Free Indie Rock? Who Wants Free Indie Rock?
For the initial phase of Rock Proper, we decided to offer our music for free. To many this seems crazy, today let’s examine the actual economics of this decision.
But first a little history…
For years, a group of Chicago musicians have been making records and playing shows at notable venues.
At first, the records were created on the artists own dime. Next, many were picked up by local record labels and funded, bought vans and started to tour the mid-west. After that, a handful were picked up by even bigger indie labels, got slightly more funding, slightly better vans and were off to tour the country. Finally, a very small few were picked up by the almighty major record label, got to use a tour bus for awhile and tour the world for a year or so.
What do they all have in common? None of these records actually “Recouped”.
If you have put out a record with a label you will recognize this scary little word and be very familiar with it’s importance. For those who may not know, “recouping” is the point at which record sales have actually paid for the recording, manufacturing and marketing costs of the album and it actually starts “making money”.
How much money is that?
As you might imagine, the cost of making an album varies widely. At my first (and only) meeting with a major label representative, Mr. Matt Marshall of Epic records spoke of being conservative and spending somewhere in the quarter million dollar range to make a record. This was very exciting to my 21 year old ears, it sounded like a ton of money (because it is a ton of money). This excitement wears off, however, once the artist realizes that this is simply a massive loan. Except unlike other loans, this is a loan that someone else spends for you. The label fronts you this money, decides how it will be allotted (often inflating the amount spent) and begins profiting on it well in advance of the artist.
Now, I don’t want to fall into the over-simplistic view that all major labels are “bad” and that all bands and artists are all pure-hearted victims, but what I have just described is the typical protocol.
After I had seen hundreds of brilliant records “fail” by not recouping after endless hours of toil and thousands of dollars wasted, I was ready to try something different.
After all, these days a good sounding record doesn’t cost anywhere near a quarter of a million dollars and the artist doesn’t need the marketing and distribution channels that previously only a record label could offer. These days, there are other options.
Like what?
The idea for Rock Proper came when I was working on my latest record Jitney 86-300. I was frustrated by the time it usually takes to find a label and or distributor to support your work, then the amount money involved with manufacturing the CDs, the length of time it takes for that work to be released and the prospect of feeling indebted to someone for my art.
It seemed a more direct route would be best. I was excited to surpass this whole process. No endless phone calls trying to drum up support. No massive amount spent on manufacturing. No shipping crates of CDs to be inventoried then to be shipped to someone who would rip the album to their iPod and basically disregard the piece of plastic. A piece of plastic that took a great deal of time and energy to create and distribute.
How about allowing anyone in the world to access your music for free instantly. No shipping, no manufacturing, no trips to the post office, no nada. Once it is live on the site it is accessible.
How have the results been?
So far so good. Back when we were creating physical versions of all our music, a typical run would reach 200 to 400 people and only rarely make the cost of manufacturing back (let alone the recording cost). So, in an effort to sell music, most of the time money was actually lost.
Furthermore, these physical CDs actually prevented people from hearing the music because they had to pay to hear it.
So, not only did it lose money but it also lost listeners.
With the Rock Proper model, we are no longer losing money on manufacturing, we are gaining many more listeners than previously possible (nearly all records have been downloaded 1,000 times) and each record is no longer existing in isolation, therefore a success for one benefits the whole site. These records are not tied to a particular release date where they will only be available in stores for a little while, they are all up on the site for hopefully a very long time.
There are still many obstacles to this work. I will explore some of these in a future post and I am not sure this will remain free forever (perhaps charging a dollar for an album would be seen as the best balance?).
I am only confident the the old music business model is broken and that creativity and experimentation will lead us to the next phase.
I urge you to take part in this experiment, listen to some of the music, forward what you like on to those in your neighborhood or social networks and let us know your thoughts.
