Recording/producing music; music publishing; tracking royalties; building a website; handling marketing/PR, booking shows, graphic design, videography, photography, creating merch, editing, purchasing, selling, and everything else in-between…
What sounds like the job of a massive team, in this day and age, has had to become the purview of thousands of artists “living the dream” - yours truly, included.
Many times, we as artists find ourselves out of our depth when we have to split our focus from our creative side (i.e., songwriting & performing) to our business side. The feeling is akin to leaving the warmth of the jacuzzi to jump in the much colder, larger main pool. It's definitely jarring, and we can neither confirm nor deny the health benefits of making that kind of leap of faith.
However, there is an advantage to doing it.
(© 2013)
When we were first starting out, our then manager (our dad, Rey), had insisted that we read this book by a lawyer named Donald S. Passman called, “All You Need to Know About the Music Business”. In it, he described exactly what an artist should be looking for in a record deal (having closed many deals for artists, himself), and what the labels would require of that artist. It wasn't a huge book, and the legal concepts weren't lost on us. But it did serve to supply us with the knowledge of how this “business” is run, what we could expect from it, and how - if we wanted to join in it - we would not only have to understand our job, but (at the very basic level), the jobs of the people we would need help from in the future. Looking back at that time, we're very grateful our dad didn't allow us to be ignorant of this reality.
Moving forward, we watched him as he wore multiple hats - manager, booker, website builder, publisher, event coordinator, engineer, co-songwriter, and the one he would tell everyone very proudly, “I'm just the band's chauffeur.” He wanted us to remain in our “creative space” as long as possible, knowing that one day, we would have to jump in it without him. This is not to say that we didn't learn some of it along the way, but the main load was on him by choice. Now that we've taken on those many hats, we can't express how much appreciation we have for that kind of selflessness, nor will thanks ever be enough.
Thankfully, then as now, tutorials exist; books, articles, “How To…” videos, and other generous souls out there that have also taken that plunge, who have come out of it motivated to share their knowledge, as well. All these coupled together makes traveling this uncertain road not only less anxiety-inducing, but also more adventurous. And because this material is out there for public consumption, there's really no excuse to not try to improve with it or utilize it. It takes time, it takes patience and perseverance. And it definitely takes the ability to fail graciously and get back up and try again, and again, and again.
The journey - the process - is exciting. Really. Constantly learning, self-motivating, showing up every day to work because it's worth it. To how many people? Well… it was worth it to one man, first. And he mattered the most. Our dad would remind us, “Don't let me be the one pulling or pushing you to achieve your dreams. I can't be more invested than you!” And that's what it's really about. No matter what you love doing, you can't have someone else be invested in seeing it through more than you.
And, on that note… we've got more work to do!
xx
The Girls….