Outside the Jukebox

by Scott Bradlee

  The road to success is often a desolate and lonely one. To truly dedicate yourself to a project requires that everything else in your life temporarily take a back seat. Personal relationships suffer. Leisure time is forfeited. Even sleep becomes an inconvenience.

  Initially, my experiences with success were nothing but positive. At events and shows, everyone went out of their way to accommodate me and make sure I was enjoying myself. Companies sent me free products in the hopes that I would plug them online. My reality seemed to have a filter on it that removed all negative interactions with people. And while I wasn’t famous famous, I would occasionally get recognized by total strangers, which was usually pretty flattering and thrilling… save for slightly disappointing exchanges like this one:

  PERSON ON THE STREET: Hey! I know you!

  ME: Oh? Are you a fan of Post—

  PERSON: YOU PLAY PIANO FOR THE CLOWN!

  ME: Yep, that’s me.

  Back at my table at South Beverly Grill, however, everyone was well acquainted with my work and knew who I was. They showered me with compliments, gushing over how I was shepherding in a new era of classic entertainment and building a cutting-edge platform for discovering and breaking new artists. Jaron nodded in agreement, then told them they didn’t know the half of what we had planned for the future. Rook was still taking notes but also hitting the sake pretty hard. I liked having these two at meetings with me; they felt like family.

  My actual family was very proud of me, but they were naturally a bit worried about how big this project was becoming. My life, lately, had been anything but simple, and to my parents—two people who had always embraced a life of simplicity—this was cause for concern. A barrage of contracts hit my inbox daily as new shows were added to our schedule. Large sums of money flowed in and out of my company account as checks came in from shows, music sales, and the occasional song placement. On a holiday visit back East in late 2015, my parents noted that I seemed distracted, as though I wasn’t really fully present. Defensively, I wanted to show them that they just didn’t understand the magnitude of the project I was dealing with, so I sat them down, and we did the math: I was on track to earn more in a year than my parents had in their lifetimes.

  “Our son is rich,” my mom uttered aloud, though in more of a concerned than exuberant manner. The stakes for this project had gone way up, and what had started off as a fun hobby was now a high-risk business with dozens of employees, whose very livelihoods depended on the project’s continued success. My parents knew that with that development came even greater pressure to succeed. It was a far cry from the simple life we’d enjoyed when I was growing up.

  I grew used to being congratulated on my success by friends and family, but any time I felt like I had finally, just maybe, “arrived,” the goalposts would move, and a shinier milestone would appear for me to set my sights on. I was eager to see what the future held, and so for the time being, at least, I was generally able to keep this pressure in check. There was a part of me, though, that recognized this wasn’t going to be a sustainable way of life for very long.

  MAKING IT WITHOUT A RECORD DEAL

  When I was in my twenties, all I wanted was a record deal. Being “signed” sounded so impressive. I fantasized about going back to New Jersey and being able to tell people around town with a cool nonchalance that I was a major label recording artist. Having a label spend a whole bunch of money to help me make art and then spend even more money to get that art in front of people sounded like a dream situation.

  I know I’m not alone in having thought this way. Lots of artists wonder how to get a record deal, as though everything is easy street after that one hurdle is cleared. The fact of the matter is that if you need a record deal, you won’t get one—at least not anymore. Today, being a talented singer, a great songwriter, or an innovative composer just isn’t enough to land a major label deal. Today’s labels are looking for safe bets with proven track records of ticket sales. In fact, most of the great artists from the past that we love probably would not have gotten record deals in today’s market. It’s important to understand this because many assume that record deals are just awarded to the most talented individuals. The modern-day record industry excels at expanding upon existing commercial success, but it’s no longer interested in nor deft at scooping up raw, unknown talent and sculpting superstars.

  Now, this may be the new reality, but how you choose to act in light of it is squarely on you. You can lament what’s lost and rue the artless machine that has supplanted a once innovative recording industry, which is a line of thinking I’ve fallen victim to, but it never leads anywhere useful. Or, you can forge a way forward, using today’s technology to empower yourself and build a career that isn’t dependent on a big record label.

  Nearly all the tools that once gave record labels huge advantages over unsigned, independent musicians are now available to everyone the world over. Albums and singles can be recorded on a personal laptop and distributed on iTunes, Spotify, and other platforms with just a few clicks. Projects can bypass investors and a record label’s recoupable advances against royalties with crowdfunding on sites like Kickstarter and Patreon, and fan bases can be established and marketed to for very little money on social media. The great paradox of the age we live in, then, is that it’s one in which it’s exceedingly difficult to secure a record deal, and yet pursuing the path of an independent musician has never carried with it more potential upside. Another way to look at it: For the first time in the history of recorded music, you now have the astounding ability to become your own record label.

