Band sites

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  • Continuity

    OK, so here's something I've wanted to know:

    Let's say you are a fan of a band, you love their music but - for the entire length of their career - their website has been complete and utter shite and you think, 'Wow, this would be a great client for me to pick up (for obvious reasons).'

    Who do you approach to make a pitch? The band's management? The record label? Who is usually responsible for bands' web marketing? Have any QBNers actually done this (and I'm talking about actual touring bands, not just the blokes down the pub on a Thursday night)?

  • moldero0

    if you can, contact the band itself, not management, if the band is psyched by the idea they can override management.

    • Unless the band only lists their management in their contact details. Which is kind of shit.Continuity
  • fresnobob0

    bands don't really use websites any more....

  • Boz0

    You will be dissapointed.. I've been working with management and artists for the past year almost nonstop. It's a disaster.

    First of all they won't pay you a lot of money. They want it for free and they will suck the life out of your. The management that is. The band itself doesn't really give 2 shits about the site. As long as it has nice photos of them and you can listen to some of their songs they'll be super happy. They are chasing chicks and $$ dude and living the musicians' life.

    In the end, it's just not worth it. And yes, fresnobob is right.. most of them are doing splash pages nad link to itunes, facebook and all that stuff now anyways.

  • ifeltdave0

    band sites suck these days, and serve almost no purpose. with that said, I think that those types of sites could stand to have some purpose injected back into them. I have yet to see any band's site that really taps into the social web. if you use the site to unite the fans or to somehow bridge the gap between fan and musician, you could be onto something.

    its an interesting problem to try and solve, thats for sure. just one you may not get paid much to figure out :)

  • Continuity0

    Well, in all fairness, I don't want to focus my coareer on the music industry. It's kind of a challenge to myself to have the satisfaction of looking back and knowing I met that challenge.

    Also, let's face it: it's good for one's book.

    In actual fact, I only have three bands in my mind I'd want to do something for. Beyond that ... well, I'll stick to the shit that pays.

    Thanks for your input though, lads, it's appreciated.

  • shellie0

    strangely -- I've done a lot of music sites through different situations so I can relate to this. Here are a few. Some of these may inspire your approach.

    Don't expect to get paid unless they're soliciting the work. Changes are it looks like crap because they don't have the budget for it. Even on major labels with major artists, 2-3k might be the max a label will shell out. Sometimes an artist has a specific affinity for the internet and put a couple 1,000 more in out of their own pocket. Not all artists are willing to do that.

    To put it in perspective, a brand new artist might get a music video budget of 6 - 10k -- for a music video -- total. An established one might get 10-15k and a lot of the time the artist pays the difference or overages billed back to them. That's exactly why so many music videos suck, and the ones that don't are labors of love from a hungry motion graphics studio before they start winning a lot of commercial work. For websites, you can cut any budget they may have by 2/3 of broadcast budget or they may not have one at all.

    Most artists/bands have the most money to spend 4-6 months leading into a new release when they're updating all their shit. If you know they have a new album or EP coming up on their release schedule in the next 6 months, approach about helping to support that specific campaign.

    I worked at sony music. That connected me to a lot more of the same kind of work through other labels as a vendor. I've worked with Universal Music Group and a bunch of their sub labels, but you have go through the whole "becoming a vendor" situation -- not necessarily for that specific band you like, through the label's creative services department. You can contact the head of the creative services department with your portfolio and offer to do a capability presentation about your service offerings -- that's a purely informational meeting to get you in as a vendor for that specific label.

    But you should also at their management if you really want to do it. I've worked with artists that way, too. Some are surprisingly easy to get a hold of.

    If there is a way to holler directly at the artist, you never know -- they may actually be fairly involved in random communication that comes in anyway. I don't know about other artists, but I manage one myself that happens to be indepdent but has a video on mtv and stuff like that. The artist or myself reads almost everything that comes in and visuals are really important to him. If a designer from QBN hit him up about doing some work -- especially on spec -- It would probably happen. Just from showing interest, I'm now involved in all this artists visuals, budget or no budget (sometimes there is a budget).

    You just have to create the relationships, but they're never impossible relationships to create. But remember...

    None of these people have any time imagining how you fit into things. They live in their own world where they're the star and the center of whatever the heck it is they have going on. To everyone you approach, come with a fully baked idea, schedule, idea of how it will run, etc. Be very clear with your pitch in whatever email, with attachments and the whole shebang because that might be the only chance you get to make a clear point before they pass on you. Sell them on your creative ways first and foremost or they probably wont "get" what you're trying to do.

    • Wow, this is gold shellie, thanks for taking the time. Great insights, here.Continuity
    • sorry i was having a victory blunt when I wrote this. Hope it helped, though.shellie
  • shellie0

    allllso... you'd be surprised if you hit up an artist on twitter, personal fb, etc. a guy did some really cool fan art of the artist I work with often and that kid ended up doing an album cover later. A lightweight gesture of your creativity wrapped in an ego stroke is a pretty good way to get anyone's attention.

  • meffid0

    Check out myspace.com; there's one or two band sites there.