When it comes to the tasks and processes involved in making and promoting music, there’s no one right way to do anything.
There are, however, plenty of wrong ways, and that’s why we created What NOT to Do, a regular series in which we help you avoid making the mistakes everybody makes when they’re trying to go it alone in the music world. In this installment, Mike Doerr, who’s played in bands that have shared stages with Fall Out Boy, No Doubt, and Third Eye Blind, gives you the skinny on the pitfalls of going into a recording studio prematurely.
One of the perks of of making your own music is the ability to develop your sound in whichever way you want. Love country music and heavy metal? Put ‘em together. But if commercial success is what you’re after, you may want to think twice about spreading yourself too thinly across the genre spectrum.
In my own experience, people tend to fall in love with a song, which then segues into their following of the band who plays it. But if even one of your songs isn’t a great representation of your actual sound, you’ll see the eyes in the crowd start to wander, to focus on something else. Groups should stick to their objectives especially on the same record.
“Tweener” bands have a history of not doing so well in the industry, especially in recent years. We’re in an era where a click of a button gets you just about anything you can dream of, so to use our previous example, why listen to a country-metal band when you can listen to a country band, and then a metal band?
When marrying two polar opposites, it’s difficult to do justice to either. The chances of fans liking both extremes are rare, and what happens is your sound ends up falling somewhere in a vast grey area, which can alienate potential fans from both sides.
To be commercially successful, a group needs to appeal to a wide audience, but dividing your sound in half often divides your following as well. This turns your group into a risk (at best) for a record label to invest in. And as we all know, the days of record labels rolling the dice with signings are long gone.
Bill Cosby famously said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” There will never again be a band like The Beatles that takes over the world because of one simple thing: options. We can turn off the radio and put on our iPod, or switch from one music channel on TV to another; you can go out to a show every night in most large cities, and if the band that’s playing isn’t your favorite, you can walk next door and check out something else.
As an artist, this can be a bit depressing, especially if you’re like me and once dreamed of starting Beatlemania 2.0. I hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to happen. If you’re making music in your basement for personal pleasure, it’s no problem at all. But just like in any business, if you want to make it big in music, find a void and fill it.
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