 I'm lucky enough to be in a social circle with managers, A&R, record producers, and other bookie agent types all around the business who are constantly sending new music back and forth to see if we could spot holes in a reason somebody should or should not work with somebody that they're thinking about taking on as an artist. But there's one detail that so many musicians miss that's counterintuitive to how they think about things all the time that I see as a glaring mistake that's made all the time that makes them lose opportunities. In this video, I'm gonna discuss how you shouldn't talk publicly to the music business instead connect with fans. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon. This is Muse Formation and welcome to my office quarantine bunker. In this playlist that I've made on how to grow a fan base from zero to 10,000 fans, I've talked a lot about being a DIY band, but there's obviously times you need to pitch people for partnerships or potential teammates to be on your side as a manager of record label or booking agent or whatever. But the thing I wanna insist on you is there's two things to do. Everything that's placed in public around the web is meant for public consumption and should not talk to the music business. It should talk to fans. What I like to say is if you wanna spit facts and talk about what the music business should think of you, you should do that behind the scenes in your interactions with them and not in public. But aside from a numbers game, music business types are looking for two to three things when they're thinking about who they potentially are gonna work with. One, do I like them? Two, do other people like them? Three, do they get it? And that's what I wanna focus on in this video is number three mostly. Now, number one is fully subjective. All you could do is hope to make great music and hope that it connects with the person that you're pitching. But for number two and three, these are often one and the same. Other people will like you if you make great music and don't make them cringe when they go to look at the rest of what you do. One of the reasons I'm making this video is last night I went to check out one of my favorite bands I've been listening to that my friend is scouting and when I saw their videos, all I did was full body cringes and cover my eyes in horror. They now don't wanna work with this group even though they love their songs because everything they are doing is so cheesy and backwards. It just shows that it's gonna be so much effort to get any momentum going with them since they're doing everything so wrong. In this video, I wanna talk about what that cringe looks like. Most music business types can easily see on your Spotify monthly listens and followers on socials if people are enthusiastic now. We all know what bots and sock puppets look like or if your fan base is based on a single playlist placement. So what I wanna mostly talk about is number three on that list. Do they get it? And for that I'm gonna bring in a visual to help explain it. For those of you who aren't terminally online and have the ability to log off, I give you the Virgin versus Chad Walk meme format. This meme is a famous one meant to show the dichotomy between someone who sucks at life and someone who's doing it right. Well, okay, that may be a stretch but we're gonna go with it for this example. First up, let's talk about one of the saddest things I see in 2020 which is bands that are still concerned with what you're gonna put in your EPK. If you have a public facing EPK in 2020 or even say that term, you are terminally lame. Even just saying those three letters together makes me think of lame 2000s MySpace acts. But you may be thinking, Jesse, I read your Get More Fans 2020 edition and you said to show the music business you mean business by bragging about metrics. I sure did but what you missed is that's for private presentation to music business types, not your Spotify bio. Instead you should be assembling a good looking deck that brags about you. It is meant for select music business eyes that you email and have this on hand to pitch anyone you partner with or discuss your music or coming on board on their team. But talking about the stuff in your Spotify bio or website or God forbid a fucking reverb nation profile is the utmost sign you don't get it. Fabiously Trent Rezor toured all the major indies with a pitch deck of Bolton boards like this explaining how he would take over music business. While Trent didn't have to worry about presenting himself on the internet back then, I'll tell you what he didn't do which is show potential sales numbers to the fans. Remember, EPKs are for virgins, decks are for chads. What you should be doing instead though is telling your story publicly. And what I mean by your story is the thing I've talked about before is you need to figure out what makes you special in a way that invites more fan curiosity about you. They want something they can tell their friends about you when they are telling them to listen to you. Think about what that is and repeatedly ask yourself, what do I want my fans to tell their friends about me? Then use that material for social media posts, your website and Spotify bio. What you shouldn't be doing is talking about who you open for or how many people you played to since no one gives a fuck about that. And if you even did do that, there'd be pictures or video of it anyway. Also definitely don't tell us how you met unless it was in jail or at one of those weird eyes wide shut sex party type things. So back to who gets it and who doesn't. The Verge is the type of person who thinks it's effective to send their demo to every music business person they can find an email of. But the Chad knows bonding with fans is what all the music business people want to see. After all, the first thing the potential person on your team wants to see is that you get in, they're not gonna have to teach you how to interact with fans since that's so much of a building a fan base these days. So what that means is you should show in your social media and behind the scenes videos that you get how to interact with fans and you know how to talk to them. Connecting with fans and finding community, which I explained much more in a video that's linked right here and below is the only thing that works. Since if potential team members don't see numbers and the signs that you get how to do that they aren't gonna work with you anyway. This also means that you shouldn't mention that you're unsigned or DIY or for that matter call yourself a recording artist or talk about getting a fucking record deal. Just call yourself something fans can understand you with. I just did a video on Brock Hampton and they call themselves a boy band which makes a frame for their fans to see them through and creates a conversation piece around the group since they're a weird boy band and they don't fit that normal category. Those terms I just told you not to use create no conversation since they're totally uneventful. Instead talk to your fans about how you see yourself and the lens they should see you through. And that can be even as simple as you're just having fun you guys are a bunch of goofs or you're a weird art project but they need some lens. And recording artists or DIY are unsigned does not tell them any lens that's anything uneventful. So to tie this all up we have to remember anytime you're in public you're talking to fans and you're trying to make them create more curiosity about you. Doing anything else is lame and cringe worthy and a waste of your time. Thanks for watching. That's it. Am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I wanna answer them. So leave them in the comments. I hope you liked this video and if you did please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos since I'm gonna be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything. Playlist or con artists only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you wanna learn more about me make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do head to jessicanon.com or at jessicanon.com on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing, if you liked this video there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.