TSRB Podcast 112 - Automatic Episode Transcript — Please excuse any errors, not reviewed for accuracy 

[00:00:00] Malcom: This is something that they, 99% of bands got wrong. They released the song and then they start scrambling and make a music video. It's not very planned out. And then they just drop it because they can't risk waiting any longer because the buzz is dying out on their song. And yada, yada, yada, you're want to get this right? This is the self recording band podcast. The show where we help you make exciting records on your own wherever you are. DIY let's go. 

[00:00:28] Hello and welcome. The self recording band podcast. My name is Malcolm own flood. This is a bit of a different emphasis. We are going to share with you an episode from my other podcast, which is called your band sucks at business. We thought it would be relevant for our listeners on this podcast, because everybody on this podcast is recording and releasing music. But if you want to successfully release music, you have to handle the business of being in a band. That is exactly what we talk about on YBS. I think it will be valuable to you. And [00:01:00] this episode in particular was very positive. It is called what you need to do before releasing new music. And it's all about generating release assets, which are all of the things you'll need to, you know, post online and send out either before you release or after. But the important thing is that you have to have to have. Get them done and made and generated before you release it. Ideally even before you announced it. In my opinion, this is something that they, 99% of bands got wrong. They released the song and then they start scrambling to make a music video and it's not very planned out. And then they just drop it because they can't risk waiting any longer because the buzz is dying out on their song and yada, yada. You want to get this right. So I think you'll enjoy this. This is kind of like the second half. It's like the perfect partner podcast for the self recording band. And if you enjoy it, I think you should just go over and subscribe to your band sex at business. Cause we have, I don't know, 80 or 90 episodes, so far of topics just like this. I think [00:02:00] you'll find that very valuable. And I just want. Thank you for listening to the self recording band podcast and to anybody that picked up our mixing course mixes unpacked. Thank you very much. I'm super stoked to talk to you about that and how you're enjoying it and to meet up with you for the Q and a, which may or may not have already happened by the time this episode goes out. But anyways, enjoy the episode. Benny is got tons on his plate, so he send this one out and this is a prerecorded one that we released a while back with myself. And my co-host on that podcast. Marcus pan has who was the drummer in my band and also drums for a ton of other crazy acts like a current swell, for example, is a very successful Canadian band that he drew. Alright, enjoy. And I look forward to hearing how you liked the episode. [00:03:00] Hello, and welcome to your band. Sucks at business, a podcast on the business of running a band. My name is Malcolm on flood. I am joined today by my wonderful cohost current ticket holder to see John Mayer. Marcus, 

[00:03:22] Marcus: what is up everybody? Yes, I am a ticket holder for Gianna mayor. And just in case, you're wondering I am. I am going to see John mere in Toronto. 

[00:03:33] Malcom: It's not just got a scalpel, the tickets 

[00:03:34] Marcus: off. Yeah. That was the plan that Malcolm told me. I can't do that. So it's frowned upon. I I'll go and watch him. I don't even like John here. 

[00:03:41] Malcom: I actually have two extra tickets to see Elton John and I got to figure out what my plan is there. I don't know why. I just kind of figured like, oh, somebody will want to go. Do you have any Dubai 

[00:03:51] Marcus: eight 

[00:03:53] Malcom: pretty big three pairs are taken care of. So it's just the one extra. [00:04:00] I'll find somebody. Oh 

[00:04:00] Marcus: yeah, yeah, yeah. It won't be hard to find the whole time when he wants to go and see Hilton. 

[00:04:04] Malcom: All else. Just a weird decision though. Cause I had the three people, the three couples lined up and I was like, we only need six. 

[00:04:10] Marcus: You know, what's funny. I used to do that with tickets. I'd be like, well, I'm just going to buy six, even though it's just, you know, me and Haiti I'll buy six of them. And then actually with John Mayer last year, I think I bought like something like that. And then at the very end. Someone was going to take them. And then like the day before they were like, oh, I can't go. Yeah. And I was like, first of all, I'm not friends with that person anymore. I'm just kidding. I kind of am, but that was not cool. And then, so I ended up just being like, well, if anyone wants a John mere ticket come to Vancouver and I gave you a John Mayer ticket and you forgot to message me apparently. No, I did. Oh, Hey, John Mayer. Your body's a Wonderland trash. He's a pop star. No, I'm just kidding. I'll come. Didn't say any of that, but anyway, yeah, I'm pumped. I just bought them on the way over here. Kind of bothering me, knocking the driveway, like [00:05:00] Malcolm, my busy buying tickets. 

