plus a merch guy / tour manager / whatever, that alone necessitates a huge amount of income.
It feels intuitively correct, if a band needs to generate money to survive, it has to be a business, right?
I’d argue NO. A band is not a business. Business is pretty much the opposite of music.
Business vs. Music Mindset
Listen to a few business podcasts. Reid Hoffman has a good one, “Masters of Scale.” Or just go to the top 10 on iTunes and pick whatever looks best. Skim around and hear how they speak.
Now go listen to some artist interviews. It doesn’t matter who, just pick your favorite artist and find them being interviewed.
Compare those two listening experiences. Do the business people and the artists think the same way? They don’t, at all.
Business people think about money. They create products, test them against the market, and try to find a profitable model.
Musicians think about music. They create art, with no real idea of how people are going to like it, acting by their own compass of what feels good and will make an impact.
Where Music and Business Intersect
What about when a band needs to do business, for example to handle distribution, promotion, tour routing, whatever?
The smart ones get other people to help. Managers, booking agents, even just friends who want to chip in. It’s rare for any moderately successful to band to retain "independence," whatever your definition of that is.
After all, the business mindset is poison to the art mindset. They’re just completely different things. Artists look deep within to find their truth, while business is all about external concerns. They’re different from head to toe.
For musicians who have to do their own business, I’d recommend the approach that works for me: Minimize the business. Think about it, get organized, come up with a plan - but don’t try to be a genius. Just get the basics covered and then focus on making the great music.
When the music is great enough, it only takes a small push to get the momentum going.
What do you think? Is a band a business? Do art and business work together, or are they opposing forces?
I would have to respectfully disagree here.
Having spent 15 years working in and around the music industry, dealing directly with bands that have both succeeded and failed, I would say that a band is absolutely a business and needs to be treated as such.
If you want to stay in the garage and play local shows to 10 people, don't worry about business. But if you wish to establish a brand and something that will last in a very fickle industry, you will need to take your project seriously and treat it like an operating business.
Even if you are collecting $10 a week from playing cover gigs, that's still incoming revenue. There are those who pocket the money and don't think twice, and then there are those who look to properly save/spend their earnings in order to grow their opportunities to play more efficiently and more often.
Just my two cents, I just don't believe in doing anything as a hobby. 100% or nothing.
JL
Why does taking a band seriously mean looking at it like a business?
Most of the successful artists I have seen follow this path:
Get amazingly good at music -> An audience starts to show up and spend money on the music -> then the artist learns just barely enough business so they can deal with stuff as it happens.
It's like 90% music, 10% business. its not about it giving it 100%, it's about giving it 100% without letting business get too much in the way
Lets just agree to disagree on this one :)
Hey Matt, nice to finally meet you. I know you through @bonvivan, I'm his drummer and I remember him showing me your comment complimenting my playing, so first of all: I LOVE YOU! <3
;)
hahah, but jokes aside,
I guess that art and business can't be opposing forces since they intertwine often. Living in a society built around money and success, which mostly gives a wrong picture of overall cultural quality - an artist or a band at least has to be aware of it's surroundings. A band doesn't have to strive towards bigger venues or more money, but It has to reevaluate what have they done in some time (how many shows are they playing, how many people are attending the shows etc.) and make aware decisions of their future. - which is sort of making a business model i guess..
One thing I can say for sure is, thinking about the business aspect is really counter-productive for the creative process (unless that's your subject), those parts shouldn't mix too much. But there is undoubtedly a great number of bands that were just focusing on their art and experimenting with sound, and unfortunately they stopped existing after a long time of stagnation. A band has to keep on moving and have some goals and plans, otherwise it deteriorates.
You are right that the two things intertwine. It just feels like a lot of it is common sense, like you have to put out a new record each year and tour as much as you can. Then you make some merch and try to collect your royalties.
But a lot of these ultra successful bands are terrible at business! I was listening to an Animal Collective interview the other day and the guy was like "yeah I have no idea how much money our music generates, I just know we owe it all to our label"
So it's like, I dunno... maybe there's just not enough brain space to be both awesome at business and awesome at music. Maybe it's just a semantic argument
Yeah, it's like you said. Smart people get other people to help about the things they can't or don't want to deal with. If you are in a position to do that, it definitely keeps your focus on the main thing - music.
