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Hey, this is Matthew Rix with the Music Business newsletter
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and today, have you ever met an artist with big dreams,
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no budget and way too much heart? Well, I got
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an email from a twenty something your old piano player
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who's grinding in coffeehouses and he wants to figure out
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how to level up. But before we get started, I
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asked that you like and subscribe to this channel. If
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you have a comment, leave it below. If you agree
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with me or disagree, I still would love to hear
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from you. And if you have a question on the
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music industry that you'd like for me to answer, all
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you got to do is go to Matthewricks dot com,
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click submit your question, give me as many details as possible.
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And now the email from the piano player. He says, Hi,
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my name's Bob and I'm a piano player, singer songwriter
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in my twenties. I just recently discovered these music Business
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newsletters and I really appreciate how you are straight with
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people about what it takes to make it well. Thank you,
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and you recently discovered it because we recently just started
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releasing them, So there you go. He said, you've helped
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me see that there's a lot more to this than
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just writing songs and hoping someone discovers you. Brouh you
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get in it already. I know some artists who have
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been followed me since twenty fourteen, when the Matrics Minute launched,
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and they still haven't gotten it. But let's continue, he said.
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So here's where I'm at. I've been playing open mics
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and coffee house shows for a few years now, just
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me and my keyboard. I've released a few singles on
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digital services Spotify, Apple Music Title, and he says, while
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it's not huge, I've built around four hundred monthly listeners,
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and my top song has about thirty five thousand streams.
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I don't really know when you released your song that's
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gotten you thirty five thousand streams, four hundred monthly listeners,
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depending on where you're at. I don't really think you
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talk a lot about what your marketing strategy is or
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what your social media game is. Playing coffee houses. Those
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are good numbers for where we're at right now. But
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let's continue, he says. I know it's small compared to
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the big guys. Don't compare yourself to the big guys,
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because you will, you'll get You'll just put yourself in
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a loop, You'll oh, I mean you're a piano player,
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so you're like, oh, I'm not as big as Billy Joel. Well,
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Billy Joel's been around for what forty some odd years.
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He better have more plays than you do. He plays
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arenos as well. He should have more streams than you,
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he says. But I feel like there's proof that there's
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something there worth building. Believing in yourself is never a
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bad thing, is it, he says. Lately, though I've hit
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a wall. I want to start taking things to the
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next level, build a band, find a manager or a
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booking agent, and start doing really show, real shows instead
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of just local coffee shops. It's not a bad it's
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not a bad goal. I mean, I think before you're
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looking for a booking agent, it really wants a booking agent.
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They just think that booking agents are just waiting for
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every artist to come around, and that then when they
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do get a booking agent, there's gonna have a ton
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of shows and a ton of offers, and it doesn't.
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I mean, I know signed artists who are booked who
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have booking agents, like the Big Boys, and they have
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songs on radio and you know, twenty to thirty shows here,
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he said, here's the thing. I want to stop performing
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with a keyboard and start playing with a real piano.
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That's the sound that really represents me as an artist.
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You know you're gonna log a You're gonna put a
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piano into a coffee shop wheeling in. I hope you
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got a significant other who can help steer it as
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you're pushing it into the coffee shop. He says. Uh.
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He continues, he says a piano would really represent me
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as an artist, but obviously that means I'll need a
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trailer or a van to haul it around. Yeah, you're
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your expenses have gotten a lot bigger at this moment
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to play a coffee shop, he says. I've been thinking
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about reaching out for sponsorship to help make that possible.
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Dear Pepsi, I play at a coffee shop. I would
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love twenty thousand dollars so I can buy a piano
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and a van and take it to the coffee shop
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where typically coffee shops hold about forty people. But don't worry,
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if you give me money, I will put the Pepsi
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logo on my piano for all forty people to see.
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Signed Bob, what do you not understand how sponsorship works?
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Like they're giving you money for exposure, They're giving you
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money to influence people. You got four hundred monthly plays,
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you're playing in front of a coffee shop, but you
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want sponsorship now. I don't know where you're from. I
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don't know what city you live in. You might be
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able to get, you know, Smitty's Oil change to throw
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you a couple of bucks, but not enough to buy
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a van or a trailer, and because honestly, what do
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they get out of it? You know, It's like I'll
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talk to podcast hosts and they're like, we just really
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want to go monetize, and we really want to get
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like ad reads and everything that really help us out.
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And I'm like, you're getting like thirty plays an episode.
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So if they give you money, they're not going to
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continue to give you money because they're gonna realize after
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the first quarter, there's no traffic here. We just gave
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this guy money for nothing. But let's continue with the emails,
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shall we? He says. A sponsorship to help make that possible,
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get the van, the trailer, but not just for that.
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I'd love to also find sponsors to help with things
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like buying merchandise, so I have actually something to sell
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at shows. So you want Pepsi to give you money
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so you can buy merchandise. And if that's the reason
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why they're sponsoring you, do you not think that Pepsi
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or whoever is going to have going to want their
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logo on that merchandise as well. You can have the
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back of your shirt looking like what they give out
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at like county fairs and car dealership openings and just
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logos everywhere. Don't try to get sponsorship for merchandise. I mean,
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if you're playing coffee shops, you don't really need merchandise
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at this moment. He also says he wants a sponsorship
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for fuelling the vehicle to get the shows without going
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broke every weekend. That's you charge money to the venue
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that you play to get money for fuel so you
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don't go broke every weekend. He continues, I'd like a
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sponsor for building a website to look more professional and
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to have a central place for fans to find me.