  Sometime after moving to Los Angeles, I found myself in the enviable position of being courted by multiple record labels. The part of me that could still viscerally recall the struggle of being a young musician was ecstatic, and the prospect of finally having my talent validated by the industry inflated me with hope. But the more I learned about the financials of the record deals on offer, the more it dawned on me that they might not be necessary for Postmodern Jukebox. You see, I’d singlehandedly invested and risked the money and sweat that an old-school label would have once provided to get PMJ to the level where we had millions of fans, and now I was making good money on digital sales without a label. Meanwhile, thanks to the complexities of what is actually referred to as “record label accounting,” many of my friends with traditional deals had yet to see even a penny in royalties.

  Jaron agreed that a traditional record deal just didn’t make sense for me anymore. He even said as much during some of the label meetings we took, in part in order to prove this truth to me:

  JARON: So, to cut right to it, a traditional label deal just doesn’t make any sense for us.

  RECORD LABEL EXECUTIVE: (confused) So… what are we having this meeting for?

  JARON: I just want you guys to know that we don’t need you. My client has built a massive platform, and we’re just skimming the surface of what’s possible. This thing is going to be fucking huge.

  RECORD LABEL EXECUTIVE: Well, it was nice hearing about what you’re doing.

  JARON: Sure thing—thanks for dinner.

  Of course, if you’re comfortable giving up some creative control in exchange for a better chance at big-time fame, then signing a record deal might not be the worst move for you. Certainly, if you’re looking to be a Top 40 artist, your best bet is to sign with a major label and work with the writers and producers the label recommends. Terrestrial radio is still king in the Top 40 world, and the major labels have virtually a monopoly on radio. Modern record labels are built around the goal of producing hit singles for artists, which in turn drive ticket sales and lead to sponsorships, TV and film appearances, and other moneymaking content.

  If you do choose to go it alone or team with an independent label, you can still make albums, tour, land sponsorships, and strike licensing deals. If you enjoy having an active role in business dealings, you might prefer to act as your own label and hire people to perform the various duties that labe
ls provide their artists. When you’re your own record label, you can do things the way you want, whenever you want.

  My advice to artists is not necessarily to avoid record deals but to instead imagine that you may never get the opportunity to sign one. How would you release your music? How would you build a following? How would you make money? These are not rhetorical questions. Rather, they’re questions whose answers will guide your creative efforts—and eventually your future.

  ENGAGE, CROWDFUND, RELEASE, MONETIZE

  If you’re starting from scratch, there’s a very basic cycle to follow that I still use to this day: Engage, crowdfund, release, monetize, repeat. Each time you go through this cycle, you have the opportunity to make new fans, make more money, and further develop your career as an artist. You also get a chance to find out firsthand what works and what doesn’t, which in turn allows you to optimize the cycle for better results.

  Engagement refers to all the different ways you draw in your existing fans, which also includes friends and family. (In fact, when I was just starting out, they were the only fans I had!) To engage your fans, start by showing them something that might be of interest to them. Examples include sharing a video of you playing a snippet of a song on social media, or posting a poll and leaving it up to your followers to decide what kind of video you will make, or starting a discussion about something that is important to you and possibly to them, too. Engaging your fan base means building a connection, so that they feel invited to go on a journey with you. This more than any other step is the key to launching any successful project because no success can happen without fans first being engaged. Some people—perhaps especially those of us who are private—might feel more resistance to this than others, but you don’t need to completely unload your personal life on display for public consumption. You just need to show people that you’re a unique talent with unique and interesting preoccupations. Over the years, my own efforts to engage fans have taken the form of everything from asking fans to Photoshop funny pictures of me to curating a series of reviews of (inevitably disappointing) airport lounges.

  Crowdfunding is very simply the way of the future for financing creative projects. For artists who are uncomfortable asking their fans for things, this doesn’t necessarily have to translate into “give me money so I can make stuff.” Crowdfunding can also be done in the form of more traditional sales items, like an album preorder or a special deluxe package. In fact, the only difference between crowdfunding an album and selling it through a traditional channel is that with crowdfunding, the selling takes place upfront. Because of that—and because people are more tentative about spending money on a product they can’t yet see or sample—I always seek to be as specific as possible when announcing a crowdfunding project. Share your inspiration for the project, your vision, and a rough timeline. The more that people can get a clear picture of what you’re trying to achieve, the more likely they are to pledge their support.

  Of all the steps in the cycle, release is the one that takes the most effort. That’s because it involves putting together the project you’ve spent weeks just talking about doing. If you’re a perfectionist like I used to be, you already know how I feel about that: Keep those tendencies in check! If you have trouble seeing projects through, it may help to use some of the crowdfunding money to hire a producer who can keep you on track. A project that is fifty, seventy-five, or even ninety-five percent done doesn’t count as a release. To complete this step, you must find a way to follow through.