[00:05:01] Malcom: I literally came out into the driveway to like tell you to park somewhere else. And you just sat there looking at you. I just 

[00:05:06] Marcus: gave you one thing. One second. 

[00:05:09] Malcom: I was like, what is happening? This is weird high tickets. Awesome. Well, let's talk about there's there's a segue here. I'm not gonna use it. It's too stupid. All right. So last episode we talked about. Generating assets for a tour man, getting stuff together that you need before you go on tour. And this episode is going to be similar, but it is generating all the assets you need before you release music, which is equally as important, if not more so important. Um, so this is all the prep work you can do before you release music. And ideally, a lot of these things are stuff that you can. We're going for like the impactful things that really matter. That's a, it's like a checklist of things that will really make a difference. We think. 

[00:05:56] Marcus: Yeah. The big, the bigger things that, and a lot, like a lot [00:06:00] of these things are probably things that you're going to do anyway, but there's a lot of things in here that I think people forget about until the song is released, released, say, you're like, oh, I totally forgot that I'm supposed to do that. If you're thinking about how to promote the song after it's already released, you're kind of maybe behind the ball a little bit. So hopefully generating these assets and thinking about them ahead of releases will just help, you know, you just won't, you won't be missing anything once it actually time, you know, the time comes to for this. Totally. 

[00:06:30] Malcom: So this is actually the last point on our list, but I want to mention it at the beginning as well. And that is that you don't get to choose a release date until you've done all this work. Um, we'll come back to that again, but just like plant that in your head. Now the release date is the last thing you're choosing and you know what actually isn't on here, Marcus, that needs to be the first. Record the music. 

[00:06:52] Marcus: Yeah, I guess that's true. Of course 

[00:06:55] Malcom: it has to be finished, you know, recorded mixed, mastered, approved [00:07:00] by everyone, like is done. If you're not going back asking for more revisions, it's a finished product that you have possession of that needs to be your first asset. And obviously. The most important asset. Well, we're thinking of that, actually. It's trying to mind that I personally think it's really silly not to have an instrumental version of the song ready as well. Yeah. For 

[00:07:19] Marcus: sync. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. You should definitely have inst instrumental or like, you know, Instrumental stems, if you can have them. Yeah. You can get stems. That's even better because yeah, a lot of sink, obviously we talked about sink on this podcast, so you kind of already know that you want to be trying to get sync. Yep. Um, but yeah, it just makes everything so much faster. Man, nothing worse than someone being like, we need a quick turnaround on the sink. Like, can you sign it in four hours? And can you get us the assets in within the same amount of time? And you're like, oh, I don't even know where the instrumental is. So can I get back to you tomorrow? 

[00:07:55] Malcom: And if you don't have it and you're asking your engineer for it at that point, you're not going to get it for. [00:08:00] Yeah. So yeah, have at least an instrumental it's really, really easy to get that. And I, yeah, I personally think getting stems and there's other all versions you can get as well that I think are totally worth it. Just be aware that depending on your arrangement for your, how you are paying for your album, you might have to pay for that time. Yeah. But it's so 

[00:08:18] Marcus: worth it. It's definitely worth it. Yeah. It's definitely worth it. If you're going after sink and you should be going after sink. So yeah. Good call on that. 

[00:08:26] Malcom: But not only just for saying it's also good for. No, you don't want to give away the course. You want to have the music in the background of like a promo video or something like that. Um, hide lyrics or play through videos or a thing for awhile could be again. Maybe they still are. I have no idea. 

[00:08:39] Marcus: Yes. I think in some jars they probably still are. I imagine anything technical. 

[00:08:44] Malcom: Yeah. It's also like something cool. You can give to, like, if you have a Patrion or something, it's kind of a value add for sure. So. The music. That's your number one asset. Absolutely. After that, you have to start thinking about stuff like album artwork, single artwork, you [00:09:00] know, depending on what you're releasing and, and getting that together again in advance of choosing a date, we still haven't chosen a date. This has to all become. Earlier. I know we've talked about this a little bit. We're both fans of hiring professionals for 

[00:09:13] Marcus: this stuff. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Alma works one that I see lots of bands slapping together at the last minute, you know, which came. I mean, if that works for you, I guess that's fine. But I'm thinking here, like you want to be. You want your single or your album to be ingested into Spotify and like your DSPs really early on, like at least a month in advance of the release. So you of course need to have your album artwork and your single artwork at least a month in advance. Yeah. Anything that you need to upload the single to Spotify and whatever, obviously that has to be done very, very early on. So that's the thing. You see bands releasing a single. And like two weeks and they're like, oh shit, we need single out. Cause we need to upload it. And to me, I think like at that point you [00:10:00] should probably just push back the release like a month and just get everything in order. But yeah, Alma, work's a big one that people leave to the end, weirdly enough. Yeah. And I just think that's a big mistake. 

