1. HONE YOUR ACT

You need to practice off the grid, offline. This advice is for pros, not amateurs. If you’re just screwing around, post on YouTube and TikTok, have fun, but if you want to make music your career… People tend to know this at a young age. And if you’re one of these people you don’t want to try and build an audience online until you are ready. Maybe post, but don’t try and draw attention, don’t dun people to watch, this will ultimately backfire, because people are overloaded and hate to be told to take time out for you and if they do and you’re substandard, it’s much harder to get them to come back.

So, learn how to play in your bedroom. Practice with your buddies in the garage. Play live anywhere that will have you. Put money last. It’s about the experience, not the cash. If you put money first you’re doing it wrong. The key is to learn how to do it, and this is a skill. To get over the stage fright, to perform adequately, to handle the audience, to build the arc of a show. This is a skill most of the overnight wonders do not have. Which is why their live shows, assuming they can play to anybody, that anybody wants to pay to see them, have to be stacked with ringers and production, it’s to cover up their greenness. You want to be ready when you get your break.

You must sacrifice. You can’t be on the team or be in clubs or go to the prom. You may be able to do all of these, but there will be times you have to choose, and you’ll have to choose music. Think of it like the swimmers and other athletes gunning for the Olympics, they cannot take their eye off the ball.

You’re going to have to start with covers. The classics are key here. Everybody knows “You Shook Me All Night Long.” Yes, the rock classics, the classics of the MTV era, they are the last universal songs. Sure, maybe know some contemporary songs, but only play them for audiences you think will know them.

Write. From day one. You get better over time, so you might as well start early. Anybody who tells you their initial songs are great is wrong. Writing is an adventure, you have to learn the basics and then how to express yourself.

Start playing some originals live. See what works.

Ultimately get enough gigs that you are making money. Such that someone who works on a percentage will be interested in working with you.

2. THE AGENT

More important than a manager at this point. Gigs are the issue, not direction. You don’t need a manager to negotiate deals, your path, because there is none. But you do need someone to get you work. An agent works on percentage, they will only work with you if they think they can make money, not only today, but tomorrow. If you want an agent to work with you don’t tell them how good you are, but how you can make them money.

3. GIG

Anywhere and everywhere, to bigger audiences. Even with an agent it pays to know the other acts, so you can trade headlining gigs in each other’s territory.

4. FAN BASE

If you’ve gotten this far, you will have fans. Know them, pay attention to them, serve them. They want to serve you. Give them access. Incentivize them to bring their friends, i.e. let them bring their friends free or at a discount, let their friends meet you. It’s about establishing a relationship. In this broad world everybody wants an identity and in many cases this is their adherence to an act.

5. ONLINE

Now is the time. You can have a website, have information online earlier, but as far as videos, now you are ready. Post on YouTube and TikTok. Your fans need to spread the word. Make them aware the videos are there, don’t dun them to spread the word, either they will or they won’t, if you’re good enough and the bond is strong enough, they will.

TikTok… Should you try and game the system? Do covers? Have innovative videos? Well, OK Go was famous for its innovative videos but no one can sing a song of theirs. Once you try and manipulate the system you’re going down a bad path. The music must be the draw, not the penumbra.

6. MANAGER

This is the time you need one. You’ll probably have one earlier, but probably one you’ll ultimately want to fire if you become successful. Because only a passionate nobody will be interested at first and ultimately you need someone with experience. Having said that, oldster managers tend not to know the new, digital landscape and the audience of young people. They’re all inured to radio and Spotify, they think big and miss the low-hanging fruit.

When you get big enough, you’ll need a real manager. And a real manager will come to you because you’re making money and they see an upside, they think they can add value, make you bigger.

If you get a manager earlier, do not sign a contract with them, no way, odds are it will come back to haunt you. Pay them their percentage, but ultimately you will probably want to fire them, and you don’t want to have to continue to pay them.

7. GIG MORE

The key is to be big enough that you can get slots at festivals. So more people can see you. The key is not to be able to say you were on the festival, but to kill at the festival. People know if you’re great, if you’ve got something, and they never forget. I saw Hooray for the Riff Raff at the Rose Bowl/Arroyo Seco playing in a tent with fewer than a hundred people and they slayed me, I’ve paid attention to them ever since. This is what you’re looking for.

Make merch when it’s not a hobby, when someone likes your show so much they need a souvenir. Handmade stuff for the hard core only is a bad look.

8. OPPORTUNITIES

If you’ve jumped the above hurdles, you will start to have opportunities. This is why you need a manager, to negotiate, to handle these opportunities. The smaller you are, the more you say yes, the less you weigh the pros and cons. It’s just the reverse when you get bigger.

