How To Destroy Angels – The Space in Between is a post from: wax&wires

I know I’m late to the party on Trent Reznor’s new project with wife, Mariqueen Maandig. Pitchfork just posted a full song that you can listen to. If you want to see a couple videos from the studio, mostly short clips to generate some JJ Abrams style hype, check out their site.

All in all, I really dig it. It’s almost like the chill instrumental side of NIN meets Massive Attack.

Listen here.

How To Destroy Angels is a post from: wax&wires

(disclaimer)
This was written on a bumpy Euro-bus ride across the wilderness – may ramble a bit but I think the point gets across.
TR

I posted a message on Twitter yesterday stating I thought The Beastie Boys and TopSpin Media “got it right” regarding how to sell music in this day and age. Here’s a link to their store:

[illcommunication.beastieboys.com]

Shortly thereafter, I got some responses from people stating the usual “yeah, if you’re an established artist – what if you’re just trying to get heard?” argument. In an interview I did recently this topic came up and I’ll reiterate what I said here.

If you are an unknown / lesser-known artist trying to get noticed / established:

* Establish your goals. What are you trying to do / accomplish? If you are looking for mainstream super-success (think Lady GaGa, Coldplay, U2, Justin Timberlake) – your best bet in my opinion is to look at major labels and prepare to share all revenue streams / creative control / music ownership. To reach that kind of critical mass these days your need old-school marketing muscle and that only comes from major labels. Good luck with that one.

If you’re forging your own path, read on.

* Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.
To clarify:
Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this – give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people’s email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special – make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters… whatever.

Don’t have a TopSpin as a partner? Use Amazon for your transactions and fulfillment. [www.amazon.com]

Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere. [www.tunecore.com]

Have a realistic idea of what you can expect to make from these and budget your recording appropriately.
The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact – it sucks as the musician BUT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So… have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).

The Beastie Boys’ site offers everything you could possibly want in the formats you would want it in – available right from them, right now. The prices they are charging are more than you should be charging – they are established and you are not. Think this through.

The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on – like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.
Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace – it’s dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don’t autoplay). Constantly update your site with content – pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any – Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.

If you don’t know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first hand use of these tools. If you don’t get it – find someone who does to do this for you. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig – good luck, you’re going to be waiting a while.

Hope this helps, and I’ll scour responses for intelligent comments I can respond to.

TR

TopSpin Media info:
[topspinmedia.com]

** quick update:
Thanks for the insightful comments already – when I get a moment (and a reliable internet connection) I’ll respond to some of your very valid points. Please keep in mind – these were just some thoughts I quickly wrote down and posted and not meant to be a complete guide by any means. I’ve neglected to get into publishing and some other things. I’ll update pretty soon.

You can read the comments and any updates here.

It’s difficult to assess whether or not Trent’s advice is sound, based on the fact that he never did it from the ground up on the indie front. He has seen the major side and the indie side, but only after his major label success (which is the exact argument he’s trying to refute above). At the same time, I would hazard a guess that he has more experience and knows more about the music industry from the artists’ perspective than you do, so you may as well heed his words.

Trent Reznor On What To Do As A New/Unknown Artist is a post from: wax&wires

Few people are still arguing that you need a major label to make it as an artist these days. But as an independent artist, how do you compete with free? How do you get your music out there and create a loyal fan base?

It’s a solid half hour long, but Masnick does a good job at keeping it entertaining, and it’s very informative.

TechDirt’s Mike Masnick On The “Reznor Business Model” is a post from: wax&wires

Here’s Trent Reznor answering the most popular user-submitted questions from a pool of about 5,000. Questions range from those about music, to the web, Scientology, all the way down to to what his favorite video games are.

Digg Dialogg With Trent Reznor is a post from: wax&wires

Digg founder Kevin Rose is interviewing Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails (NIN) and will pose the most popular questions as submitted and voted upon by you! From now until April 4th at 12:00pm PDT, you can submit and Digg up questions to decide which will be asked.

Trent Reznor is a musician, singer-songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and founder of the band NIN. Since departing from Interscope Records, Reznor has released albums independently under a Creative Commons license, utilizing technologies such as BitTorrent to promote the sharing of his music. Reznor was named one of TIME’s most influential Americans and is considered to be one of the most acclaimed creative figures of his generation of music by the Los Angeles Times.

Trent Reznor On Digg Dialogg is a post from: wax&wires

Ouch.

Trent Reznor On Chris Cornell’s New Album is a post from: wax&wires

Here’s an interesting clip from backstage at a NIN concert in Sydney, where the power went out halfway through the show. It’s an interesting and candid look at Trent and the guys.

I mostly uploaded this because it was shot with the new Canon 5D mkII, and the video quality is stunning.

You can watch it in HD for full effect over at Vimeo, as well as other footage from the same show.

NIN Backstage Footage is a post from: wax&wires

In NIN world, 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of our first releases. I’ve been thinking for some time now it’s time to make NIN disappear for a while. Last year’s “Lights in the Sky” tour was something I’m quite proud of and seems like the culmination of what I could pull off in terms of an elaborate production. It was also quite difficult to pull off technically and physically night after night and left us all a bit dazed. After some thought, we decided to book a last run of shows across the globe this year. The approach to these shows is quite different from last year – much more raw, spontaneous and less scripted. Fun for us and a different way for you to see us and wave goodbye. I reached out to Jane’s to see if they’d want to join us across the US and we all felt it could be a great thing. Will it work? Will it resonate in the marketplace? Who knows. Are there big record label marketing dollars to convince you to attend? Nope.
Does it feel right to us and does it seem like it will be fun for us and you? Yes it does.
Look for tour dates soon and I hope to see you out there.

Trent

The news comes fresh off the heels of Jane’s secret show last night in LA, previously reported here. It looks like the co-headlining tour will bring about another banner year for NIN in 2009, who shook up the music world last year with an epic Lights In The Sky Tour, two independent digital releases (Ghosts I-IV, and The Slip), and introduced a new paradigm in content distribution by offering free torrent files of albums and video footage directly to fans. Then, book-ending their career with Jane’s Addiction in the beginning and the end, the band will fall silent for an unknown length of time.

You can read Trent’s full post at the NIN site.

NIN To Tour With Jane’s Addiction, Then “Disappear” is a post from: wax&wires