[00:10:13] Malcom: Yeah. And don't forget your like pre-release marketing branding stuff. You need a thick, you know, probably art for your socials. That is in the theme of what you're going to be releasing. What the whole image is for your, your whole new release. So the smart band would be thinking about that while they're recording so that they can start implementing as soon as they decide to kind of start going public with this release. Yeah. 

[00:10:33] Marcus: Yeah. And getting ideas during the recording part, like a lot of bands are doing that in the studio. If there's, you know, if the drummer's done their parts, then yeah. You can start thinking about these release assets. They're the battery. Really. So 

[00:10:46] Malcom: definitely. Yeah. And I, you know, so album artwork, single artwork is kind of the same conversation. Um, get on an early 

[00:10:52] Marcus: EPK. What's an EPK Marcus electronic press kit, an electronic version of the old paper press [00:11:00] kits that you still had sent sent around. Now we can just do it in a PDF. How nice is that? But EPKs are still useful. I think a lot of people think that they're kind of 2010 era and no one really cares about them, but they are very useful. And the thing is once you start releasing and once you start hiring. Uh, promoter, a radio promoter, or a publicist or any sort of team member who needs assets from you. If you have an EPK that already has all this stuff in it, it's so easy to just send. A link to your EPK and an EPK doesn't have to be hosted on your website. It can be a Google drive folder or a Dropbox folder that just has all the assets in it, like promos, bios, really anything the more, the better, honestly, if it's nicely labeled and laid out for people, it just makes everything so much easier. And even, you know, with the releases that we're doing right now with management, We're always getting requests for promo assets, people like, oh, can you [00:12:00] send over this list of things and for shows, same thing. Can you send this list of things? But if you already have it in an EPK, perfect, just send them a link it's done. We've already done that, that work. That's an asset that's gonna, it's gonna, you know, pay for itself 20 times over in the first week of a 

[00:12:15] Malcom: release, right? Yeah. And what a difference maker, if you're just thinking even about like somebody in the festivals and stuff, if your submission includes an EPK that shows. Everything good about your band that's ever happened versus somebody that doesn't have that it's just, you know, like if somebody reads that they're going to know way more about your band and there's way just a better connection. 

[00:12:34] Marcus: Along with an EPK. One sheets are still a thing, right? One sheets are really, really effective if they're done well. And for anyone who's listening and doesn't know what a one sheet is. One page of an EPK, essentially. So your highlights are on one page and they're usually pretty graphic intensive. You know, they look really, really nice, but they have all your, your highlights on one accessible page that it's hyperlinked. It's got [00:13:00] maybe a couple of your music videos. You're quick stats on it. A quick shortened bio. You don't want to just drown them in a huge ass, 5,000 word bio, but yeah, it's a one sheet, just one sheet with all your highlights on it and think about like booking agents and buyers. They're getting so many, so many people in so many agents pitching to them all the time. They don't really have time to go through a whole EPK sometimes. So a one sheet is re is great. It's basically just the best of the best, really easy to digest and to, you know, pick out the information that a buyer might want. So those are still really useful. I think it's definitely worth making one or getting one made. If you're not, if that's not your thing, you definitely hire someone to make it. Yeah. The various. 

[00:13:43] Malcom: Agreed agreed. Even though it's not like a public facing asset, it's totally a fantastic thing to have a good call. 

[00:13:49] Marcus: Don't post that on your social. 

[00:13:51] Malcom: It's not for, not for your fans. It's for the industry folks, something that also doesn't get started soon enough, I think is 

[00:13:58] Marcus: music videos. [00:14:00] Yeah. Yeah. Or any sort of video content. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:14:03] Malcom: Really, you can start a music video. As soon as you have like a, a reference rough mix of your song, you can just get it bounce from the start of the session so that there's no sink issues down the road kind of thing. And it doesn't have to be mixed. It just has to be a rough mix and you can work with that and get started at least like planning the concept and stuff for your video and get that kind of squared away. And that's another thing that's kind of always rushed and always trying to think of an idea at the last minute. 

