Originally Posted by: dimefeveris there any/? these days hard to get a record deal,,,does anyone dream of being dave mustaine,mark tremonti, Id like to know.. I you do so,whats your plan, Please mention in vast details...since this thread is gonna help all of us who are started out with the hope of becoming a rockstar,,,and now the real life situation..THIS DISCUSSION IS OPEN FOR ALL

-First is; watch 'The Rise and Fall Western Civilization: The Metal Years'
-Then don't curse me because I forced you to watch that
-Do the exact opposite of what you see in the 'Metal Years' movie

The first thing you should do is stop planning and hoping to be a rock star. The likelihood of it happening is so small that it is shockingly unlikely.

I'm not saying that to rain on your parade. In addition to it being the truth, it will be a distraction. Step number one is getting good at your craft of playing and composing. Until that is happening, the rest will never happen.

Focus on being great at what you create musically.

Be honest with yourself musically. Most of us guitar players see our heros and think we may never be that good. Even when we start to master stuff and actually become pretty darn good. My ability to play is well beyond what I had hoped when I started many years ago. Still, I watch a guitar master and realize how little I really have as mastery over the instrument.

Key here is; be honest with both your musical successes and weakness. Be honest with where on the 'skill scale' that puts you. This will help you understand how you measure up to your heros.

Once the quality of your creations has lifted to a level of marketable, then you can think about how to make a living out of it (..but not rock star yet). You have to get out there and play in front of people. It doesn't matter if you think you created a masterpiece, if you play in front of people and it falls flat...Did you create a masterpiece. Other people need to like it.

If you want to be a rock star, remember that you are as much a product (like canned soup) as you are creating out of love of music. You might think it is art but the marketing people at a label have to sell it. That product better be sale-able in some substantial way. You don't have to sell out. You do have to make sure that you have a target audience worth selling to and that starts with knowing what works and what doesn't. You get that by playing in front people at clubs and the like.

Ready for the big time yet? Not yet.

Gotta demo your stuff. Lucky that you can get a nice DAW for next to nothing and make pretty good recordings...but that means that, instead of spending tall cash in a studio for some demos, you have to learn how to record yourself...which is itself and art. Either way, a demo must come.

Have all of that? That's the easy part.

Now you have to get that in front of somebody. If you are a metalhead, you options for label support are very limited. Almost non-existent at true major labels. Still, you have decent options like Nuclear Blast and Century Media and a few others (RoadRunner maybe but that's almost a major).

Do you have a manager? A lawyer? Who gets the demo in the front door? You can send a demo to a label and hope they listen to it.

At once point in my life, my then business had a small, independent record label. We released nearly 30 discs in our label's life. We had national distribution in Canada and large chain record store support in the US (Tower/Best Buy). Still, we were merely a bump in the music business' road.

Back to sending the label a demo...Even with our small time label, we got hundreds of demos a week. Hundreds. Most were complete and utter garbage. Just awful stuff. Harsh? Yes....go back the paragraph about being honest with yourself. Truly. Just because you created music does not mean it's good.

So, when you send that label a non-descript demo package, knowing that a decent sized label is going to get way more than my small time operation; how is yours going to stand out? Not to mention, the competition is much more stiff.

The music business is first and foremost, a business. If you want to be a true artist, create for yourself. If you want to be a rock star, understand that you will need to give u some level of control.

Back to the manager or lawyer.

I've known quite a number of well known people in the business (former rock stars, managers etc). If your stuff is truly stand out stuff and you can get a good industry manager, then your demo gets a priority listen. Remember, it's a business. The old saying about 'it's not what you know but who you know' very much applies here.

So, you got all that and a label signs you. Start counting the 'Benjamins'? Not likely.

Your disc may not even be released if the label doesn't see it as a priority. Even if it does, how much promotion will they put behind it? That promotion costs money and they are going to take it out of the dollars your disc generates. In effect, you pay for it. Anything the label pays for (recording, promotion, tour support, manufacturing) comes out of your budget from your release. That's if they decide to support it. Many labels don't favor tour support. Yet, that might be the best bet you have...You may be faced with going it alone on touring. Renting a 15 person van and hoping your manager is connected enough to attach you to a current tour...that you will be paying for yourself.

After all that, you start to sell some discs. All those downloads on iTunes? Rhapsody subscriptions? The return on MP3-type content is so small that you have to have a massive volume if downloads to make a small amount of money. Still, you are selling some discs. Say you sell 100,000. That is a huge amount of sales. Assume from that the label has now seen profit on their investment.

Do they start writing royalty checks to you?

Often times, no. I've talked to a good few experienced major label guys that got shanked out of 10-20 grand because it was to expensive to sue the label for it. So the label kept it...Remember, the music business is a slimy business.

However, if you got the right lawyer, you may be able to avoid that pitfall. Maybe. The key here is, you have to have made enough money for the label where the label realizes that it would be to expensive for them to not pay you.

Back to the songwriting aspect. Where you do make money in the business is by being a songwriter. The only aspect in the process where you get paid is writing the actual song.

Make sure you have a publishing company set up and incorporated. Make sure you have associated with a service that will collect songwriting royalties on your behalf (ie- Harry Fox). For every song you sell, you get approximately 7 cents per minute per song (ie - a 3 minute song would get you 21 cents equalling for a 10 song disc $2.10....give or take on that).

Yet, you are still not a Dave Mustaine having sold 20 million units...You are still a modestly recognized act with a following grinding it on tour.

This is where the hard work really starts...

Sounds very disheartening, all that?

It is but it's the business. The truth is, it all starts with the quality of music you create and the understanding of how good it either is or is not. Why did Metallica sell a ba-jillion units if the Black Album? Love it or hate it, it was good. It was relatable to a large audience. Remember though, before that happened, the band had to grind it out for years. A decade. Then they hit it huge.

Thus end the Music Business 101 lesson.

;)