9. RECORD DEAL

You probably won’t need one. It’s no longer the badge of honor it once was. Only sign a deal with a major if it signs, promotes and makes hits in the genre you operate in, otherwise you’re giving up too much for too little. Sure, you might be so successful that the advance is huge and the recordings revert to you in a short period of time, but this is rare.

You need to do it yourself. You need to do everything yourself. At first keep your day job. If you or your friends and family can’t finance your operation you’re doing it wrong. Don’t borrow money from a bank or anyone who charges interest, don’t even borrow money from someone who expects to get it back. This is a long shot venture and you don’t want to be beholden to anybody. If you can’t make it work financially from the get-go, you’re doing it wrong, you just don’t want it bad enough.

When it comes to recordings… Sans hits, which are rare, recordings generate little income, why not take the lion’s share? Which you can do if you own and distribute yourself, via a third party like CD Baby, TuneCore, etc. Don’t be enticed to sign with an indie label. What the indie label says it will do it rarely does. The indie doesn’t have much cash, doesn’t want to spend it and doesn’t have enough personnel and wherewithal to hammer something again and again. Meanwhile, the indie will take most of the money that comes in and may even own the copyright.

Today’s markers of success are not the ones of the past. Record deals? You’re better off with a sold out gig.

10. DUES

You’re always paying them. Through your whole career. And now, if you get off the hamster wheel, you’re quickly forgotten. You’ve got to stay in the game, delivering all the while, making the most of new opportunities.

You can try and flush out new opportunities, but this is like writing and producing movies, they rarely come to fruition. This is the job of the manager, let the manager dedicate their time to this.

11. CAREER

This is the ultimate goal. To not have to work a day job and be able to continue to play music until you die. If you’re in it to become a brand and to extend that brand into other areas, there are much easier ways to do this than music. Some don’t even require any talent, nor do they require a whole hell of a lot of dues. Look at the Kardashians, look at the influencers. And even actors. Music is the hardest way to make it. And people know this and treasure music in a way they do not treasure the purveyors of other art forms. The key is to touch people’s souls, and if you do this you’re on your way, and ultimately there will be enough money to provide. And you may not be a billionaire, but you have more sway over your audience than the billionaires. That’s the power of music. Focus on the music, that’s where your strength lies.

That’s the only way to really establish a career today.

The TikTok paradigm…that’s a long shot. And even the singles the majors push up the charts don’t draw an audience live. The key is to cement your bond with fans on stage. And that goes against everything we’ve been told for the last twenty years.

Don’t talk to me about streaming royalties. That’s missing the point. If there’s any money to be made in recordings today, it comes last. Of course there are unicorns, tracks that speed up the Spotify Top 50 and end up with a billion streams, but you’d be surprised how many of those acts can’t follow it up, never mind draw anybody to a show.

So…

Learn how to play.

I know, that sounds like anathema. You’ve been told for twenty years to hone your marketing chops. Participate online. Sell yourself. But now there’s just too much in the pipeline, and too much is phony. By demonstrating you can play your instrument, you instantly put yourself above the rest. (And an instrument can be a record, EDM/electronic music still draws many fans live, despite not dominating the hit parade.)

However, being able to play is not enough, you need to know how to write.

Yes, we’re back in the early sixties, the Beatles paradigm.

There was no Beatles before the Beatles. No world domination, no changing the culture around the world. And to establish themselves the Beatles played live, ad infinitum, and then wrote. First simply, and then more creatively.

Also, I don’t want to hear any 10,000 hours hogwash. If you’re busy adding up your hours, trying to quantify your experience, you’re missing the point. Yes, it is about paying dues, mostly when no one is paying attention, but if you study the science of the 10,000 hours paradigm, you’ll learn that it’s 10,000 hours of HARD PRACTICE! Which means sitting alone in your room with your guitar. Or playing gigs for no pay to nobody. Now, more than ever, if you’re not in it for the long haul, you’re not really in it at all.

Doesn’t matter how you look. Your age doesn’t even matter. It’s how good you give live. Do people pay attention, do they stop talking, do they dance? The goal is to infect people so they tell others, so your attendance goes up. This is where the rubber meets the road. If you’re doing the same damn thing over and over and you’re not building an audience, the problem is you. No one wants to hear that, everybody believes they deserve success. But either you’re not talented enough, not working hard enough, or barking up the wrong tree. If you’re in it forever and you’re not making it, you need to change. The type of music you’re making or… Or, you can not change at all and continue to be obscure, but you must own that and be happy with that.