[00:14:31] Marcus: Yeah. Trying to contact video producers at the last minute and be like, can we get a music video in like three weeks? And they're like, most of them are like, you know, if they're, if they're good, they're going to be busy. And a lot of them are booking. Well, I don't know a lot longer in advance than that. So yeah. The more time you give anybody, who's part of this release, uh, the better and the earlier you think about things like music, videos, and graphics and things like that, the. [00:15:00] Quality they're going to be for the most part. It just makes it easier. The more time you have to sit and think about the music video and to kind of plan it, you know, the smoother it's going to go. And the better the concept, usually an 

[00:15:12] Malcom: interesting thought here that just occurred is that, uh, the further you get in your career and then the higher level of caliber of like videographers and stuff, you're hiring the longer that wait time gets the more lead time you need to get stuff done because they're. There are larger companies that are busier and booked further in advance. When you get into high budget videos, they have to schedule like a truck full of gear and a bunch of staff to come and do grip and lighting and stuff and electrics and all sorts of 

[00:15:40] Marcus: stuff. Yeah. And there's nothing worse than being that band. Who's like, oh, I know you're busy. If you could squeeze us in and you don't want to be the video that was squeezed in either, because are we going to be a piece of shit? Probably will be. Maybe not. Maybe it won't be, but I just think it's, it's more, yeah, just less stress for you during a release. Uh, always a good thing and planning ahead [00:16:00] is gonna, is gonna ease the stress.

[00:16:02] Malcom: Yep, absolutely. Then after that would be lyric video, uh, that's just another form of video content these days everybody's recommending at least two forms of video content, I think. Yeah. So yeah, having music video do a lyric video, lyric videos are really cheap. Consumers love them. Even if most musicians seem to hate them. I don't get this divide, but it's there it's real. 

[00:16:25] Marcus: I need them. But yeah, I do think they're useful and yeah, but that's, that's a nice one. There is. For the most part, it can be pretty hands-off, you're not, there's nothing you don't really need to be involved in it. Sort of delegate it to someone and have it done and not even really think about it until it comes in. That's the great thing about lyric videos or any, you know, any content like that and music video for the most part, you're going to be there. If you're not in the video, you're still going to want to be there to make sure everything's going the way you want it to be. Like videos are an easy one to do without having to spend too much effort. Yeah. 

[00:16:56] Malcom: I mean, I remember we did a big budget music video, [00:17:00] a fairly big budget music video for one song and the lyric video for the same song and our, the York video outperformed. And it was like, that's frustrating, but it's also awesome. You know, people liked it, so that's great. Yeah. You know, you could look at that as a win as well, like okay. That only cost us 400 bucks instead of 10,000. Yeah, for sure. Good to know. Right. But, uh, that's not going to be the case for everything, obviously. Yeah. And a little less artistic least satisfying for us. 

[00:17:28] Marcus: I just don't like music videos, but you know what that one did. Well, yeah. Yeah. Any video content plan ahead. Totally. Totally. Another overlooked one. Hilarious. Spotify canvas. And I say hilarious, because it might be the easiest one to do, right. Especially if you already have, I find that the best way to do them is if you have a music video or, or some sort of video content already just take an eight second clip of it and crop it, you know, to. Or 16 by nine vertical. And [00:18:00] that's it. It's so, they're so easy to do and hardly anyone 

[00:18:03] Malcom: does them. Right, right. Yeah. And Spotify did release. I have not even going to say the numbers, but apparently it's a pretty substantial increase in listenership, 

[00:18:13] Marcus: which I don't really get. 

[00:18:14] Malcom: I think it's like, Right. People want it. Yeah. They like it shows up and 

[00:18:18] Marcus: they don't click skip. Okay. Fair enough. It's cause it's interesting to watch the canvas. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. 

[00:18:23] Malcom: Little visual stimulus. Zips 

[00:18:26] Marcus: stimulant. Yeah. Yeah. Stimulation. Yeah. Yeah. They're really simple. And the nice thing is everyone can do them now. Whereas before you had to be basically invited into canvas, it was like a beta thing and only big artists had access to it. Now anyone can do it, which is good and bad because there's probably a lot of crappy canvas. 

[00:18:44] Malcom: There probably is actually, I think district kid has like a little creation tool. Oh, it does. I think so. They have like a little single artwork creation tool. I'm pretty sure too. I would love to interview somebody from district kid. We should just reach out to them. 

[00:18:55] Marcus: We should. Um, yeah. Okay. Spotify canvas done. 

