Lou Plaia:
So I always tell bands, "When you're ready, not when you think you're ready, but when you really are ready, then start submitting to all these festivals." Again, ReverbNation we do these things called opportunities and I cut deals with a lot of the festivals, like more than 50 festivals we have deals with and bands would submit and it would be great because the festivals are not relying that much on my bands, on these smaller bands to draw a lot because they've got the big headliners.

So they don't care if they book a band that's got no fans in where the venue is, but you still got to be really good. Just because they're not expecting a big draw from you, they are expecting amazing stuff from you, because they'd love to have you back next year and they won't claim to fame. "Hey, I found this great artists. They played on a festival last year for like nothing. 200 bucks, we paid them. Now they're asking 100 grand," and they like that. They found you.

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month, without spending 10 hours a day on social media. 

We're creating a revolution in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker. All right, so today, I'm incredibly excited to be here with Lou Plaia. He is a co founder of a company called ReverbNation and if you're an independent musician, then you've probably heard of ReverbNation. They're literally the biggest online community right now that focuses on independent artists and they've built this incredible community of musicians and fans and producers and venues to allow you to network and specifically focus on growing your fan base and booking gigs and earning more income as an independent musician. 

Today, I had a chance to meet him for a few minutes about two or three days ago and we talked about what do we want to cover today and there's a few different areas of expertise that Lou has. So today, specifically, we're going to dive into booking festival gigs, how to land those kinds of shows and also, we wanted to dive a little bit into how to build a team with your music career and when's the right time to start building a team. So Lou, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.

Lou Plaia:
Thank you.

Michael Walker:
Cool. So first of all, I'd love to start off just by hearing a little bit more about your story and how you co founded ReverbNation and what brought you to what you're doing now.

Lou Plaia:
Sure. I started in the music business. I was going to say record business, but it was the record business when I started in the late 80s. I worked at PolyGram, which is now Universal. Then I went over to Atlantic and I worked at Atlantic for about 12 years and then Jason Flom started Lava Records. I became the head of marketing and artist development for Lava Records, which was part of Atlantic. 

We used to develop bands from scratch. An A&R person would sign a band like Kid Rock or Matchbox Twenty, or all these other bands we worked with and we would develop them. We'd turn them into something, and the labels stopped doing that I guess, in the early 2000s, or whatever it was. So when they shut down Lava Records, they restarted it years later on the Universal. Jason still has it back. 

When they put an end to it, and they laid us all off, I was like, "Well, what am I going to do?" I've never been laid off. I don't know anything else about music. So I had this idea about ReverbNation where we let all artists in the world ... I had no idea how many there were. I was like, "Oh, we'll let all 200,000 artists, give them all these basic tools." Basic tools to grow your fan base, run your business but I wasn't a tech guy. 

So I met up with a bunch of really smart tech guys and business guys, and they're my partners, and they raised money and they built the software and the website and everything else and I'm just kind of like the music relationship guy in a way, an artist relationships and that was kind of it. We just want to help emerging artists. 

We know that a lot of artists start their careers here, and once they get bigger, they leave us. We have Maren Morris and Imagine Dragons, Lumineers and Alabama Shakes, all bands that literally started on Reverb. Never had fans. No one in the industry ever heard of them. They were submitting their things and growing their fan base using our mailing list things like that. Once they get bigger, they don't need us anymore. 

They don't need our distribution. They don't need our email list because they got Warner Brothers or whatever it is. So that's kind of like how we started. I know I probably talked more than you asked for but it's kind of a cool story I thought and now we help 5 million artists.

Michael Walker:
Dude, that's awesome. No, you definitely didn't over talk or anything. That's really cool. I got admit, as soon as you said Matchbox Twenty, in my mind I was like, "It's three AM, I must be..."

Lou Plaia:
I probably got one of their gold records up there somewhere.

Michael Walker:
Dude, that's so awesome. So it sounds like what you're saying is that your ReverbNation evolved out of this need for record labels stopped doing some of the early work of developing artists and giving them the tools that they needed in order to grow from ground zero. So ReverbNation was born out of this need to help emerging artists and for a lot of people that start out with ReverbNation, it's a in between step. So eventually, they move on to getting signed to a record label, or they outgrow ReverbNation but you're happy for that. You're probably like a mother bird seeing the birds fly out. 

Lou Plaia:
Yeah, exactly. We get a lot of times artists will say, "Well, there's no big artists on this site." I'm like, "Well, I guess we did our job. I don't know." We don't care. We're not trying to help bands who don't need our help. Matchbox Twenty doesn't need our help. Of course, they're not going to be on our site. 

Michael Walker:
That makes a lot of sense. Having 5 million musicians on this website, I'm sure you're very familiar with the common struggles and the challenges that musicians are facing on a day to day basis. What are some of the biggest challenges that you see when an independent artist comes to ReverbNation, or when they start working with you?

Lou Plaia:
It's weird, it sounds weird, but just education. I don't think they even know where to start. I think they think they've got these great songs and most of the time, they're not great, but they think they're great, and they think it's just going to be found, and they think they deserve credibility, and they deserve millions of dollars, and they deserve all this. I'm not saying that they all think that way, but a lot of them think that way but they don't have the education to go about, how do I do this.

