9 Ways to Kill a Music Career

  

If you’re doing any of these things, stop it right now.

(1) Having a shitty, entitled attitude.

If you’re showing up late for gigs, not rehearsing, not supporting your scene, being a dick to your bandmates, and not working slavishly to cultivate your audience online and off, you’re doing a great job of killing your potential career.  Now more than ever, the future doesn’t belong to bands that have crappy work ethics.

(2) Relying on a label, manager or anyone besides yourself to build your career.

Even with a label deal, bands can find themselves de-prioritized, or flat-out ignored.  But these days labels rarely sign bands that aren’t successfully working and developing their audiences to begin with.  Which means that DIY isn’t some alternative approach, it’s essential for the survival, breakthrough, and growth of any artist.

 

(3) Choosing a name that another band is using.

The costs of picking a name that is already being used include fan confusion, extreme difficulty growing your brand, and lawsuits.  So before you pick a name, Google it, check ReverbNation, even check on MySpace.  After that, do a trademark search.

(4) Not having a serious web presence.

It’s impossible to be everywhere, but you need to try.  That not only means hitting all the usual (and massive) suspects like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, but infiltrating sites that attract your target demographic.  It also means interacting with the non-stop flow of fans, as much as you possibly can.

Because if you’re not there, eventually they won’t be, either.

(5) Making music that sucks.

Forget about sucking: if your music isn’t outrageously great in the eyes of a significant fan base, major changes need to be made.  That includes scrapping the band and starting another one.

(6) Being in it for the money.

You’re delusional and will probably make more money working at McDonald’s.  The reality of this business is that an extremely large percentage of artists are poor, and most of the successful ones were poor at one time.  Which means if you’re not motivated by the the music, the passion to create and play, and the cameraderie of it all, you should honestly be doing something else.

(7) Paying to inflate Twitter followers, Facebook likes, DatPiff downloads, and YouTube views.

Labels, venues, and potential managers are all-too-familiar with these scams.  But more importantly, paying for fake followers distracts precious resources away from developing organic fans, the lifeblood of any successful artist.

Without real fans, you don’t have a real band, period.

(8) Paying to play shows.

This seems to be mostly happening in hip-hop, where shady promoters actually charge a rapper to open for a larger act or participate in a showcase.  But this is absolutely the wrong direction to go, especially since it sacrifices real revenue for ‘exposure’ that they typically can’t afford, while the promoter reaps all the upside.

Avoid these deals at all cost, whatever that cost may be.  

Paying to be mentioned on a show flyer.

Stop the madness. Right now.

(9) Having a violent audience.

It’s hard enough to attract dedicated fans; it’s almost impossible to choose the fans you have.  But fans that routinely start fights, incite violence, or bring weapons to shows can seriously threaten the survival of an artist, simply because venue owners and promoters will avoid this artist at all costs.  Which means, effectively, you can’t show up for work.

You must develop a strategy to deal with this problem, or risk choking off a critical revenue source.