[00:18:59] Malcom: And [00:19:00] yeah, that's another form of video. We didn't do this, but there's, there's also like live performance video as well. Right. That kind of stuff. That's just more video content, live streams. Yeah. That's not really an asset you can make, I guess.

[00:19:13] Marcus: But the other thing I was going to think I was thinking about while we're on the subject of Spotify is pitching to editors. You know, that's definitely a bit of an asset because you can kind of not, you don't want to reuse the exact same pitch, but once you've written one, you can get. Use it for your next ones and you have a better idea of how they work, but that's why I was saying you really want to have your song ingested into your DSPs early, because if you're pitching it to, you know, apple and Spotify, which you should be doing, they're going to want it a month in advance of the single, because they have such a backlog to go through of pitches now that everyone can pitch. Right. So I think that's a, that's a really important one also is just to make sure your stuff is. Ready to go early and you're getting your pitches in as early as you can. So, [00:20:00] yeah. And yeah, like I said, once you, once you've written one of the pitches, you know, they're, they're fairly short, the actual part where you can write, but once you've written that you have some sort of a template that you can use for future ones and you can pitch and, you know, five minutes once you've done it once told them.

[00:20:15] Malcom: Yeah. If you haven't already go check out episode 49, submit hub a case. Uh, which detailed Marcus using submit hub to promote some songs and having some really great results that we talk about, like the, the reusable aspects of, of doing a release strategy like that a lot in that episode and how you can just each time. Take what you've learned and what you've made to get further with the next release. Yeah. Great episode. And maybe we'll jump to that whole promo campaigns part of our list right now, actually. Yeah. That's cool. So yeah, there's, there's submitting for playlists. Um, if you're doing something like. Big scale, like a radio campaign or something like that. You like that conversation takes months. 

[00:20:58] Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. [00:21:00] Usually like once you kind of get your rough mixes back before you even thought of what singer you're going to lease, you're in contact with your radio team and publicists too. Cause that's the thing you need to coordinate with. With them also, especially if they're busy with another rock band or whatever genre you're in, if there's someone else in your genre, that's also being pitched by that PR company. Or, you know, if there's another rock band, who's doing a single at radio at the same time as you, the radio company is going to want to stagger those. And so you're kind of, you're kind of at their mercy in a sense. The one thing with the radio though, is you don't necessarily have to the, the, the radio campaign and the actual release, the single don't necessarily have to coincide with each other. You don't want them super far apart, but they don't have to be the exact same day. So there's that. But yeah, if you, you know, I have a song coming out in two weeks and you reach out to like a radio promotion company, you say, Hey, we have this single coming out. Can you work it? They might be able to do it, but you're kind of, it's a shot in the dark really at that time.

[00:21:59] Malcom: And [00:22:00] honestly, just even getting like the connection made so that they're willing to work with you. It takes long as well. So like, if it's an existing relationship, maybe you got a chance at that, but otherwise don't, don't don't bank on it. Yeah. I want to talk people through what you just said and explaining why they might not want to jump on work in your song at a certain time to give you like a super literal example. Imagine that you were a rock band, modern rock band, and you're saying, Hey, we've got a song go into radio. August 1st let's do it. The foo fighters also have a song coming out on August 1st, even if they said yes and they pushed you, but they're also pushing the. Nobody's going to play your song like that. The rock stations going to take the foo fighters song, right? It's against your best interest to take a spot that's already taken. Uh, and then also just like imagine being a radio music director. And getting the email from this, this radio promoter, that's like, Hey, new foo fighters song also there's this one it's like, [00:23:00] or like, is it two separate emails? It's like, okay, you've already emailed me. Like how much time am I giving you for consideration? So, yeah, that's kind of the thing you have to coordinate with your plan with your teams, or you have to coordinate with your team and that they're the experts in that field as well. You should be asking for their.