Some of them put up music and they don't even have their [inaudible 00:06:40], their BMI, ASCAP and SoundExchange, things like that. They don't even know you have to be part of that. So they're never going to get paid, even if they do become big. So they just don't know a lot of things. They don't know where to go. A lot of them get scammed. There's a lot of shady people out there, because your artists are not educated, and they'll go out and somebody will say, "Give me 1000 bucks, and I'll get you on every playlist and Spotify," and well, that's just BS. It's not going to happen. 

So I think education is the biggest issue right now the artists have, just not understanding anything, and of course relationship. They don't have the relationships, which is like what we try to provide them with.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. So it sounds like what you're saying is that the biggest challenges that you see, usually it's like a foundational thing in terms of education. They just seem to know where to get started and a lot of musicians have maybe a little bit of entitlement or a little bit of a misconception that as long as they create music, and they create stuff that they feel really good about, and they just put it out there, then everything is going to magically just happen on its own. 

Lou Plaia:
Exactly. 

Michael Walker:
They're just going to put it out and it's going to blow up. 

Lou Plaia:
I used to think that way when I played baseball. I thought, I'm a pretty good hitter. Doesn't mean anyone's going to sign me. I'm not that good.

Michael Walker:
Well, one analogy that I like to use when I'm thinking about this ... I've noticed the exact same thing where it's like people ... With a lot of artists too, and I'm sure you see this a lot, the quality of the music is actually ... Sometimes they really have honed their craft, they've invested and it's really good but still, they just don't know how to promote it, or they don't have the relationships and it's kind of like building a fire.
It's like they have the logs for the fire. They have the fuels, like the songs and whatever but they have no idea how to actually generate flames. So they just put them into a fire pit and they're like, "All right, let it begin," and nothing happens.

Lou Plaia:
It's so true. It's so true. I think a lot of times, a lot of people say, "Well, if it's a great, great song, it'll find its way to the top." I just don't believe that. There's amazing songs out there, but the poor artist has one penny to his name to actually get it out there. They spent all the money recording something but no money left over for marketing or hiring somebody to do anything.

Michael Walker:
Absolutely.

Lou Plaia:
It really is.

Michael Walker:
I think there is, and this is probably one of the reasons that maybe some people believe this. Every once in a while, there'll be someone that has some logs and all of a sudden lightning strikes. It's really rare and just happens to strike like, whoa, and you hear stories about like Justin Bieber got discovered on the side of the road by Usher or something like that. That's like the luck of the draw and it's very, very rare and really what it takes for the most part is figuring out how do you actually generate traffic? 

How do you get smarter about marketing and promoting new music in addition to creating it? Cool. So I know that you have a lot of expertise around booking shows and booking festivals and you have a lot of relationships. When it comes to booking festivals, for example, when is it the right time for people to start reaching out to festivals and what does that process even look like?

Lou Plaia:
I guess a lot of the bands that we deal with are emerging artists. They don't have a big draw and a lot of them don't even have, to be honest, the good live performance skills that a festival would want. I tell bands, "Put yourself in the venues place. If you've only played 10 gigs before and you're not Metallica on stage, you're not amazing on stage, why would the festival put you on there?"

They're not looking for a hobbyist to play in front of these big, big giant bands, these big headliners. It could be embarrassing for them. It could hurt their ticket sales next year. They can say, "We went to this festival man, and they had such mediocre artists on there. I'm not buying tickets next year."

So it could hurt them. So I always tell bands, "When you're ready, not when you think you're ready, but when you really are ready, then start submitting to all these festivals." Usually you need an agent to get the front of some of these talent buyers, but again, ReverbNation, we do these things called opportunities and I cut deals with a lot of the festivals, like more than 50 festivals we have deals with. 

Summerfest will give us 15 slots and that's the biggest festival in the world. Sturgis will give us some slots, and Firefly. [inaudible 00:10:57] used to give us four slots in every city and bands would submit and it would be great because the festivals are not relying that much on my bands, on these smaller bands to draw a lot because they've got the big headliners. So they don't care if they book a band that's got no fans in where the venue is.

If festival is in Cleveland and the band has no fans there, they're okay with that, because they've already sold out from all the big headliners but you still got to be really good. Just because they're not expecting a big draw from you, they are expecting amazing stuff from you, because they'd love to have you back next year and they want claim to fame. "Hey, I found this great artist. They played on a festival last year for like nothing. 200 bucks, we paid them. Now they're asking 100 grand," and they like that. They found you, just like an A&R person would.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, man. So it sounds like what you're saying is, first of all, if you're going to really be seriously approaching festivals, or you want to play shows like that, then you need to be at the point where you've really fine tuned your craft, you've gotten really good at playing live shows, or else ... Like if you haven't gotten to that point yet, then would you recommend starting with local gigs, or in terms of like a crash course, getting to the point where you're ready for festivals, would you say it's just about a matter of reaching out personally, just figuring out local venues and for places you can play and improve your skill that way?