So if you play live…

When you’re starting out no one wants to see you dance, no one wants to see production, they don’t expect it. The music is everything. Sure, Lou Pearlman broke the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC doing just the opposite, but that was twenty five years ago. And Pearlman put his boys with the best songwriters. If you’re nowhere, you’re not going to get to work with Max Martin. You’ve got to become Max Martin. Talk about paying your dues… This guy labored in obscurity in Sweden for years. But also Max has evolved with the times, ensuring his own longevity.

So, you’ve got to learn how to write.

Now it’s easier to be a rapper. But the problem is even if you have a hit, you probably don’t have a career, you can’t draw an audience continuously, if at all. Used to be different, the culture would support you. But now hip-hop culture has fractured and its market share is declining. Meaning, there is room for the absolute best rappers, but other than that…have fun, but don’t quit your day job.

So you’ve got to learn how to play. Go to the School of Rock. Hone your chops. And then write.

Writing is easy. Focus on the classic hits of yore. To the songs, not the records. A great song doesn’t need an arrangement, doesn’t need extra instruments, doesn’t even need a great voice, it stands on its own. Use the Beatles formula, with choruses and bridges… One chord pop hits don’t work live.

So you’ve got to form a band. Of course you can start solo, but live a band works better. But no one has been been forming bands because there’s not enough money in it, everybody wants to be a solo artist, the days of vying for world domination a la U2 are long in the rearview mirror.

So you can’t be in it to live the private jet lifestyle, that’s nearly impossible. Not only must you play live, you must love to play live. You must love the long hours, the travel, the drink and the hang. That’s the essence of music today, people want to feel the grittiness, the humanity, and it’s your job to deliver it.

Forget Pink and the rest of those touring with big productions to large audiences. They broke in a different era. People saw the videos and they will pay to see the videos performed live. Then again, if your show is static, if it’s the same every night, the odds of people coming back are low. You’ve got to produce, you’ve got to shake it up, you’ve got to evolve.

In other words, everything you’ve been told for forty years, since the advent of MTV, is wrong. It’s been about aligning with money, the major label, for the push. But the dirty little secret is even the major labels can’t break a star these days. Furthermore, the audience is sensitive to the push, the hype. Once they think something is being foisted upon them, they’re out. They want honesty and credibility in a world that has little, that’s the job of a musician.

You don’t want to hear this. Nobody wants to hear this. Not only are the odds almost nil that you’ll make it, you have to pay your dues for years and you still might not break through.

In other words, you’re a musician, not a star. Get that straight. This is a calling, this is the alternative, this is the road less taken. And there are no shortcuts. It’s a slog.

But the upside is the public is hungry for honest, credible, soul-fulfilling and catchy music. Catchy means you hear it once and remember it, not that it needs to fit in the aforementioned Spotify Top 50. You are the antidote. To this incomprehensible world.

As for social media, etc…

If you’re boasting online, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re complaining online, you’re doing it wrong. You are the other. Sure, make yourself available, but even more establish a community. You want your fans to know each other, to feel like they belong. Superserve your addicts, those are the ones who will break you, not the machine.

Keyboardist extraordinaire Bill Payne is an original member of Little Feat, and has been a member of the Doobie Brothers and the Leftover Salmon too. Bill has written songs and recorded with a who’s who of artists. This is his story.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bill-payne/id1316200737?i=1000623296335

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/98319d16-9a4f-478c-b70f-d104ef825824/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-bill-payne

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/bill-payne-305913228

Taylor Swift was terrible on the Grammys. Maybe the worst performance ever. She was way off-key singing with Stevie Nicks, in front of the whole world. I’d been getting e-mail from people for years saying she couldn’t sing, but had held back from writing anything. But here was evidence. 

I thought it would end her career. Didn’t Billy Squier dance around on MTV in a  pink shirt and kill his career almost overnight?

But no, I was wrong. Taylor Swift wrote a song about me and she’s bigger than ever.

Just like Donald Trump. 

One of my favorite tweets of the past week said people have already forgotten that Trump was convicted of sexual assault only a few months back. You remember E. Jean Carroll, don’t you?

Now there’s a similarity between Swift and Trump. That the believers are true and everybody else doesn’t care. This too is a difference from the past. Fan bases are narrower than ever before, and their members are more rabid than ever before. They have the belief that it’s them versus the world. That others are out to get them. And they must protect their heroes and themselves at all costs. They must preemptively protect themselves. They’re aggressive. And it’s not only in politics, everybody feels put upon, with a need to self-aggrandize for fear they’ll be marginalized.

In other words, nothing is going to convince Trump supporters to give up. That’s not their nature, that’s not the modern paradigm.

And Taylor Swift is the biggest and most talented artist in the world, and if you say otherwise… Well, I still get tweets and e-mails from fans, calling me a hater, over a decade since I wrote about that Grammy performance. I know that might sound contradictory, but when it comes to ammunition defenders know no limit. They remember every slight, perceived or real.