[00:23:18] Marcus: And the other thing with radio too, is there's. If you're in Canada, there's can con which is Canadian content and a certain amount of music that's played on radio has to be Canadian content. So that's one thing that radio promoters are aware of and looking at is how much CanCan is out there right now. You know, if there's a backlog of CanCan at radio, if there's like five or six songs from, you know, the biggest Canadian radio rock bands, and you're trying to release your single around that same time. The chances are so slim of you, you mean getting a spin at that point because. These, you know, the radio stations there, their focus is on these big CanCan mountains. And so that makes sense. So you kind of need to talk to them and you need [00:24:00] to figure out when there's going to be a little bit of a break in the CanCan and you know, they'll, they'll advise you when they think, of course for them, they, they want the best chance of success possible. So for them, they're going to try to choose, you know, And Jane Cohen or, or when there's not like a massive release coming out where, you know, they want you to stand a chance at radio. So yes, talking to these teams early on, it's super important. And it's something that, um, you should start, you know, when you're getting rough mixes or basically as early as you can, you want to start making the connections, if you don't already have a working relationship with radio teams in publicist. Absolutely. So, 

[00:24:36] Malcom: yeah, I guess you just kind of mentioned publicist as well. Same deal. To be in the conversation very early. And again, they are experts. They should be getting their feedback on what they think as well is good idea for like a release date and plan and even song I think is kind of a consideration that you should do.

[00:24:56] Marcus: Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Especially radio promoters will want to [00:25:00] have a say. Yeah, for sure. Cause I mean, they're the ones who are pushing it and publicists are going to also tell you what assets they want. You know, they're going to take a look at your promos and your bio and the stuff that you have to promote yourself. And they're going to tell you either, yeah, this is great, but maybe let's get some more of this. They're going to give you their opinion. And it's really important to have that opinion moving forward because they're experts in the field and they know what's, you know, what's got the best chance of working and actually a publicist that we've been working with lately is very involved in the release schedule. Cool. Which is awesome. It's really cool because he's. And it makes sense, right? I mean, he's pushing him and his team. They're, they're pushing the single they're pushing them release. So it's in their best interest to be involved and to give their opinions on what they think is going to work because they're the experts in that field. So it's definitely a team effort. It's not just like we're releasing our song in the state. Everybody get on board. It's very much a 

[00:25:54] Malcom: collaboration. Yeah. Just. Just a heads up listeners. We have a [00:26:00] publicist coming on for the episode following this, probably, you know, things change, people get busy and stuff like that, but, uh, we're, we're tentatively scheduled. So be ready for that. I'm super stoked to do an episode with the health assistant that to be great. All right. So we've got. The radio promoter or the publicist I get, I mentioned submit hub. You should be getting it on that stuff in advance and, and, you know, figuring out your plan there. What about doing stuff like hiring PR, like Spotify companies and stuff like that? Yeah. What do you, what 

[00:26:31] Marcus: do you think? Uh, that's a tough one. Yeah. It's really tough. It depends on the company. There's a lot of. Shady. Yeah. Spotify promotion companies, other that claim that they can 

[00:26:43] Malcom: so far, there's no one we endorse right now. I don't think 

[00:26:45] Marcus: so. I haven't seen anything that I've thought is legit. I shouldn't say legit cause that's not true, but I think there's a lot of shady business that happens there. And I don't think that's a secret. I think there's a lot of stream farming that happens and a lot of business that is, and I'm [00:27:00] sure there's legit ones too, but I haven't, I don't know. I just don't have any experience with them. So I can't really say yes or no. 

[00:27:06] Malcom: What I would say is if that's a strategy you're planning to take again, get on it in advance. Yeah, for sure. Right? Yeah. I, you know what I'm, I'm kind of thinking, I think that, I think most of it is like you said, stream farming, but I think it's like a calculated risk that some people are willing to take, or they think that that boost in numbers is going to trick the algorithm into throwing them some real playlist and maybe that's right. It's it seems pretty risky to me. 

[00:27:33] Marcus: It does. Yeah. That's the thing. And that's the thing you get in some editorials maybe, or your algorithm that plays go up and that's great. But the downside or, or, you know, the risk is so massive. If Spotify knows that you're farming streams. Yeah. Get 

[00:27:50] Malcom: your music removed. They just delete it. You just don't exist anymore. 

[00:27:54] Marcus: Yeah. No, I don't know. It's a huge risk and it's just not worth it. Also. You want to, you, you know, you want to earn those [00:28:00] streams. You want them to be legit cause you want them to be fans. You don't want them to be computers. No. That's not going to help you.

[00:28:06] Malcom: Yeah. I think it's kind of like a short-term gambling move, but yeah. I mean, if that's your. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. No, I didn't endorse that. Nevermind. Yeah, no, 

[00:28:16] Marcus: but I, you know, I don't have experience with it and I'm sure I'm sure maybe some people do. Right. And maybe they've had success with it. I just think it's very risky and I would not, it's not something that I would do.