And the fact that if you are dedicated to creating your original music and playing it, things wont stand in place, at some point the whole business part starts happening on it's own even if you want it or not. If you're sure of your talent, work and craft, you wont spend your brain-space thinking how can a new business model enhance your art :)
what's up @heymattsokol
I think you might agree that a lot of musicians are getting fleeced because they don't have a business mind. So then you might also agree that it is necessary for a band to know and understand what good business awareness is.
Everything needs to be marketed right? Everything needs to make a profit or break even in-order to be sustainable right? So that's business awareness.
Even when the music is great, we need business awareness to know how to get it into the hands and ears of the music listener. We need business awareness to translate our themes and stories into marketing materials and campaigns that cut through the noise to reach our ideal listener.
What we don't need is business awareness during the music making process. This tends to produce formulaic material.
And funnily enough, formulaic material is bad for business - every business needs a unique selling proposition right?
Yes irshad I think you hit the nail on the head here. Business is necessary, just needs to not be a part of the music making process at least for me.
I think it's fair to say that all bands needs to use business a lot! Perhaps the title of this post isn't very accurate after all, lol.
I would say that a band isn't a business but a brand is, and most bands, and sometimes even just people in general, seem to have a brand of some description these days.
I think most artists don't have the greatest business sense which is why managers, agents, etc... exist. It's not just the music industry either, I think everything you've said is applicable to most if not all of the arts.
I don't think art and business are opposing forces, just different forces, and I'm sure there are some people who are good at juggling both.
I think if I was to ever get really serious about making a living from art/music I'd definitely need someone to take care of all the business stuff because I just don't have the head for that.
There is definitely a business aspect to a band. I agree with you there.
been through both experiences somewhat as a member in a few bands, and today i'd say why-not-both.jpg
indeed i loathe bands that are in for the business only. you can feel instantly how shallow they are.
(imagine embedded but crossed out nickleback video here)
on the other end of the spectrum, i listen to a lot of music that nobody knows and that definitely earns more attention. like these guys for example:
when i look at the bands i like and which also have a decent following, these two things don't necessarily need to cancel out. they seem to be functional in that they have band members that care about the artistic aspect, but also some (or people in their surroundings) that care about the business aspects. for example anathema, but it might have taken a while for them.
Yeah that's true, some bands seem to have one or two managers (often the drummer??) that seem to take on most of the business tasks. Maybe that's the best way.
Music as a product and music as an art are two very different things and while most music tries to be both, I feel the.g. Are fundamentally different and it's very difficult for the art to remain pure when mixed with business. Business always tends to take the front seat to anything it is mixed with, with some rare exceptions.
This is why I never expect to make money with my art though I'm totally open to it and try to create some avenues for that to happen. I think anyone who wants to remain pure as an artist should find other means of income for a time being although I won't say they're bad for mixing their art with business and trying to survive hat way, it's just not as pure and personally I'm less interested in it.
I'll say this though....
If you don't treat your band like a business...
You aren't a band...
Just a hobbyist
Nah, I disagree. Most of the best artists I know aren't very business minded.
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They don't have to be. But the thing is you need to do the music first as pure creative expression then figure out how to market it. It gets messed up when you do the music with marketing in mind. I know managers and lables are generaly though as evil because of the money they rob the artist of but one good thing about them if they let the artist have creative control they can simply create without worrign about how to make money off of it. If the music is good enough and you tour hard I think you will eventually cut through a good example is The Black Keys and an Australian band I love here called Sticky Fingers.They have gained success simply by being good and touring there asses off you should check them out! :) Though they have recently split ironicaly because of to much drugs and time on the road lol If you can connect with people you are moving in the right direction. What was that theory about you only need 1000 diehard fans I think that is prity prevalent in our age. Look to Neil Young and Amanda Palmer for examples of businesses and art co existing. Keep doing you thing man your moving in the right direction.
It's great when artists can work with managers and retain creative control, that's probably the best case scenario. Businesses can't make art!!
@heymattsokolI am starting a podcast where I interview other entrepreneurs, I would like to invite to the inaugural episodes.
The podcasts will be hosted on my youtube account: https://www.youtube.com/nantchev
We talk about what they are doing with their life, business as well as their journey. A casual conversation about entrepreneurship.