Lou Plaia:
That's what I do. I would definitely go to all the local venues in your area, and just hit them up. Even if it's just weekends only to start, just hit them up. If you have to start, start on open mics. At least to get your anxiety out if you're that new at it. I'm not a musician, so I can't say I got my experience doing open mics or something like that, but I do know a lot of people start doing ... Like John Mayer, and I've heard a lot of things. A lot of these great artists you see now-

Michael Walker:
With our band, Paradise Fears, we got started in high school. We grew up in Vermillion, South Dakota, a very small town that didn't have a lot of musical opportunities. In our high school, they had this thing called Coffee House, that was like an open mic and that's how we met each other. That's how we started and eventually, we built a career where we were able to tour successfully worldwide with a lot of our favorite bands and it all started with those open mic nights for sure. So it's a great place to start. 

So it sounds like what you're saying in terms of when they're ready for the festival. So they're at a point where they've really honed their craft, and it's really good and in terms of ReverbNation, that's a tool that they can use in order to submit for opportunities. Specifically, one of the benefits, it sounds like you're saying is that with a lot of independent artists who are emerging artists, they're not huge yet, they haven't been signed to a record label, they haven't toured with a bunch of other bands and built up a grassroots following yet.

They don't really have the clout of being able to say, "I can draw this many people to this show," which is really what venues and talent buyers [inaudible 00:13:52] what they care about, like how many people can you draw out to the show? If you can't draw anyone out, then what do you really have to offer? But it sounds like what you're saying is that with opportunities within ReverbNation, you guys have usually quite a few slots available for some of the biggest festivals in the world, and it's an opportunity for artists who maybe they're independent, but they really have honed their performance, and they're ready for that kind of opportunity. So even before they've grown a massive fan base on their own, they can get some of those opportunities to submit for those festivals.

Lou Plaia:
Exactly. Totally right. You hit [inaudible 00:14:28] right on the head, and they don't have the relationship. So they can't call up Summerfest and say, "Here's my EPK, check me out, blah, blah, blah," but I can because I've been in the business for 30 years. I almost feel like a salesman sometimes. I'm out there pitching all these talent buys, "Come on, use us. We've got these amazing emerging artists that you've never heard of, but you should put them on your stage."

Michael Walker:
That's the best kind of salesperson. So let's flip it around a little bit in terms of, let's say that there's an artist that they're kind of really Reaching that stage where maybe they can draw, they can sell out a crowd of like 300, 400 people in a local market and they're starting to grow some presidents regionally and nationally and maybe they do have a decent amount of draw. Maybe they're going to draw like 50 to 100 people in markets around the United States, for example. When would you say is the right time to start looking for a booking agent or start building a team around your music?

Lou Plaia:
I think a lot of people always ask me, "What's the first part of your team that you should get," and a lot of people think it's a manager. I think it's a booking agent, because a lot of the stuff you could do on your own as a manager, is that be your own manager for a little while. Booking gigs is so hard. I tried doing it for a little while with a band that I was managing and nobody calls me back. It's like, they'll call agents back, because agents also represent bigger artists. 
So they're going to take Joe Smith's call from CAA because they might want Beyonce next time they come around who's also on CAA, or whatever they're on. I think getting an agent is so important, but agents work on commission. So are they willing to book a band that only has a 50 person draw, which say at $10 tickets, 500 bucks a night, that means the agent gets 50 bucks a night. It might not be worth their time.

Some agents will definitely take a chance on new bands like that, but for the most part, agents want to see you doing a couple of 100 artists, even if it's 100 artists, or more. I don't know the exact number. Yes, all agents do different things, but I would imagine, they want to make sure they're going to get a couple of $100 a night in their pocket to do all these things. Because it's a lot of work booking bands and follow-up and all that other stuff. 

I think once they're at a level where they already sell out all their local gigs, all their venues, where they're from, they're the biggest game in town. Then they've gone out and they did some, I used to call it the wheel, like the spoke on wheel, where you go from your hometown, a couple hour drive to Boston. A couple hour drive to Philly, a couple hour drive to whatever, Chicago, something where you could drive back and forth to from your hometown. 

Then when you become big at all those levels, I guess regional, you'll call it, then maybe agents will start looking, saying, "Wow, these guys, these girls are doing amazing. They got 200 fans everywhere in the northeast, not just their hometown." That's something look forward to it. Once you scale that, maybe I as an agent can take this band and go national with them. If they could do 200, 300 seats in markets they're not even from, maybe they already. 
So I think that's when agents kind of see them, and agents will find out. You don't really have to search them out. They'll know. A venue will tell them. A venue owner will say or a promoter or talent buyer will say, "Man, I booked the span from New York. Every time they come into my Chicago venue, they got like 300 fans. We sell 300 tickets like that," and the agent will be like, "Oh, really? Cool. What's their name?" The agent will probably go after them sometimes.

Michael Walker:
So it sounds like what you're saying in terms of building a team, a lot of common knowledge is, oh, maybe we should get a manager first. Managers can be helpful, but booking agents play a role that takes so much energy and effort yourself and sometimes those connections are really hard to come by. I know with Paradise Fears, we actually did the exact thing that you're talking about. 

We never had a manager. We led ourselves, and we learned the music business ourselves, but we did have a booking agent that worked within Paradigm, the booking agency, and he was amazing and he played a huge role in our success. So booking agents are vital and sounds like what you're saying is that, the tricky thing with them is that you need to get to a certain point where you're able to draw a good amount of people both in your local markets, and even you have that wheel where you're able to play some of these other markets. 

