Pity poor Grizzly Bear, who can barely pay the rent, right? Of course, that means even worse things for you, the average schmuck with the great band that no one has ever heard of. No, you’ll never make it in this dog eat guitar world, so you may as well give up. Or actually, don’t do that. FreeWilliamsburg talked to a music industry vet who claims that musicians can make money and pay the rent, and he even wrote a whole book about it.
Jesse Cannon is a Williamsburg-based music producer who just wrote a book, Get More Fans: the DIY Guide to the New Music Business. FreeWilliamsburg asked him how the hell people can actually make money and get their name out their, and his surprising piece of advice? Just give it away:
FW: In your book, you make the strong argument that bands should give their music away for free. Why is that?
JC: There are too many ways out there already that let people easily consume music for free. If you put a dollar sign in front of your music before someone’s even heard it, it puts you at a disadvantage.
Keep in mind, just because your music is free today doesn’t mean it needs to be tomorrow, or that you can’t also put it on iTunes, Bandcamp, Spotify and Rdio for people to buy.
Cannon has some more advice for your struggling musicians out there, so check out the rest of FreeeWilliamsburg’s interview with him. And if you do make it big after reading this, send us some backstage passes or something, huh?