Shameless Self Promotion

With the growing popularity of social networking sites, bands are bypassing traditional promotional steps to reach out to their fan base on a whole new level

It used to take years of hard work, grueling tours and a restrictive record contract for a band to “make it” in the music industry.

Not anymore.

On April 28, 2007, just fourteen months after forming, rock band Neurosonic announced via MySpace that they would be playing on the Family Values tour alongside their childhood idols Korn.

Neurosonic front-man Jason Darr is a master at online promotion. He uses social networking sites, especially MySpace, to personally communicate with fans and post up-to-date information about the band.

“We’re on there all the time, constantly interacting with our fans,” he says. “It’s spreading for us right now. [Our page is] getting up to 5,000 hits a day…We’re new and the fact that we’re still bringing in that number of people every day to check us out is a really big deal.”

With the growing popularity of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and PureVolume, many bands are choosing to bypass traditional promotional steps, such as radio, television and magazines, and are instead using these sites to keep in touch with their fans and reach out to new listeners on a more personal level. Bands no longer need record companies or PR agencies to gain publicity. Instead, they are able to promote themselves and speak with their fans directly.

“It’s a one-stop shop,” says Bobby Alt from Street Drum Corps. “You can go to MySpace and you can get the band’s videos, you can talk to the band, you can leave comments, you can buy music now right from MySpace. It’s a great way for people to check out when our shows are…I have been a musician for 20-some-odd years now and when MySpace came around, it absolutely changed my life.”

Before the advent of social networking sites, bands had to think of new and creative ways to reach out to listeners. Mailing lists, while costly and time consuming, were often the most popular form of communication between bands and fans. Mark Jansen of Epica promoted his previous band After Forever in the mid-’90s by sending spam e-mails to potential fans. At the time, the response was positive, but now spam email has such a negative response that bands can no longer use it to their advantage.

“I’m a little proud that I was one of the first people to use spam email,” Jansen says. “I collected e-mail addresses from the guestbooks of other bands and I sent emails mentioning After Forever. I got emails back saying ‘thank you for mentioning this band,’ but if you do it nowadays people just say ‘fuck off!’”

Social networking sites allow bands to send out similar emails without being deleted or ignored and, unlike more traditional forms of promotion, social networking sites are absolutely free for bands, promoters and listeners. They are easy to use and anyone can create a page, leveling the playing field and providing any band with the opportunity to promote themselves.

“It helps bands who are just starting out to really virally spread the word and it gives everybody the opportunity to flick a spark and see if it catches fire,” Darr says.

In the past, record labels have had a monopoly over new up-and-coming acts but due to the rapid expansion of social networking sites, grass-roots promotion has taken the lead and anybody with the right amount of time and motivation can gain popularity without needing a record company or PR agency to back them.

“Any computer you buy nowadays has some kind of recording software on it so anyone can start a band, write songs, record them and have them up online within a day and start drawing their fan base,” says Eron Bucciarelli of Hawthorne Heights.

The benefits are evident for listeners, too, as social networking sites are making underground music more accessible to the public. Whereas in the past unsigned bands had to individually pack and ship demos to fans who contacted them or hand out CDs personally, they are now able to upload songs directly to their networking pages for fans to check out. Better yet, they are able to see how many hits each song has received to gage their popularity, whereas with demo CDs there was no way of telling who actually listened to their music and who just threw the CD into the nearest garbage can.

This type of feedback is embraced by bands and now, thanks to social networking sites, they have the opportunity to easily see their fans’ responses and use that to decide what direction to go in.

“You are so in touch with your fans that you can put up a little survey asking ‘What did you think of our last album? What was your favorite song?’ You can totally gain from that where you should go and what are people liking,” says Robbie Kirkham of The Vincent Black Shadow.

Neurosonic have a poll on their MySpace page that asks “What’s your favorite Neurosonic experience?” and lists “Live Show,” “Album/Single,” “Music Video,” “Meet and Greet,” “MySpace/Official Site” and “Other” as its choices. The site also features a Google map of their current tour and a chance for fans to “demand” that Neurosonic play in their town.

“It’s at it’s germation stage right now; it really needs to blow up,” Darr says of the show requests, noting that once enough people start voting, the band will use that information to plan their tours.

Social networking sites make it fast and easy for bands and fans to communicate on a personal level, adding a whole new dimension to the music-lover’s experience.

“It’s sort of taken that pedestal away from the bands,” Kirkham says. “I think the majority of bands now that are starting out and are trying to get somewhere use MySpace as a way to make life-long fans…We write back to everybody who writes to us. Why wouldn’t you?”

