There's no denying that the music industry has changed drastically over the past few decades. In the 90's it was all about a band striving to get heard by record label executives in the hopes of landing a record deal. Since the inception of the internet and social media outlets, more and more bands are taking it on themselves to write, record, and play their music the way THEY want. Lately record labels are all about the money and creating that one hit song that will catapult a band into super stardom. It's all fun and games until the bands gets back in the studio and are struggling to reach the level of popularity of that one hit song.
It's all about the one hit wonders with the music industry and a lot of these independent bands are worth more than that. So rather than striving for a record label, a LOT of rock bands today are succeeding on their own and I CELEBRATE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM!!!
The way of the independent band has now moved towards online fundraising. Bands alert their fans of the situation they are facing and explain to them just how bad the industry has gotten and just how much money goes into touring, making music and all that jazz. I recently came across a recent fundraiser from LA based band, Spence (www.myspence.com) and after watching the video posted on their Rocket Hub page I decided it’s too good to not share with you all. Watch the video and understand where Spence and any other independent rock band is coming from when they are asking their fans for help. It’s a fun way to interact with fans and give them a little something for being so supportive! Seriously, to a touring band, even one dollar will win over their hungry hearts!
Probably the greatest example of one of these online fundraisers doing good is when Chicago based band, Cobalt & The Hired Guns (www.cobaltandthehiredguns.com) did a Kickstarter campaign to fun their album, Everybody Wins - which was released in June of 2012. They did the same thing that Spence is doing right now. and had a goal of $5,000 to raise towards producing the album and allowing it to see the light of day in the end. By the time the fundraiser ended, the project was over they successfully raised $8,081 that went towards producing and releasing a truly AMAZING album that went on to receive rave reviews from various different outlets.
See Cobalt and the Hired Guns' past campaign here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/720783403/everybody-wins-cobalt-and-the-hired-guns-a-new-rec
You can also stream the whole album in it's entirety on Spotify.
So whose to say that Spence won't produce something equally as amazing if they receive the same funding?! Or any band going down this same route of kickstarter campaigns.
EXAMPLES OF 2 ACTIVE BANDS DOING A FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN:
HELP OUT SPENCE: http://www.rockethub.com/projects/27220-send-spence-to-the-studio-new-album
Help out the New Jersey based band, Waking Heroes: http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/wakingheroes