We’ve been in the music business for over a decade. Over and over again, I have seen extremely talented artists that I would put my money on to win. They were the ones that had pure talent, and you could see from a mile away that they would be successful. Yet, most of them never made it out of the city, let alone get a record deal.
Then I have seen other artists that were mediocre and even a few that were plain horrible that went on to do some things. They made records, they toured, they had distribution and people actually ‘bought into it.”
In all of our years the main difference between those who DID and those who DIDN’T wasn’t talent. Guess what it was?
Here is the most valuable piece of music business advice you will ever get about breaking into the music business. Are you Ready?
GET SOME INCOME!
I swear to you, when you have income to do some of these things that you want to do, EVERYTHING changes. If you’re music career is stuck in slow motion it’s probably either because you aren’t going hard enough (not putting enough time into it), or you are broke. Being the broke, starving, struggling artist sounds good when you are telling the story on your VH1 Behind The Music special, but you probably will never get a chance to tell it if you STAY broke. The music business doesn’t care that you are broke and can’t do this, or can’t afford that..the world doesn’t care. If you want something it’s up to YOU to go get it.
Once you have money to invest in your career you can do all of the things you should be doing anyway. Such as…
- Press CD’s (No pressed cd’s = no CD’s to sell in stores)
- Professional Photos (You’re not really using your phone pictures on your artwork are you?)
- Real Artwork (Made by people who KNOW how to make it look good because that’s what they do…most people who first discover you online will SEE you, your cover, your avatar, your profile, your website..BEFORE they HEAR you…u are killing yourself with these weak graphics
- Equipment (It’s cheaper to buy your own studio set up then it is to record a complete album in someone else’s studio…from that point you can record whenever you want…once you can do that you will see how much quicker your projects are created and released)
- Promotion (Trying to do some street promotion with no flyers, no posters? Or are you doing it with the homemade flyers that look homemade? You are doing street promotion aren’t you?)
- Touring (No vehicle=no touring, no gas=no touring)
These are just a few things, there are many others. Just think for a moment what you could do right now if you had the money to do it.
The worse part of all of this is that most of you have income but you spend it on iphones and androids, hats, extra spiffy clothes, weed, jewelry, your hair and everything else. Everything BUT the dream that you want so bad. Make some moves and get some money and that money will help you make more moves.
A strange thing about money…when you invest it in your career, your career will start returning it to you, either in the form of MORE money or MORE opportunities.