  Monetizing can be as basic or complex as you allow it to be. An upside of crowdfunding is that you will (hopefully) already be out of the red by the project’s completion; if that’s the case, any extra sales you make will just be icing on the cake. Use the surplus to help fund the next project, or to buy falafel sandwiches, or whatever. If your project is a song or an album, you can monetize it by listing it on iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp, etc. If it’s a video, you can monetize it by running ads with it on a site like YouTube or by selling—via the many online outlets that let you upload your design and/or logo to a variety of templates and unbranded items—merch that ties in to your project’s release. Think everything from t-shirts, hats, beer coozies, and bottle openers to temporary tattoos, pins, phone cases, underwear—whatever. If your creation takes the form of text, sell it online worldwide as an e-book. In today’s on-demand marketplace, the goods being sold are only produced when a customer places an order for them. The site takes a cut of your sales, but in return it handles all the logistics, production, and shipping of the merch. What’s especially great is that, because you’re not stocking any inventory, you don’t run the risk of overestimating consumer interest and winding up with negative earnings and boxes upon boxes of unsold boxer shorts in your living room.

  If you think your project has the potential to take off in a big way, you can support it with an outside marketing and publicity firm to expand its reach, though that’s not always necessary. If you’re just starting out, I suggest setting a successful completion of the cycle for the first time as your goal.

  Once you’ve successfully engaged your fan base, crowdfunded an idea, and released and monetized a project, it’s nice to take a second to congratulate yourself… before getting right back to work. The system can help you build a foundation for a career, but if you stop for too long and lose momentum, it will be harder to get the engagement level back up again. If I learned one thing from our initial money-losing and break-even tours, it’s that worrying too much about sales figures or end results can lead you to make suboptimal short-term decisions. Just celebrate the fact that by moving through the cycle and doing what you love, you’re officially an artist.

  When artists who are brilliantly talented but clueless about how to find and reach their audience without a record deal come to me for advice, I frequently tell them Morgan James’ story. Through dedication, intelligence, and a willingness to engage with her fans, she used the Postmodern Jukebox platform as a jumping-off point to build a platform of her own, one that could take her as far as she wants to go. Whereas many artists are passively reactive, waiting for other people to discover them and build a following for them, Morgan was decidedly proactive in making things happen for herself. She understood that, at the end of the day, she was the only person responsible for her career.

  When her Postmodern Jukebox videos and tour appearances began to put her in front of millions of people, Morgan looked for ways to turn Postmodern Jukebox fans into fans of Morgan James as well. Her YouTube channel had a small but dedicated following, which she grew by regularly posting covers, acoustic performances, and behind-the-scenes footage. On Facebook and Instagram, she uploaded engaging photos from her travels and interacted with her fans. When PMJ was touring, she was often the cast member to linger the longest in the lobby after a show, signing autographs and giving out cards with her upcoming dates so that fans could keep in touch with her. She knew the importance of maintaining a personal connection with a fan base, and she also knew how to allow fans to help her achieve her dreams.

  Morgan came back from our Europe tour with a fivefold increase to her Facebook fan following, and her appearances on our North American tour generated even more buzz. Night after night, as she sang “Take Me to Church,” she had the crowds holding their breath, mesmerized. By the summer of 2015, she had amassed a following of more than a hundred thousand people and was headlining shows of her own across the country.

  If being consistently involved with your fans over a long period of time is one way to build a following, then strategic impatience is another. The performers who successfully make the jump from Postmodern Jukebox to their own solo careers—and there have now been quite a few of them—all have that quality of restlessness about them. What we’re told as children about the value of “waiting our turn” doesn’t necessarily hold true when you get off the playground and into the world of adults. Waiting around in the hopes of being discovered as an artist has never been a good strategy. Go
ahead and be impatient. We only have thirty thousand days on this planet, give or take, and the typical life span of a career in music is a small fraction of that. You don’t need to do the math to get the message: There’s not enough time to be wasting it waiting for someone else to decide when you’re up for your time in the spotlight.

  Whenever you hear “it’ll never work,” in response to an idea you might have, take it for what it is: a challenge. Standing out from the crowd requires real mental toughness, and if you can’t stand up for yourself when people try to shame you into abandoning your dreams, you’ll never be prepared to face the obstacles that come your way when you finally do start to experience success. When someone challenges your vision in a way that doesn’t sit right with you, don’t waste your time arguing with them or trying to change their mind. Instead, thank them for their concern and just continue on your journey.

  SETTING UP SHOP

  Although PMJ’s touring operation wasn’t yet profitable, the recording side of things certainly was. Helped by the viral success of “Creep,” I was getting large checks from digital sales and streams each month in 2015. It had become increasingly clear to me that Postmodern Jukebox was the only record label I needed. My team—which had grown to include a social media department and a marketing expert—and I wound up handling pretty much all the functions of a larger, formal record label anyway. Like the A&R divisions of the past, we identified singers, dancers, and musicians with talent and developed them into artists with followings—artists who could then go on to release albums and mount tours of their own. Whereas the major labels would only take existing success and magnify it, PMJ was building artists from scratch and helping them find the success they deserved. My job as a producer was to identify the qualities of a particular performer that made the person unlike any other performer on the planet and then conceive of a unique and attention-grabbing way to showcase them.