Gold Motel’s Eric Hehr: The Musician As An Entrepreneur

(UPDATED) Guest post by Eric Hehr (@erichehr1955), guitarist of Gold Motel.

"The only thing that matters is the music." I'm sure you've heard this phrase before. As a musician who strives to facilitate a career in music, I've heard the phrase, thousands of times, and I've never agreed with it.

I appreciate the romantic idealism of such a phrase, but I've never felt like an artist's music was THE only thing that mattered. Musicians who are interested in music as a recreational hobby are one thing, but musicians attempting to establish a career are an entirely different story. It's important for these aforementioned musicians to think beyond the notes and consider entrepreneurial outlets for their musical endeavors.

Gold Motel released Summer House, our first album, independently in June of 2010. The decision to release the album independently stemmed from our desire to retain rights to our masters and to maintain all aspects of creative control. That said, I think we were also curious to see if we could actually establish ourselves independently without the aid of a record label.

Since the release of Summer House, Gold Motel has performed at Lollapalooza, supported acts like OK GO, Kate Nash, Hellogoodbye, fun., and others from Los Angeles to New York to London, and landed ad spots for Supercuts, Crayola, US Bank, Labello, and many more – all without a record label.

Our manager, Emily White, has been a considerable factor in our growth as an independent band, specifically her encouragement to utilize our social media outlets for direct-to-fan contact. This was an extremely important revenue for us as an independent band self-releasing music, and we embraced the inter-connected technology of today as a way to touch base with a larger audience that many rely on a record label to provide.

Thinking outside of just the music, it's imperative that modern day musicians looking to solidify a career in music think outside of commonplace social media endeavors as well. Services like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have made it easier to reach a larger fan base and jump-start your career, but they have also created a lot more competition. Any musician can upload a video, send off a tweet, or post a picture. And while it's important to do all these things, it's also important to get creative and push the boundaries of social media. How can you use these tools differently than everyone else? How can you continue to further engage fans and give them a reason to read your tweets or Facebook updates? How can you continue to develop your project while simultaneously encouraging fans to interact within the world of your music?

Gold Motel recently launched an interactive direct-to-fan campaign in which fans were able to submit pictures through Instagram to be used as artwork for our upcoming full-length album. Until a pre-established deadline, anyone with an Instagram account could submit pictures to Gold Motel by using the #goldmotelalbum and a mention to @goldmotel. After the deadline, the band reviewed all the submitted photos and selected a handful to be included within the album artwork.

In my eyes, this was an idea that had the potential to reach a new level of direct-to-fan contact – an idea in which the fans vision of the band becomes unified with the bands own vision. Through the advancement of social media outlets such as Instagram, the conceptual world of Gold Motel can be accessible to fans on a level where they can directly interact within the world that our music, photography, and music videos have established.

For the release of our new self-titled album, Gold Motel, we recently partnered with Thirty Tigers, who present a new exciting business model in the ever-changing face of the music industry. Thirty Tigers supply independent artists with distribution, marketing, promotion, management and publicity. A large reason why we wanted to work with Thirty Tigers was their distribution, which unites their artists to utilize RED and their services for physical and digital distribution. This allows artists such as us to retain rights to our masters while still receiving the same kind of widespread distribution that a record label provides. A company like Thirty Tigers presents the same kind of "out of the box," forward thinking approach that is necessary for the evolution – and inevitable adaptation – of the music industry. Unlike a major record label, they don't answer to stockholders of international companies, they allow artists to retain rights to their masters, and they have a strong focus on niche marketing.

Due to the grass-roots foundation of Gold Motel, we have always focused on niche marketing with a heavy concentration on our core audience – the diehard fans who have come to numerous shows, bought all the merchandise, and have consistently displayed support since our infancy.

The Bundle

An outlet Gold Motel has recently used to simultaneously promote the release of the new album to a larger audience as well as keep our core fan-base invested is a variety of pre-order bundles. These bundles range from a basic $5 digital download pre-order for the casual listener who is interested in checking out the band to a $250 "Super-Duper" bundle which includes a specialize Gold Motel skeleton key necklace which allows access for a meet and greet, a customized song written by the band for the fan, a hand-made cigar box guitar amplifier, and a bunch of other exclusive items and tailored knick-knacks. The range of pre-order bundles is designed to accommodate new fans, fair-weather fans, and our most die-hard fans.

An interesting argument to the "pre-order bundles" approach is that the music industry has gotten themselves into a "value-add" mindset, and in the process have essentially devalued the initial product: the music. By adopting the "value-add" model and releasing more and more deluxe packages, the actual music is being moved further and further down the value chain. While I think this argument raises many interesting points about how judicious artist and management teams should be with what they add to bundle packages and the frequency in which they do so, I also think that such "value-add" models are inherently designed for those who already place a high value on the music. For instance, I doubt that somebody who has never heard Gold Motel will spend $250 on our "Super-Duper" pre-order bundle. They aren't familiar with our music, and thus don't value it, so why would they value meeting us or having a band member build them a cigar-box amp? The fans that have already placed a strong value on the music, and are interested in the exclusive items that the bundle offers will most likely purchase the "Super-Duper" bundle. Pre-order bundles, when utilized properly, are a way to keep both the casual fan and the devoted fan involved in the release of the album.

The Cinderella Myth

As a musician, I've encountered so many bands and artists who think that just because they have a new EP or LP coming out that they are bound for fame, notoriety, and critical acclaim. And then the EP or LP comes out, a few hundred copies (if that) sell, a handful of quarter-capacity shows are played, and that's about it. And so the artist thinks, "Well, I have to get signed to make it." They fail to acknowledge that maybe why their music wasn't as successful as they predicted is because A. The music is actually pretty bad or B. They didn't hustle. They didn't do anything to promote their music, make contacts, or build a fan-base. Most of the time, the problem is because of Option B. It's a result of a band or artist failing to utilize the many tools available to them to build a legitimate career and instead relying on a hypothetical "Cinderella story" – expecting somebody to "discover" them.

There are many different outlets available for musicians who are trying to establish a career. Your career or the success of it doesn't rely on "getting signed to a label" anymore. If you are willing to put in the time, effort, and elbow grease to establish yourself as an independent artist, you can achieve all the benefits of a signed artist (physical and digital distribution, international touring, widespread publicity) without any of the detriments (multi album deal locked downs, contract buy outs, loss of recording rights, and loss of creative control). Companies such as Thirty Tigers now supply distribution, marketing, and publicity services that were once only available through signing exclusive deals with major labels, and services like Instagram and Twitter allow artists to directly connect with their fan base and cuts out the middleman. That said, it's important for musicians to be aware of new companies such as Thirty Tigers, who are paving the way for the music industry of the future. It's also important for musicians to be advantageous with the immense amount of modern tools available to them for developing and engaging their fan base.

 "If you build it, they will come…"

While I have many reservations with the phrase, "The only thing that matters is the music," I think that the sentiment of such a phrase is meant to stress the vitality of making great art and being devoted to your craft, which I agree is the most important thing at the end of the day. But what do you want to do with your craft? If you want to make it into a career, it's imperative to be aware of the tools and services available to you. Utilize the tools that work best for your music and begin building your career. Eventually, people will take notice, kind of like another popular phrase you may have heard: "If you build it, they will come."