So you're traveling two or three hours and you're able to spread out a bit in that when you reach that critical mass, then usually the way it works is that the venues will end up, through word of mouth, a lot of times booking agents, they understand what's going on, and if there's a band that's really starting to take off and is selling a bunch of tickets, then it piques their interest and a lot of times they'll reach out to the band.

Lou Plaia:
Yep, exactly. The A&R guys at a label, same thing with them. They'll be like, "Oh, how do I not know who this band is? I got bands signed to my label that can't draw 300 people and yet this unknown band is," and it's true. I go see bands all the time at 1,000 seat clubs that are signed to labels, big labels, and I don't know, there's like 200 people there. I'm shocked.

Michael Walker:
Totally. What's really interesting about this conversation, I think it flips the lid on what a lot of people ... Their mindset going into the music industry is that I just need to find the right person or I need to get signed to a record label and then when that happens, if they decide to invest in me, then I can finally be successful. So they want to reach out to everyone and they try to ... Maybe before they have any sort of proof of concepts and aren't getting any sort of responses. 

So it sounds like what you're saying is that one of the best ways that you can network and that you can get signed to a record label, and that you can get a booking agent, is by essentially getting yourself to a certain point first, where you're successful enough on your own, and that attracts those people.

Lou Plaia:
Yep, I totally agree. It's like, when you're in a band, you're running your own business and businesses are done the same way. You've got to show your proof of concept, like you said and you can't go out and raise money unless it's not just an idea, it's actually working. So with bands, it's the same way. If they're growing and growing and successfully growing, now, it's like, okay, now I need to go out, and maybe not raise money, but get my team members on board, because then there's something to manage.

Then once you have an agent, maybe you do need a manager, who could work with that agent. So you're not on the phone. You want to be out there perfecting your craft. Writing great songs, learning how to play better at live. Then the manager could talk with the agent all the time. So it's like growing your team. It's just like growing your business really.

Michael Walker:
Oh, what's up guys? So quick intermission from podcasts. I can tell you about an awesome free gift that I have for you. I wanted to share something that's not normally available to the public. They normally are reserved for our $5,000 clients that we work personally. This is a presentation called six steps to explode your fan base and make a profit with your music online, and specifically, we're going to walk through how to build a paid traffic and automated funnel that's going to allow you to grow your fan base online, and the system is designed to get you to your first $5,000 a month with your music.

We've invested over $130,000 in the past year to test out different traffic sources and different offers and really see what's working best right now for musicians. So I think it's going to be hugely valuable for you. So if that's something you're interested in, in the description, there should be a little link that you click on to go get that, and the other thing I wanted to mention is, if you want to do us a huge favor, one thing that really makes a big difference early on when you're creating a new podcast, is if people click Subscribe, then it basically lets the algorithm know that this is something that's new and noteworthy and that people actually want to hear. 
So that'll help us reach a lot more people. So if you're getting value from this, and you get value from the free trainings, then if you want to do us a favor, I'd really appreciate if you click on the Subscribe button. All right, let's get back to the podcast.

So when it comes to growing your team, and getting a manager or getting a booking agent, and all the different roles that you start to fill, what's the balance between being proactive and reaching out to people versus you're just focusing on your own success and letting people reach out to you? Is there a point where you think it makes sense to get organized and make a list of different people that you want to get in contact with and reach out to them? What are your recommendations there?

Lou Plaia:
I think that's what you should do. Just get organized, like you said, and hit up the people that make sense for you. If you're a pop punk band, put a list together of all these agents and managers, and even publications and playlist, really everything that fit your genre. So don't reach out to the biggest hip hop agency on the planet, if you're a pop punk band. I get it, bands want their music to be heard by everyone in the business, but they're probably not going to listen to you, and they're certainly not going to get back to you, if they're not in their wheelhouse.
So why waste your time and their time? Concentrate on those 25 booking agents, and 25 managers who really, really know pop punk and stop wasting your time trying to hit up death metal agents, and things like that. Just doesn't make sense. So a good organized list makes total sense to me.

Michael Walker:
That's a really good point too, about making sure that it's organized and it's focused on the people that make sense, that are relevant. Even on our Facebook ads that we run to bring artists into our community, there's so many comments on it, that it's just like, "Yo, check out my mixtape," or "Yo, check out my YouTube video." It's not the right place for it. It's cool to promote your music and to try to grow your audience, your fan base but you got to get smart about where your people are hanging out and they're not hanging out on that ad, for example.

Lou Plaia:
Right. Exactly. It's like, you could be spending that time, if you spend two hours a day spamming people that just don't make sense for you, you could be spending that two hours either reading a book on music business or write songs, write a couple 100 songs a year and not 10. Spend that time wiser, I guess is really what I'm trying to say, instead of spamming anyone.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, absolutely. So let's zoom back a little bit, because I think for a lot of artists, they may be trying to jump the gap a little bit too quickly. So they're like, "I just I need a team really quick. I need someone else to come and save me or I need someone else to come and basically help me blow up," and there is an in between step of while I need to grow my music business, I need to get to a point where the fire is going on the flames and it's enticing and it makes sense to bring other people into the team.

Do you have any recommendations in terms of when people are just getting started and they're past the stage where they've already done some open mic nights, and they started to get a little bit of traction, and they're growing. Maybe they have like 100 people or so that they can draw out to a local show, and they're just looking to reach the next level and to get in front of more people. What would your advice be for them?