[00:28:26] Malcom: Yeah. Okay. So anything else under promo campaigns that we should talk. Nah. All right. Uh, then, uh, obviously we, we talked about video and artwork and stuff, but you also want to have that pre artwork stuff for updating your socials ahead of it. Keeping your whole brand on target for Spotify. Instagram everything.

[00:28:48] Marcus: Yeah. Yeah. Everything should be cohesive. 

[00:28:50] Malcom: Yeah. And I think it depends. Sometimes you want to roll that out ahead of a release. Sometimes it's like all of a sudden there's a change and there's a news, you know, that's been like a cool shock, tactically, [00:29:00] 

[00:29:00] Marcus: the Instagram, and then yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Do 

[00:29:03] Malcom: you know the recruitment thing? How will you like posts like a quote and then it's only there for 24 hours and it's just so there's only ever one tile on his page. Oh, really? 

[00:29:11] Marcus: Yeah, I have to follow them Ikea. Yeah. Right. That's cool. Okay. So cool. Yes, he is. Maybe we should get him on here. Can you imagine Reiki? I know you're probably listening. So Hillis app hit the boys up 

[00:29:27] Malcom: recurring dream. I've had of us flying to interview podcasts or. Guests around the world. And that's why you have to subscribe to be our Patriot members, by the way. So Marcus and I can afford first class 

[00:29:37] Marcus: flights so we can buy a jet. Like we can just buy a jet, right? Yeah. That's what 

[00:29:41] Malcom: we're golfers class from there, it's a lot of Patriots subscribers that would take millions 

[00:29:46] Marcus: of you or a few that give like a million bucks each 

[00:29:48] Malcom: that's not even an option, but we should 

[00:29:50] Marcus: make it 

[00:29:53] Malcom: well, uh, anyways, uh, We get Mr. Rick Rubin. I will fly. I will. 

[00:29:59] Marcus: I'll pay for [00:30:00] myself. Pay for view. Wow. Okay. All right. I guess I'm, I'm a nobody. Good 

[00:30:07] Malcom: news, Marcus. We got Rick, but I'm going solo. I'm not going to pay for your ticket. 

[00:30:11] Marcus: All right. 

[00:30:12] Malcom: All right. Anyways, uh, yeah, support us on Patreon so we can fly to see Rick Ruben and pay for our legal fees when he kicks us out of his Shangri-La. Yeah. Okay. Uh, so then I think up next is now you can find. Book a release tour or, uh, really show maybe if it's just a show, there doesn't have to be a tour with it. Every single obviously, or something like that. And you know, some people aren't touring at all, but now is the time to think about it because all those other assets exist. It's it's you don't want to do it in the other way. Which is really easy to do because everyone else wants to get out there and gig, but it's counterproductive if you don't have these assets to promote it and, and help ensure that those shows and that tour do fantastic. The entire last episode was about generating [00:31:00] assets for touring. So just go and listen to the first episode again, if you're at this stage.

[00:31:05] Marcus: Yeah, it's kind of putting, I believe they say the horse in front of the carriage. So what they say, that's what they say. I don't think that would work. I mean, the character of the floors idiot. Wow. No, no, you're right. That the, no, the carriage of the horse, but I said it the other way. I said the horse in front of the cash. Well, you know, what's out there. Just work. Yeah. Yeah. No, but that's, that's, uh, what I meant was if you do it this way, you're putting the horse in front of the carriage, which is what you're supposed to do. That's what I meant. Okay. Anyway, but no, uh, yeah, people do want to book the tour first. They say, and I think, cause it's exciting. You're like, w you know, you just want to get out there and do it, but you need to milk every last bit out of a release. And so you need to do all these things first, and it really doesn't take that long to do this stuff. Like this is just like, Well, it depends on how big budget, I guess he'd go. But I mean, it's really not like a year of work or anything like that. [00:32:00] It's just, um, it's just the stuff you need to do to have a successful tour and release. And these things will also pay dividends down the road. Definitely. Cause you can reuse them. That's great. Absolutely. 

[00:32:09] Malcom: Yeah. And if you were to pull up your calendar and schedule in the completion date for each one of these, like, okay, each Saturday, we're gonna knock off one of these. A couple of months, you're done kind of thing. You could do it a lot quicker than that as well. And I recommend doing that, make it a little deadline. That's a great way to go. And here's an argument. If you do all those things, you can then use them to chop yourself to an agent and then they book the tour for you.

[00:32:32] Marcus: Yeah. There you go. Just like that. 