So what does this mean for you?

Your past doesn’t matter. We keep saying your reputation is everything, your credibility. Not in the big time. Maybe at home, in your little life, in your little circle.

Cardi B throws a mic in the audience in response to an audience member throwing something at her and…

Mainstream media debates behavior. What was going through the mind of the thrower. The person hit by Cardi’s mic’s injury. But my audience? It can’t believe that the music still played, that Cardi B.’s vocal continued, long after she threw her mic away.

That’s the story here. She wasn’t singing!

But does that make any difference?

Ashlee Simpson’s career was killed overnight when she was found to be lip-synching on SNL. Today, do something like that and shrug. No matter what the brouhaha, your fans, your believers, will stick by you. And oftentimes they’re the only ones who care, so over time your narrative triumphs.

As for Taylor Swift’s voice…

The story this week is how her concert created an earthquake, how there was seismic activity. This was everywhere. But the “New York Times” reported today that this is a regular occurrence in Seattle, the Weeknd caused seismic activity, and so did the Seahawks. But let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good story, of myth-building.

And then there’s the Weeknd himself, Abel Tesfaye. Responsible for one of the most reviled TV series of the year, “The Idol.” Every news outlet had a story about the impact on his career. How this would hurt him, indelibly. But these writers are not students of the game, it won’t hurt him at all! I’m not saying he’ll hit the height of “Blinding Lights” again, but his chart performance was in decline anyway.

Bruce Springsteen was castigated over ticket prices. Remember the blowback? Well, the dates played and everybody was happy. You could even buy tickets at the last minute for some of the shows. “Backstreets” closed down in protest, the joke is on the magazine, no one cares, it all blew over.

How about that famous band that scalped its own tickets? All over the news a few years back. You don’t remember who it was and the fans don’t care. Just like the fans of Motley Crue who overpaid to see the final tour, written in blood, and then the band went back on tour again. The believers believe, and everybody else forgets or ignores from the get-go.

This is a phenomenon that is incomprehensible to boomers and Gen-X’ers. It was never that way. If you screwed up on MTV, the whole world was watching. But now the whole world is watching nothing, it’s an endless slew of hype, assuming you’re paying attention to begin with. Everybody’s selling and you’re picky about what you’re buying.

So it’s not that Taylor Swift sings better, or Donald Trump is suddenly honest. It’s that the crimes of the past don’t matter in the future.

And even those who get caught in the quagmire and are convicted and pay their dues… Used to be they were experienced seers, worth listening to. John Dean has been commenting on TV for decades. Michael Cohen? No one is listening to him anymore. He had his moment and it’s over.

Hell, Andrew Cuomo could run for office again. His only problem is that many people didn’t like him to begin with, and he didn’t have a whole hell of a lot of hard core fans. But as for his faux pas?

Louis CK understands the game, he got back in it. He knows it doesn’t matter what you think, only what his fans think. He may be a pariah to you, but his fans are keeping him alive.

The only people still concerned about the Morgan Wallen n-word controversy are those who never listened to his music and never will.

As for Jason Aldean… This is the best thing that has happened to him in over a decade. He’s added life to his career.

Then again, Aldean took a side. He wasn’t worried about what you think, only about what his fans think. He didn’t make the video knowing it was going to become a national controversy, it wasn’t planned out, it was just a dog whistle for country bumpkins and gun-lovers, those who feel the denizens of the city, those lefties, must be held at bay, otherwise they’ll take their guns, their lifestyle, everything they believe in. Sure, the left may continue to hate Aldean, but it doesn’t matter. Aldean knows it’s not about appealing to everybody, but just somebody, the passionate.

Remember when network television was all about appealing to everybody? That’s a death sentence today. Today you want to be narrow and edgy, and maybe those who love the show will turn their friends on.

So if you screw up… Stay silent. If you don’t amplify it, if you don’t defend yourself, it will go away, buried under the tsunami of news that is spewed out of the firehose each and every day.

Nobody cares about you. Or shall I say those who do can provide a very good living.

And nobody is all-dominant today, no one appeals to everybody. I’ll bet you haven’t even heard most of the songs in the Spotify Top 50. Has anybody? Sure, there are youth that are focused on the hits, but there are tons who are only interested in the niches.

Chances are you haven’t even seen “Barbie.” Divide those grosses by today’s high ticket prices and…not everybody went. Doesn’t even matter how good or bad the film was, most people just shrugged, don’t care, will never care. And you’ve got right wing bloviators trying to gin up the base by criticizing the film’s values. When something you don’t like gains traction, shut up!

That’s the way to win in today’s society.