Lou Plaia:
I think sites like ours, ReverbNation, and then the CD Baby, there's couple of companies out there. I think using our services to help manage your business. So a lot of people use an email system from some company, and then they'll use a press kit from another company. They're using a whole bunch of different companies, where you can use someone like a ReverbNation, who could be your home base for the basic tools.
We've got the email system, the press kit, distribution, publishing, administration, we do a lot of that. So you may want to align yourself with a company like ours, or like CD Baby, or a couple of other companies. Not many who can help you, very new, to the next level as well and again, not for people that are superstars. They don't need us anymore. Companies like ours are so cheap.

I mean, they're whatever they are. 10 bucks a month, 12 bucks a month, whatever it is, to get you everywhere you want to be on a basic level. Not going to make you a superstar, but can help manage your business properly. I always say, and I hate to say it, because it sounds horrible, but if you can't afford the 10 bucks a month to run your business, maybe you're either in the wrong business, or you're doing something wrong. That's not a lot, 10 bucks a month. 
If you have five bad numbers, that's $2 a month each. Then you're going to want to start doing some advertising. A lot of companies out there including ours ReverbNation, we offer not just Facebook ads, but to get ads on ... Kind of retargeting type ads, where it gets on rollingstone.com or mtv.com, or wherever people are listening to music, we can get your music or your events, your shows, or whatever listed on those websites as well. 

So you have to do some advertising, you have to invest money. I know it sounds very salesy of me, but you do have to invest and it's your company. You've got to invest in yourself and you could do it very cheaply to start. If it's not working, change the ad up or maybe you have to go back and write different songs, if it's not catching fire. Artists don't always want to hear that, but they do.

Michael Walker:
Totally. So it sounds like what you're saying is, there's a lot of different tools online right now that can help you to get started with your music business and it really is a business and ReverbNation is a great entry point for independent artists in terms of ... I'm pretty sure there's like a free profile for ReverbNation. It has a ton of awesome feature for the community.

Lou Plaia:
The free service is what most artists use. They're not at the level where they need the extra ... They're not even ready to distribute their music or they're not ready to submit to opportunities. So they use the free version. We have 5 million artists. I wish they were all paying us $10 a month, but they're not. They're not, believe me.

Michael Walker:
It's funny what you say to about how ... One of the biggest challenges I think I see for musicians is, and just people in general, I think is just making excuses or just coming up with reasons like, "Oh, I can't do this, because x, y and z. I can't do this. I can't afford $10 a month for the pro version of ReverbNation." There's always going to be other excuses that come up, or you can get resourceful and you can just figure out like, yeah, $10 a month for your music business, if it's your goal to do this full time and to actually make a full time income doing it, then $10 a month, it's nothing.
You have to be able to invest your time and your money and there's ways that you can make anything happen. I remember when I first started this business, Modern Musician, I'd been touring full time with my band and then I was about to start my family and I wanted to figure out a way to provide for them without traveling for 10 months out of the year. 

We had just bought a house and I didn't have any money left over at all. There was a business coaching program called Product Launch Formula. I went to this event, and there was like a $12,000 coaching program and I did not have $12,000 to invest. I found a way to make it work. So I utilized credits and there's different ... Within United States especially, there's a reason that we have the bankruptcy laws that we have and that we have credit in the first place.
It's so that we can make good investments. The issue with credit is a lot of people make stupid investments with that credit and buy things that they don't need. When it comes to something like your business, it's something you need to be able to invest in upfront, and it used to be the case that you needed $30,000 to start a new business and just have a retail location, and most of them failed. 

Now that we can do that for such a fraction of the price online, it's just incredible, but there is this mindset block, I think, around musicians, especially, where they're not necessarily seeing it as a business. They don't necessarily realize, this is something that I need to focus on, and I need to invest in, and I need to figure out my profit margins, and I need to have a return on investment and calculate everything that I need for it, and build a team around it. So 10 bucks a month, for what-

Lou Plaia:
It's crazy. One of our, I don't know if it's our ... We're ethically, whatever. We're very artist friendly. So we always say, if we're going to charge for any of our products, there's a la carte and there's bundles that we offer, you have to get something in return. So for 10 bucks a month, you're getting an email system, you're getting a press kit, you're getting all this stuff. 

Some of them are not happy with paying $10 a month for that, but yet, they'll submit 20 bucks to possibly play somewhere, where to me, it's a scam. It's like, pay to play sucks, pay to possibly play is really bad, but yet they're willing to pay to possibly get something, but not willing to pay for something you're getting.
There's companies out there who will charge you to possibly get something. It's like, wait a sec, other than the lottery and college applications, why are these companies scamming artists? It's like, artists have no money. They're pretty stupid people if they're going after people with no money to pay for something. If you're going to have a scam, go scam some rich people who actually have money to pay you.

Michael Walker:
That is funny. I guess if you're the type of person who is putting together some sort of scam like that, then I guess, you don't have the forethought to think, oh, this is actually a terrible idea.

Lou Plaia:
You're a bad person, and you're dumb as shit.

Michael Walker:
Cool. Another thing that I wanted to get your thoughts on are, early on, it sounds like such a huge part of the game is figuring out how to get the fire going, how to get the flames, how to grow an audience. Using some tools like having a mailing list is awesome to be able to connect with people and to cultivate a deeper relationship with the people that you already have started connect with. 

