It's not cool to your dude friends to fret over your image but it is almost as important as your sound. If you look like an idiot on stage half of your audience will think that you sound like one (and the other half may not care, but you just lost half your audience before your f...

One of my friends, let's call him Tom, is in a fairly successful band (especially in his local city). Tom couldn't get the radio DJ of the local show to reply to his emails or play his band on the radio show and Tom felt he deserved to get played. After about 5 emails, instead of...

The biggest question I get asked is 'how do I get started.' The easiest answer is 'with your friends.' Even rock stars started by playing shows in front of their friends at their local club. At your earliest shows you're not going to have 'fans,' you're going to have friends comi...

When I was first getting started in Minneapolis I took note of other local bands who were somewhat successful locally. I was not yet. I sent these bands emails to the extent of 'Saw your show last night. Love your sound. If you ever need an opener hit me up.' As you may expect I...

The music industry is one of the harshest, most demanding, unsupportive, emotionally exhaustive and flat out difficult fields you could enter. But the payoff is... well you know.You have to have thick skin to survive in this industry. People say this pretty much for any creative...

If you're the leader of your band (I imagine you are because you're reading this), you can't force your members to do business duties they really don't want to do. Evaluate everyone's strengths and get them to do the jobs that they enjoy doing. Yes, everyone needs to contribute t...

To me, the most frustrating thing is when my friends' bands, who are incredibly talented, either don't know how the web works, don't care to learn the intricacies or just don't put the time in to understand what's important when interacting and posting on the web. People are lazy...

The idea that you will work at a coffee shop until your band gets their big break and then you're a rock star is laughably false. I wouldn't even mention this if so many young musicians didn't believe this. I know I did.The days of the 'big break' are over. A music career is now...

Don't ever book a show and just expect people will show up. They won't. Additionally, if you book a tour of cities you've never been to and there's no buzz about you in these cities and you aren't playing these shows with established acts from each city, the tour will be a bust....

When I was a freshman in college an uncle of a friend of mine was the caterer for John Mayer's tour. This was around the Heavier Things time so he was touring arenas, but not a superstar celebrity by any means. The uncle hooked me up with two 'meet and greet' passes. I was a...