Neurosonic also make a point of personally writing back to every message they get.

“[MySpace] gives us a chance to interact with our fans a lot more. If we didn’t have that, we’d be getting fan mail and have to write back. This way, with the internet, you can just ‘boom, boom, boom,’ respond back to someone,” says bassist Jacen Ekstrom.

While communication with listeners is a huge part of the promotional process, already established bands like Hawthorne Heights use social networking sites as a way to keep their fans updated on their lives.

“Back in the day, bands just had actual mailing lists and by the time the message reached the fan, it was already old,” Bucciarelli says. “As soon as something happens with us we can send a message out to our MySpace account and everyone knows the second we know.”

With so many bands readily available to the public free-of-charge, the competition and pressure to keep listeners interested is growing.

“I think it’s just forcing bands and artists in general, song writers and everybody, to just really hone their craft and offer their fans value,” says Jamey Jasta of Hatebreed.

“The thing about social networking sites and the internet in general, is that you can get what you want when you want it,”says Jake Janzen, a college student who uses MySpace to find up-to-date information on his favorite bands. “It doesn't have to appeal to a wide range of people, so people can watch, listen, and read whatever they want. However, since there is so much stuff on the internet, it's sometimes difficult for potential fans to find [bands].”

In addition, social networking sites, especially MySpace, tend to have irrelevant clutter on the band pages.

“I don’t care about messages from friends saying ‘thanks for adding me’ or any of the spam that they usually get from other bands,” says Sharon Lewis, who prefers looking at bands’ official websites to their MySpace pages. “It takes up too much space and doesn’t mean anything in the band context.”

While MySpace pages may help bands reach a wide audience, some information (such as bulletins and photos) are exclusive to other MySpace users. Although use of the internet is growing rapidly, some people still don’t surf the web regularly or have their own social networking page. Therefore, traditional media is still a vital part of band promotion.

“I still think there are millions of people who aren’t on any of the social networking sites,” Jasta says. “They listen to college radio, specialty radio and the commercial stations, go to shows or hear it word of mouth.”

Radio in particular remains an extremely important medium.

“I honestly feel radio is still a lot more influential [than social networking sites] because a lot of people are in cars or by cars and there’s always a radio no matter what,” says Ronnie Winter of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. “It may not be the best radio, but it’s still a radio. Not everybody has the internet, so I still feel a little more towards the radio side personally. If there were more radio stations playing unsigned bands, it would be a better industry.”

DJ Carl Sundberg, host of The Edge and Local Lixx on Eugene’s KFLY FM, helps local unsigned bands gain publicity by playing their songs on his show. Although some bands still send in demo CDs, he uses MySpace as his primary tool when searching for new bands.

“I use [MySpace] now in more of a business way than a personal way every single day,” he says. “It’s my contact point for so many bands that don’t have any other way to communicate…If a band is legit enough, they have a MySpace page, so I can check out their songs and determine then [if they have] something I’d like to play.”

While there is definitely some competition between traditional media and the internet, Sundberg doesn’t think the popularity of radio or television will ever completely diminish

“The radio will always be there, just like network TV channels,” he says. “They’re always going to be there because it’s a free medium.”

Johnny Evil, founder of promotion and booking company Evil Live, says that printed flyers are still his preferred promotional method as they are invasive and hard to ignore.

“Don't get me wrong, I use the internet quite a bit for communication, but for the most part you need to have a lot of physical flyers and posters to bombard people with,” he says. “If it's all electronic-based, the user can wipe the promotion you've thrown at them from their memory the second they walk away from the computer.”

Although Jason Hale of Chiodos says that one of the best things about MySpace is that you don’t need to tour as much to gain publicity, many listeners still argue that touring is the most gimportant thing a band can do. As social networking sites can be so cluttered with bands, seeing a band’s name on an upcoming show list can drive listeners to search for their MySpace page, especially if they are opening for a band that the listener already likes.

Neurosonic agree, continuing to tour almost non-stop, hoping to build up as much awareness about their band as possible and give something back to those that helped make them a success. After wrapping up their month-and-a-half gig on the Family Values tour in early September, they spent a month touring Europe, documenting the trip in video blogs which they posted online for fans. Upon returning from Europe, they began to tour the U.S. again and have dates booked until early December. Despite their busy schedules, they still check their networking accounts regularly and don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

“The Nintendo Generation is beginning a takeover,” Evil says. “We've been scammed our whole lives into thinking that we need capitalism, that in order to be a ‘success’ in the music industry we need big business. Well, I think there are many people of high intellect that are shaking off that brainwash and are writing a page in history all their own.”