It sounds like what you're recommending to in terms of advertising is a great way to put your music in front of new people who've never heard of you before. So it's like completely cold, they've never heard of you before, get your music in front of them, bring them into more of a warm community of people that know who you are, connect with them, deliver value. So would you say advertising, is that the number one way that you found so far right now, in terms of putting your music in front of new people?

Is there a specific ad campaign that you found that's working really well? Are there other ideas or ways that you've seen that been really cool, like innovative ways that artists are growing their fitness?

Lou Plaia:
I think the advertising is actually better to reach maybe existing fans, let them know you have a new song out or you have a new show coming up, but I think what's even better to get new fans is really the playlisting thing. So I think somehow you've got to get on playlists that matter. So even more than advertising. I love the advertising and stuff like that and we do that at ReverbNation, but I would imagine, I'm pretty positive, actually, that the open rates and click through rates are much higher on artists that you already know. 

So if you see your favorite artist's ad, you might click on it, if it says a new song, where if I see an artist there that I've never heard of, it might take like four or five times for me to see that for me to actually click on it. Whereas a playlist if you can ... And you can hire people to help you out with this.

You just got to be very careful, because there are a lot of scam artists out there as well, but hire people to try to plug your music into some of the playlists that they have relationships with, things like that. Because if you get on the right playlist, you're going to get listened to and if the music's good, hopefully, they'll listen to it more than once and they'll turn their fans on to it, and maybe you'll get added to other playlists and hopefully that's how it'll go viral. 
The same thing on YouTube for the video side. You want to get, I don't know what the right word ... In the community where it's like together where people love your music, and they're just going to share with all their friends. I think playlisting is really where it's at now. It's the new radio. So you've got to be active on there. 

You can't just put up songs. No one's going to find you. It's not like in the old days with MySpace where everyone thought you'd put on music and people would find you. That never happens. If it happens, it's so rare. You've got to be out there getting on these playlists yourself. Create your own playlists with other big bands, and then try to get on bigger playlists. That's really the way to do it.

Michael Walker:
Cool. So it sounds like what you're saying is that there's different ways that you want to communicate and different tools you want to use, depending on your relationship with your fans. So if someone has already heard of you before, and they're already a fan, they've listened to some of your music, then some of those retargeting ads, which basically means you're targeting people that you've already connected with, are super powerful.
Because otherwise, if you release a new song, then they're just not going to know. How should they know that you did it? So many people's fans just never ... How often, if you're watching this right now, how often have you heard like a year or afterwards that one of your favorite bands had released a new album and you were like, "Oh, that's cool. Give us an album," and you hadn't heard of it. That's a wasted opportunity. 

So retargeting ads are really good for reconnecting with people that have already listened to music, they're already fans. In terms of new completely cold traffic, how likely is it that there's a new artist that you've never heard of before, and you're scrolling through, and you just decide to listen to some of their music? Pretty unlikely. So playlists can be a really great opportunity to get your music in front of new people who've never heard of you before.
I think it is an interesting time for the music industry right now, because I think there is sort of a challenge that I see with artists who it's like, playlists are so important and they're a great way to get your music in front of a lot of new people. Then now their challenge is like, how do we connect with people and bring them in after they listen to the songs and playlists? How do you build that connection?

Our most successful campaign that we're running right now, basically it's using cold ads but it goes pretty quickly into a conversational message with a fan where you're actually connecting with them, and you're getting to know them, and you're having a dialogue back and forth. 

Lou Plaia:
That's Cool. 

Michael Walker:
It is interesting, because I think you're 100%, right that if you're just sharing a song or something right off the bat, and they never heard of you before, it's unlikely that they're going to care, but if you actually put in the time upfront to get to know someone and connect with them as like a human being first and share your music, maybe share something that no one else really get to hear, then they get to connect with you and be a part of your journey and that helps you develop that relationship so that you can do retargeting down the line.

Lou Plaia:
Exactly. You put the effort at the beginning, and it'll hopefully expand and do things a little differently. You always have to change your ads anyway. As you get more involved, and learn more about the click throughs and open rates and who's listening, who's engaging, who's not, you might have to change a few things up. I think you're totally right. Something engaging is much better than just seeing a pretty face with what might be a song that you're interested in. Because they're all over the place, you got to be a little different.

Michael Walker:
Yeah, for sure. It's like going back to that fire analogy. It seems like at the beginning of starting the fire, almost without fail, you need to like that hustle. You need to have those two sticks, and you're rubbing it together and it's challenging and you get some sparks and you're like, "Come on, start." There is that flip that gets switched, when the fire does start and it takes a life of its own and now fans start sharing it through word of mouth and builds this fire and then other people with fires decide that you should put your flames together and grow a bigger fire, but a lot of it comes down to that spark and that ability to create and hone in that initial fan base and it does take engagement. It takes connection and it takes getting that initial fire started. 

Lou Plaia:
Exactly. I agree.

Michael Walker:
In terms of building a team, we talked a little bit about getting a booking agent, how a lot of times that can be a really great place to start. If you're at the level where you're ready to start touring nationally, that it's pretty essential that you find someone like that. At least it's going to save you like a lot, a lot of time and legwork of trying to reach out and build all those connections. So what else do you see as vital roles that you recommend starting to fill within the band once they start reaching a point that they should be building a team?