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That you don't. You don't need a website to look
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more professional or to have a central place for fans
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to find you. Your fans are probably all hanging out
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on Instagram and TikTok and probably Facebook or maybe X.
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You don't need a website for that, and you don't
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need a sponsor for a website. You could. You can
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get a website for like fourteen ninety nine a month,
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you know, if you go to like one of the
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bigger ones. And then once again, if you get a
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sponsor for a website, they're going to throw their logo
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on the website. So it's going to be like Bob
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the piano player sponsored by Dicky's Oil Exchange co. He continues,
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the problem is, I don't have a budget for any
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of this. How far are you driving to go to
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these coffee shops to play that? It's putting you in
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the whole fuel wise. I wish you would have told
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us where you live and how far you travel for
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this stuff, because are you going twenty minutes or are
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you going five hours? Once again, a website's like fourteen
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bucks with four hundred monthly listeners on Spotify and you
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playing coffee shops open mic. I don't even think you
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could sell merchandise at an open mic. I think your
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focus is kind of all over the place right now.
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But let's continue with the email. He says, Right now
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it's all coming out of my pocket and it's starting
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to feel impossible to move forward. Well, you are a
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solo artist, and so it is going to come out
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of your pocket, and I'm just I'm back. It's this
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is the illusion of action right here. You're not really
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making any money. You're not really really not gaining any
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traction for whatever reason. We don't know why. It could
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be your songs, it could be your marketing, it could
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be you. We don't know why, but we just know
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right now. You know you're playing offee shops, agett four
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hundred monthly listeners. You're not making any money. But the
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illusion of action is is Well, if I can start
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bringing a piano, that's gonna increase my revenue. If I
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can get a website that will increase my bookings, if
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I can get a sponsor to give me fuel money,
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then maybe I'll perform better. It's all this stuff that's
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like this is going to fix it. But that's not
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the root cause of the problem as an artist for you.
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But let's continue, he says. So here's what I'm hoping
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you can help me with. I will try my best
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he says, how do I build a team around me
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when I have no budget? Well? That I mean, if
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you're talking about a team, you're talking about a booking
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agent and a manager, which we've talked about. You never
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pay a manager a monthly retainer. I don't care what
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they say, I don't care why they need it. You
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never do it. They live off of percentages. If you
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make five bucks that month, they get their fifteen percent cut.
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You do not pay monthly retainers to managers or booking age.
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So how do you build a team around you? Find
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someone who believes in you. Find somebody who's itching to
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become an artist manager and who believes in you, and
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they got a lot to prove. Your team should never
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be your mom, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your best homie.
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It shouldn't because those are friends, those are family. They're
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never going to work as hard because you're not going
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to fire them. How do you fire your mom? Okay,
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I've seen it before, I'll recommend it. The next question,
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what's the right way to find bandmates who actually believe
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in the music and not just getting paid. Well, that's
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your problem right there. As a solo artist, you're not
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going to find a lot of people who believe in
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backing you up. Band guys. As we read in the
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email a couple of days ago, band guys will will
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get in a van, they'll go play for thirty bucks.
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They'll travel halfway across the country for thirty bucks, and
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it's just them, the band of brothers. When you're a
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solo artist, you don't have that luxury. You're not asking
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somebody to believe in your vision for your piano music.
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You're looking for the best musicians who are easy to
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work with, who are good for the culture of your band.
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And yeah, you're gonna have to pay them if you
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get free guys, and you know, and you know they
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don't have any stake in this band. It depends on
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where you're at. If you are in a market, if
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you're in a small market, you might be able to
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find some guy who just likes to you know, he's
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not gonna you know, he doesn't have a band, she's
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probably got a mortgage, a wife, and he can do
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this on the weekends whatever, no problem, And he'll do
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it because he just loves to play. He loves the
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jam out. But that's not a guy that you're gonna
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take the long way with Typically, Also, when you find
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those guys, they might not be the best musicians because
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you know, they know they're not the best, or they
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might be older. And if you're in your twenties and
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you got a band a bunch of fifty year olds,
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it's just a weird optics. It looks really kind of
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thrown together. So for you to get a band as
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a solo art yeah, you're gonna have to either create
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a band or pay them, or not have a band,
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or just have really terrible musicians. You know, you find
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that eighteen year old kid that's gonna play and he
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can't keep he can't keep tempo with the drums. He continues,
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What do booking agents or managers look for before they
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take on someone, someone with more than four hundred plays,
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someone who's got merchandise. It depends, because like I have
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worked with artists who've got who have had nothing, nothing,
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and you know, they they had their singles out for
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three months and it didn't even break a thousand plays.
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But I believed in them and I loved him as people,
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and we started working together and things took off. But
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I I had the luxury of doing that because I
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this is like I don't go and you know, work
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at a law firm or wait tables or whatever, like
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this is my job. So I could spend the time
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to help develop somebody, not make going a dime, right,
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not making a dime, and so someone like in my position,
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I would roll the dice on somebody who's playing coffee
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shops and four hundred monthly listeners if I really enjoy
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the music and I see the potential, not just like
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it's a it's not a rental, like we are we
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are going to do this together for the rest of
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our lives, like because I see that potential in you,
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and I found you and no one else did. But
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typically managers aren't looking for I mean, you want manager.
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You know, you want a booking agent and a manager,
240
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and you don't even have merchandise. You want a booking
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agent and a manager, and you want to get a