[00:32:34] Malcom: That'd be better. Okay. Yes, you do that. And now you finally choose a release date with your team. Hopefully through all of this, you've landed yourself, a publicist and a radio promoter. If you're doing that and an agent, and now you can organize with your team, what the hell you're going to do.

[00:32:50] Marcus: Yeah. And the thing is. You can start thinking about the release date early on. Sure. You can start thinking about it when you're doing. Really when you're, you can start thinking about your [00:33:00] release date early, for sure. But the thing is that we want to drive home is that you can't solidify one before doing all these other steps. Right? So like, you would do want to have an idea of a release date. Of course. And you can have a tentative one, but it's the it's when people like set it and announce it like new single this day. And you're like, but you haven't even, we don't have any of these assets. Yeah. I'd have recorded. But you don't have any of these assets and you haven't even spoken to the team yet. So basically we just really want to drive home the point that you need to have all these steps completed before you can actually set in and out. It's a release date. Yep. Yeah. You 

[00:33:34] Malcom: totally have a working date. That's that's great. Again, deadlines are really useful. Yeah. Mental tricks pretty much. And it's just, 

[00:33:40] Marcus: yeah, because there's nothing worse for your, there's nothing worse for the brand. Postponing a release date once you've already announced. Not good. 

[00:33:50] Malcom: So yeah, definitely as somebody that mixes a masters music for people, this happens all the time, the release date being announced before I've even received the files to work on [00:34:00] their song. I'm like, what if I'm busy? And like, you haven't even asked me yet.

[00:34:03] Marcus: Yeah. Probably quickly after messenger. 

[00:34:07] Malcom: Yeah. I've had with, uh, I think two weeks was my shortest while I was like, okay, let's this release is going to flop, but for sure. Yeah, it's too bad, you know? Uh, so just patients, it feels like it has to be now for some reason, but. Yeah, it does matter. Push it a month and like at least a month and you'll be fine. Yeah. Agreed. Cool. All right. I think that wraps it up. Hopefully you found value in this episode. We appreciate you listening as always, if you wanna just do us a favor, share it on your Instagram. That is been very helpful for us growing our audience. It helps people in all parts of the world. Find us, which is great. I had a phone call with a brother. Good, Brandon. Good. Uh, he's a fellow from Alabama on the weekend. So stoked. He's a rat guy makes killer music stoked to work with them, but let's do our, our picture on showed up. Let's do it. All right. Uh, first up, I want to correct a [00:35:00] mistake. I made last week, Nathan, from the band shed monkeys. I said shed monkeys last night or last week. Oh God, here we go. His dad is no longer called shed monkeys. They are called sleep shake and they are a great band. They have a new song coming out. Actually, I think it will be out by the time this episode airs. So you should totally go check it out. I think I've heard it. I heard some of the new stuff and it was like, so crazy. Good. So if this is one of those songs, dang sweet. It's very sweet. Uh, yeah. One of my favorite engineers and producers over in Vancouver, Maddie D is a done it. Oh, it's so good. Yeah. So anyway. Sorry about that. Nathan sleep shake is your band name, you guys rock. And we also have a new subscriber, Jamie. Victim Mara. I think I'm saying that right? I think so. Yeah. Okay. Victim era, that is Jamie's bad. Jamie is also working at a publicist house, PR firm, a PR firm. That's a better way to say that. My God not doing well today. Thank you for listening [00:36:00] again. I don't even think I told people why I'm saying these names.

[00:36:03] Marcus: Yeah, it was a Patriot. I did. Okay. That's good. Maybe say we're doing a 

[00:36:06] Malcom: Patrion shouts. Yes. These are people that subscribe and support us on Patrion. And I talked about that earlier. People are smart enough to 

[00:36:12] Marcus: figure this year. Fine. You got it. 

[00:36:14] Malcom: I only had one cup of coffee today. That's my 

[00:36:15] Marcus: excuse. I mean, it is only eight 30, so that's probably about right. Isn't it not from me. 

[00:36:21] Malcom: Okay. And then we also have Tim Seldon from, for fear itself. We have Carlin from Mulligan TAFE fence who was in here recording vocals yesterday. Rob. Kevin from Supreme remedy Graham from Carmona Lucas from Vogue villains, Grady from leather apron, revival, Ryan from venom and spirit Bernard from the Enrons Chris Erickson from scope and also our lovely podcast editor and Evan Miller of the wild romantics. Thank you all very much for the support. Totally appreciate it. And we will be back with another episode next week. Like I said, it should be a guest episode with, uh, the head of a PR firm. Nice. Yeah. Bye[00:37:00] .