Hey Tom, I wanted/needed to e-mail you
because I have some frustrating questions in terms of music and the
mainstream music business and I just wanted to get some insight from
you. Here it goes! Well for years now, besides practicing until my
fingers bleed, all I could think about is how do I establish myself
as a respectable guitarist and a musician. The thing that bothers me
is that someday I would love to release me own neoclassical album,
but these days I realize that in the United States that high tech
guitarists are not as admired as much here unless the music genre
magically changes or if it was the 1980's again. But it bothers me
that it all comes down to a question of what sells instead of
what you like personally and what you're capable of doing in terms
of composition and technicality. That ticks me off! I want to
make sure that I keep my own musical integrity and show my full
musical abilities that have taken me years to perfect, instead of
holding back playing re-arranged power chords just to please the
audience. For most people, if the music is not played on the radio,
they don't want to hear it. I have my very own expectations in what
I could do to make a killer song, but because if it's not like Blink
182 material or something like Disturbed it wont be respected. But I
just wanted your point of view what you think about what to do in
these case scenarios. I mean I am stuck between personal passion and
simply what sells and this really sucks."
Your points are excellent and many musicians that want to make
music at a very high level (or want to make music in style that is
not popular) ask these sorts of questions.
Just because your style of music is not very popular in your
country does not mean it is not more popular somewhere else in the
world. It's true, we don't live in 1986 anymore, but some countries
still do (I'm referring only to the fact that music styles that were
popular in the US during the 1980s are popular in other countries).
Speaking from my own experience, I sell about 300% more CDs in Japan
than I have in the United States. I sell more of my CDs in Europe
than in the US also (I have been there several times though). This
trend of American high caliber guitarists selling more CDs overseas
is widespread and very common now. We could all just get discouraged
about the severe lack of popularity of great guitar music here in
the US but that would probably lead most people to give up trying to
make a living at what they really want to do. The best advice I can
give you on this is: If people in your area can't/won't appreciate
what you do then don't try to force them. Move on and find where
your potential fans are. If that means that you need to focus your
efforts in Europe or Asia or anywhere else, then that's what you
need to do. Of course it would be great to have a lot of fans here
in the US because that is the country that a lot of of live in and
it is also the richest country in the world, but when it really
comes down to it, who cares where your fans are going to be from. A
fan is a fan. And besides, its really really cool to get CD orders,
fan mail, fan e-mail, etc. write ups in guitar magazines and web
sites from all over the world every day. The world is a very very
big place, so even if a tiny percentage of the population would like
cool guitar music, that translates into potentially hundreds of
thousands (if not millions) of people.
Marty Freidman now lives in Tokyo, Yngwie's huge mansion estate
is largely funded by his platinum album sales in Japan. Mr. Big (who
became almost forgotten here in the US) were mega huge in Japan.
Look how big classic heavy metal is in Germany (Manowar sells out
stadiums there - they are bigger than Metallica!)! In China, I've
read, disco is extremely popular (disco!) The point here is
no matter what you want to do there will always be people somewhere
that are going to think it's cool.
Let's get back to talking about the USA. In recent years bands
like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc. have been
selling a lot of CDs. Do you think its because people in their
mid-30s to early 40s are buying these CDs now? Well that's part of
it, but a lot of the new popularity is driven by kids (teenagers).
Why is this happening you ask? Because their parents grew up
listening to that music and have turned their kids onto these bands.
So what might that mean for us? Well think about what was the next
generation in rock/metal music after these mid-late '70s bands. Yes,
it's the 1980s. Back in the '80s a lot of people started
playing guitar and listened to cool players like Van Halen, Randy
Rhoades, Yngwie Malmsteen, etc. That generation is older now and
most have their own kids who are 5-12 years old, but it won't be
long before these kids get into their teenage years and start
getting into music. My guess is that a lot of these kids will be
influenced by what their parents listened to (the 1980s) and the
ones that did play guitar may encourage their kids to play. All of
this could translate into a new interest in great guitar players,
not only for the older players like Yngwie and Van Halen but for
great guitar playing in general. The new generation of guitar
virtuosos may have a built in fan base in a few years that just
needs a few more years to blossom.
But the real issue here is how deeply is what you want to do in
your heart? When it comes down to it, a true artist must
follow his/her heart always. So in the end, it doesn't matter what
will sell or not, all that matters is that you follow your own
desires and manifest those into reality on an artistic level. There
are other ways to do this on an economic/career level, but whether
that part is successful is not nearly as relevant to a true artists
as the art itself.
Having said all of that, the next issue for most artists
is the practicality of paying to make your artistic music.
Let's face it, making good quality recordings and music is
expensive, so unless you have a lot of extra money to spend on your
art, you are going to need some money coming in to pay for it all.
If you are looking for this money to come from your musical
abilities, then you may need to do other things (separate from your
art) to generate the money. Most excellent players end up teaching
guitar eventually, but many resort to playing other kinds of music
that will bring in money such as playing in a cover band, wedding
band or another band that is already generating money that is
popular. On a more professional level, getting on someone's tour or
album who is at least mid-level in the business (mid-level = means
hundreds of thousands of CDs sold and on a label) or with an
independent that is selling at least 40,000 CDs and doing some
touring in specialized markets. There are, of course, many other
ways in which money can be made in this business.
