The Music Industry Doesn’t Work How We Want (And That’s Okay)

One of the things I’ve kind of been running into with my consulting clients lately has been this idea that like… me and the guys on my team can frequently just make things happen because we’ve all been involved in this community for a long time and just know a ton of people who can help us out. It’s something you have to build. I just wanted to talk about how this works so you can generate more opportunities.

Really what a lot of this comes down to is that you get out what you put in. Not 1:1 of course, but if you put a lot in, you get a lot out of it. This is because the music industry is meant to operate in sort of an anarchistic tit for tat way, even though it doesn’t always. What you do about that dictates the level of success you will have. Maybe you can even leverage it into creative opportunities!

Contributing In The Music Business Is Not 1:1

I think the common advice is ‘Book a band from a city you want to play in your city, and then they will book you in their city.’ If only it would be so easy. As anyone who has tried this could tell you, show trades very rarely actually work out, even though they are a great idea in concept and one you shouldn’t ignore.

The thing is – the music business isn’t a 1:1 transaction. It’s more like 10:1. That is to say for every ten cool things you do for others, then one cool thing will happen to you. I know this sounds intimidating but as you grow your ability to do cool stuff for others will dramatically increase meaning its a lot easier to get cool stuff done for you.

How To Handle This

So obviously it’s no fun when others around you fail to achieve even the modest task which was their charge. However – by blowing up in peoples faces you are only causing more trouble for yourself. I think you just need to appreciate that this is the way people are and your anger is not going to do you any favors.

Instead just take a note and realize this isn’t someone who is willing to help you, right now or maybe ever. Maybe they have different priorities, or they don’t get it or they’re just someone who you shouldn’t be dealing with. Accept it and move on, the longer you stay stuck on it the more you will go crazy.

Creative Ways To Leverage

One of the interesting things that I think will probably help you a good bit is to figure out a scalable way for you that you can help the community with, and again, realize you need to do a bunch before you get any meaningful reciprocation.

Identify your skills and go from there? Can you draw? Cool, now you do shirt designs. Can you write? Dope now go be a journalist. It doesn’t matter, just remember no one likes someone who goes around begging, they want to work with people who do cool stuff in a meaningful way, to do otherwise is a mistake. That’s simple.

So yeah, the music industry isn’t as easy as it could be, and the sooner you accept that the happier you will be. Instead just let all the bullshit slide and don’t work with those people again. Come up with some creative ways to leverage your skills and go from there. That’s all you can do.

Matt Bacon (IG: mattbacon666) with Dropout Media is a consultant, A&R man, and journalist specializing in the world of heavy metal. You can read other articles in the series by clicking the “Bacon’s Blog” hashtag below. Matt can also be heard on the Dumb & Dumbest podcast, which he co-hosts with Curtis Dewar of Dewar PR.