Lou Plaia:
So I guess you got agent, manager, possibly a label, if you want to go that route. You need funding, you need a staff to work at, label's a great place to go. Hopefully they want you. I guess, some genres, the producer is a team member. In the hip hop and pop genre, a producer might be considered part of your team. I guess every genre now, the producer has been so important in the last few years and really every genre, I guess that's a team member.
An attorney. Eventually you're going to need an attorney. I think at the beginning I never say it's part of your team, because maybe you want to hire them like on a case by case basis. "Look at my contract. Here's a 100 bucks, or 200 bucks," or whatever the cost is for an attorney, but once you get bigger, you may want to put a real attorney on your ... I don't want to say payroll, but give them a real relationship with them where they get a percentage of your sales and everything else as well.

They usually get five or 10% of everything as well. You'll need a business manager down the road. Obviously you hope you need business manager down the road because usually that's like an accountant kind of thing. Usually making a lot of money, you can't deal with it yourself, then you need a business manager. Who else would there be?
I guess a PR firm or a marketing firm, maybe that's probably your third. So you got your agent, your manager, maybe a PR/marketing type company. To me, if you really, really want to be in this game, I shouldn't say it's a game, you want to be in this business, you can't do it yourself, because you don't have the relationships, you don't have the knowledge most of the time.

So you probably do want to hire a marketing company or something like that, to do all this for you. A lot of them now do PR, they do playlist plugging, they'll even help you out trying to maybe hire the right college radio person. They're your connector, they're your marketing strategist and everything else and they cost money. 
You're probably not going to find something for under $1,000 a month, but, I'll tell you my business, we pay a lot more than $1,000 a month to run my business. So, again, it goes back to being in business. If you're serious about being a musician, you might have to hire some of this guys or girls, consultants now. They're considered consultants in a lot of cases, but there's a lot of artists' service companies and label service companies.

I've been talking to a lot of artists who started their own label. So they'll hire a label service company, and they'll basically do everything a label will do for you, but for a monthly fee, as opposed to taking 80% of your royalties, like a label would do. So I guess though, there's so many team members.
The DIY team member is the first one, that would be like a ReverbNation. We're the very first team member as your DIY type, basic services. Then the agent, then the manager, and then all these other people, I guess. That's my opinion. 

Michael Walker:
Cool. One analogy that I feel hits the nail on the head when it comes to marketing and the importance of marketing. I think for a lot of musicians, obviously, the reason that they became musicians wasn't because they were super focused on making money or marketing. There are a lot better industries you'd get into, if your main focus was you really cared about making money, but it's so important if you want to have a sustainable music career and you want to grow and reach more people and do all the things you really do care about. You need to have a sustainable business to do that. One analogy that I've heard when it comes to marketing, is that the songs, so the content and the product.
So the music is like the body of the car and it's like the car, and it can be shiny, look great and it can be super professional and polished, but the marketing is like, the engine. It's what actually drives the car forward. It's what makes it go places. So even if you have this amazing music and it looks great, if it just sits there, then nothing happens with it. The marketing is really what drives it forward. 

So one thing that you pointed out I think is really important is finding the right producer, finding someone to be a part of your musical production team. I know for us with Paradise Fears, when we first started out, we were recording in our garages with GarageBand, the difference between that and when we worked with our first real producer who had worked with some of our favorite bands was just ridiculous. It was just night and day.

It wasn't because we became so much more talented. Yeah, we improved, we honed our craft, but the difference was ridiculous and it was because we were working with someone whose full-time job was working with tons of artists like us. So when it comes to production, and I do know that a lot of artists, we have this amazing opportunity right now with the price of home studios, where we really can produce ourselves, we have all the gear and we can record ourselves. 
But sometimes it misses that ability to just be the artists and to not worry about setting everything up and doing all the production. There's something creatively that can be hurt by that. So when it comes to getting started, let's say that someone is listening to this and they've invested in some producers locally, or they found some people, but they're wondering about taking it to the next level, or maybe the songs didn't turn out quite as good as they were hoping to, or their experience wasn't that great. How would you recommend they go about finding the right producer?

Lou Plaia:
I think, I'm not in the recording world but I would imagine the best thing to do is listen to your favorite bands and bands that you want to sound like. They don't necessarily have to be a favorite band, but if you have a band that's like, "Oh, I love the sound. I love what these guys are doing. It's a little different than what's out there and we want to do the same thing," find out who that producer is and give them a ring. 

A lot of producers have a lot of downtime and they're looking for clients. Because like what you said, a lot of bands are recording on their own and not using producers as much as they used to and not using recording studios as much as they used to, The good ones are out there and they're not as expensive as you would think a lot of times, especially when you find them on downtime. 

