Does your band have “Local Band” Disease? What’s the cure?

Thursday, February 19th, 2009
by Mark Carras

Does your band have “Local Band” Disease? What’s the cure?

When you have been doing this as long as I have, you start to notice why bands stay local. It has less to do with talent and more to do with paranoia. Sure there are very talented bands that do everything right and still end up nobodies (Forced Entry), but this is very rare. Most of the time it seems to be a case of “Big fish in a little pond”. In their local town they are the heroes. The local bar has their new cd in a glass case like they it went multi-platinum. However, in the big bad scary world they are no more cool than the bum on the street begging for change. It’s a brave step to totally put your self out there. The world is a cruel harsh mistress and she will eat you up and spit you out (again, see Forced Entry). So what should you do? I say stop being such a wussy and grow a damn spine!

Many of these bands will dip just a toe in the water, not become world wide famous, and then give up and go back to becoming nothing more than local heroes. They say, “Well, we tried.” They really didn’t but they tell themselves that. You have to try everything and everything every chance you get or you might as well not try at all. You can’t keep playing the same gigs at the same local clubs and expect someone to walk in one day and hand you everything on a silver platter. Sure that happens to 2-3 bands a freakin’ decade, but the odds on that are worse than the state lottery. Walk outside in the sunshine this summer and see if you get hit by lightning. If not, then you don’t have that kind of luck. Do the old school “get in the van” style tours when all the band members save up a couple weeks vacation from their real jobs. However, promote the living hell out of it too.

A band will think nothing of it to spend thousands upon thousands on all their equipment, but when it comes to promoting the band they spend nothing at all. Maybe they might make up a few hundred flyers and pass them around if they happen to be going to another metal show a couple days before their own show. What about putting an ad on Blabbermouth for your little mini tour? What about assigning one band member to find out what the local music rags are for the town you will be playing. Then buy ads from them as well. Another band member should be in charge of finding out what the local college stations are and if they have a metal show. If so see if you can schedule a phone interview a week before hand. Don’t just email them links to mp3 files and call it good either. Send a full cd with a cover and everything. Toss in a XX-shirt as well. I know all this costs money, but is your music worth it? How much has your drummer invested in his set? How much are all your practice amps worth? Did your guitarist pay more than $100 for that Marshal amp? How much do you all spend on beer and Denny’s every month? You spend all this money on buying the right equipment to get the sound just right, but nothing on getting people to hear that sound? You blow the money you make on playing shows with piss beer and crap food.

So here is how a band can get the money needed to do all this stuff. What if instead of splitting the money you make from shows all the time you created a band fund. Then on top of that you all paid dues. Not a ton, but enough so that when you had a new cd you could actually promote it. If each band member put in $100 a month for two years, you would have enough for a very strong campaign with Blabbermouth, Brave Words, and all the websites in the FixionMedia ad network.

So be a brave little toaster and jump out of your small little pond. You can do it! Your strong enough, your good enough, and gosh darn it…people like you! Right?