So just look at what you're doing. I know where I live, a lot of the producers here are very good. However, a lot of the bands wind up sounding the same. I've shopped around some bands that I really like in my area, in New York and a lot of times the A&R personal in Nashville will be like, "This sounds like an 80s Long Island van." I'm like, "Oh God, here we go." I have heard that so many times. So I'm thinking to myself, well, maybe some of the bands where I live need to use different produces to sound ... If they're looking sound commercial, mainstream what's going on today, relevant today, the indie rock sound and things like that, they need to find a producer that can help them get to that level.
If the band does not want to deviate from what they're doing, they want to be whatever, an old school, 80s metal band, then fine, be an old school, 80s metal band. Unfortunately, it's going to be hard to have a career doing that because rock in that world is not doing very well right now. So you may want to change it up. If you're happy with playing in front of 100 people a night and not more, if you're happy with not getting on many playlists, be an 80s metal band, but if you want to do this for a living, work with a producer who might be able to change a few things to make your music more relevant today, which people are listening to.

I don't think a lot of bands do that. They listen to their girlfriend or their boyfriend and their best friends and of course, everyone's going to say your music is great, but it might not be great. Get an outside ear. Things like that. 

Michael Walker:
That's a really good point. So if you haven't noticed it, I love analogies. I use analogies every possible point I can, but when you mentioned 80s bands, and going back to a time that's like already past its prime. One analogy that I like think of is, that it's like catching waves in terms of like, we're like surfers we're out there and there's certain waves that they were massive, but they already kind of passed. If you were there, when it was passing, then you could swim along with it and catch it and get this huge momentum boost. 
But a lot of people now are trying to swim and try to catch this way that's already passed and it's challenging when instead, if you're a good surfer, what you do is you look back and you see what are the approaching waves? It's hard because they haven't passed yet. So it's like, they're a little bit more ... It's vague and you're still figuring it out, but you can still sense it. You can be like, "This is what the current lay is," and you can look out and be like, "Oh, there's this big wave coming," and if you start swimming along with it at the right velocity, then you can catch the wave and it can shoot you out.

Lou Plaia:
A lot of it's timing and a lot of it is luck. This business is like that. It really is. 

Michael Walker:
I do think one of the concerns that I hear in response to this idea is as a musician, well, I don't want to sell out, or I don't want to sacrifice my artistic identity and change who I am to try to fit this mold of what's going to be popular. So, I think with everything, there's a certain amount of balance and you don't want to just totally become someone else that you aren't in order to, you'll fit this other mold.
Probably that wouldn't even work. When you see bands do that, it's so obvious. It has no soul. That doesn't work. It's not real. So that's not going to work and what actually does work is when you are completely authentic and you're yourself, but you're relevant and you incorporate some of those different elements of the waves that are coming right now, but you do it in your own way. So you're your own unique expression of that.

Lou Plaia:
Exactly. Yep. Totally great. 

Michael Walker:
Sweet, dude. So man, there's some really good stuff in here. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk on this interview.

Lou Plaia:
Anytime. Thank you. I appreciate it. I love all these analogies. I'm stealing a bunch of them.

Michael Walker:
Go ahead, man. There's just a copyright. So you're just going to have to write on the screen every time. So let's say that someone's watching this right now and they're like, "ReverbNation. I've heard about it before, but I haven't created an account yet. It sounds really cool." What do you recommend in terms of next steps for if they want to learn more or if they want to connect more with you?

Lou Plaia:
I'd say, if you want to learn more about ReverbNation, go to the site, join up for free. Put a couple of songs up there, look at the bottom of the site and see all the stuff we have to offer. We don't do a great job of telling people up front what we do. Even though it's 15 years late, a lot of people still don't know all we do. We say we're an artist services company because it's kind of what we are. We're not necessarily a fan site. 
A lot of artists will also say, "Oh, well the fans are artists." I'm like, "Well, yeah, most of them, but we never claimed to be. We're not trying to be Facebook." I would say to artists, just check it out and check out other sites as well.
You don't have to be on one site. Bandcamp is great for certain things, ReverbNation is great for certain things and just try to get your music out there. Try to be real. Submit to things when you're ready. You don't want to get turned down by everything. It doesn't mean you're bad. It just means you're not ready for it. Sometimes you're amazing in submitting the things and you still don't get picked because it might just be, I don't know, that festival, might not have a country stage for you this year or they already found one artist that they booked. 
So you just got to keep trying. Don't give up. If that's what you love to do, don't give up. I know it's easier said than done and get educated. Really, really learn. There's so many websites. Hypebot.com and there's so many websites out there. You guys, there's so many things you can learn. I teach a course at college on concert production and promotion.
I never knew how to put together a concert. I could do the promotion side, I think, but the production side, but I just learned. There's books out there. You just learn and then go to shows and watch how things are done. Go to networking events. Do all that. Music conferences are amazing. Go to as many music conferences as you can. Learn from other bands, learn from the industry, meet with them, learn from the panels, just learn. It's a business. Learn.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Absolutely. I definitely recommend everyone, if you haven't checked it out yet, ReverbNation's awesome. At least signing up for the free profile. I remember for us, one of the first festivals we ever got was this festival in Texas and it was because we submitted for an opportunity through ReverbNation. So yeah, it's awesome. Awesome place to be. Dude, again, thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your expertise. Super valuable and yeah, man, really appreciate you taking the time.

Lou Plaia:
Thank you. Appreciate it, man. Be good. Be safe. 

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about the guest today and if you want to support the podcast, then there's few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, then that'll make sure you don't miss a new episode.
Secondly, if you share it with your friends or on your social media, tag us. That really helps us out, and third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you who want to take their music career to the next level. The time to be a modern musician is now, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.