Asking Random People at NAMM for Music Marketing Advice

In this video, I asked random people from NAMM for some music marketing [music] advice. Now, if you're not familiar with the NAMM Show, it's one of the largest music conferences in the world. Technically, it's for music manufacturers like guitar companies, pedals, drums, flute manufacturers, etc. where they go and they show off their new gear. But, the artists that are endorsed by these brands and just essentially everyone from the music industry, or not everyone obviously, but a lot of people go. So, it's a great excuse to just have a bunch of people from the music industry in one place at the same time. So, it's great to go there and connect with people that you've only known virtually online. And of course, it's it's in Anaheim, California, so it's right near LA and there's a ton of music industry people in LA. So, I go there and there's tons of people that I essentially only see when I go to NAMM, either because they live in LA and we hang out or they're going to the NAMM Show, too, and so we're hanging out on the show floor. So, that's the scoop on NAMM. Now, let's get into the advice. Dustin, if you only had 1 minute to give music artists the best advice you possibly could, what would you say? Is this what you ask people in your interviews? >> Yeah, we're going to be doing this in a couple weeks again. >> Yeah. You see you like how I'm stalling here? >> Yeah, you're stalling. Only got 50 seconds left. 49. >> But it's always so trite. It's like post every [ __ ] day. Actually, the the real Okay. What is valuable about your music? Why would somebody hit play on your music? Just think about that question every single day. Why would somebody hit play on your music? Look at that. Didn't even need 60 seconds. Keon, if you were trying to get endorsed by a brand for the very first time as a way to help you kind of fund all the stuff that's around being an artist, what would your approach be? Um honestly, my approach would be to uh always change that mindset. I think uh a lot of you know, up-and-coming creatives, which is just today, kind of get a bit too ahead of themselves and think like, "How can I get free stuff?" And uh and I feel like that's not the the right way to think about it. You shouldn't have that expectation because it's just not healthy for anyone. It's not healthy for you, it's not healthy for the brand that you work with. Uh right now, we're sitting at the Bare Knuckle Pickups booth. Um I, you know, endorse Bare Knuckle Pickups. Um I love them, but it didn't come from me like expecting free pickups. It came from, you know, them coming in my guitars or me buying a set of Bare Knuckle Pickups and you know, providing them value as well. That's ultimately the main thing, you know? It's not a one-way street. Uh it's a relationship. It's a business relationship. They want to work with you as much as you want to work with them. You just need to prove to them, whether it's through the quality of your content, reach, um or even in some cases, just like who you are as a person and they think you're a genuine person, sometimes that's enough. Um and eventually, if you do it enough, you do it consistently, they will come to a point where they go, "Oh, actually, this person, you know, does do a lot of videos for us, does you know, have a lot of reach and a lot of influence. Uh maybe it is worth, you know, our time and our money to give them a product so that they can, you know, promote it because they love it, not because they're trying to get free stuff, you know? And I've been very careful since that over the years, you know? I love Ibanez, so I play Ibanez I love Jackson guitars, so I play Jackson guitars and Neural DSP and all those things. All those relationships came from a genuine love for those, you know, things, uh not because I was just chasing whatever was the most viral Did you reach out to these brands or did they reach out to you? Well, I think I can't really remember probably. I think um I I played Jackson for a little while. I was doing it like I was in every video. I had a Jackson in my hands on Instagram. And eventually, someone flying you introduced me to the hardest working Fender in Australia. And since that moment, it's been a great relationship. So, that's something up there. And then Bare Knuckle, I honestly can't even remember. I think Bare Knuckle actually got in touch with me first with them. Yeah, I think there was a lot of, you know, again, a lot of Jackson guitars with Bare Knuckle Pickups in them. And whenever I would tag them in a video, whether it was a Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, whatever, um someone would see it and eventually, I think it reached a point where Tim Mills, the CEO of Bare Knuckle, emailed me. Uh but it said, "Hey dude, we'd love to send you a set so that you can do a demo." And I think that was for the Unity set. So, when you you were already using them, but they had a new pickup coming out and you So, you were going to film a video like showing off like what the pickup could do. They're like, "Hey dude, like we'd love to send you a set like um it'd be sick if you could write a demo song using the set. We could send it over and all that stuff." Yeah. super excited because back then, I think about it, it was the Polymathic Al signature pickup. Um and I was obviously a big Periphery fan. Um but yeah, it gave me the chance to receive a set of pickups. And you know, and and the pressure was on to put on a demo song. I could write a demo song, but they find they thought that was a good way of showcasing that product and um the relationship has been fruitful ever since. I've noticed that that that seems to be a one big way they they do for every pickup like the Polymathic, I think is the newest one, the next Nolly pickup. >> Yeah. And I saw I I think Connor video on it. >> did it. I think there was probably more, but uh it's a great way to show it off cuz it's like badass song by badass guitar player playing on pickups, you know? >> he does it as well because if you watch any of those Plini videos, if you watch any of those videos, he's using all the pickups. He's very careful to have as many different styles and tones within the demo song. So, you get the metal stuff, you get the clean funky stuff, you get like the very like country-adjacent stuff. You get to see what the pickups sound like in those specific examples and what they can do. So, that would be a really good example of, you know, if you were in that position, why you should uh you know, um get in there and provide a lot of value to the brand because um you know, they want to see their pickup in this case in this many different facets of all Right. I We we did a couple videos together recently. One was me interviewing you, but one you talking about the promotion of your your EP, Kinetics. And um I saw a comment on your video about talking about the promotion on it where someone's like, "Well, it's easy for you to promote a Keon because you're not really an independent artist. You have this big channel with all these views and stuff." And I thought that was very silly cuz like you're you've been you're not signed to a label, you're doing everything independent. Um and so like you release your own songs, you upload them to DistroKid yourself. Um Any thoughts on that? >> [laughter] >> Um well, now that I think about it, I think I said a very lengthy reply to that. Well, man, I think I don't want to talk about it now. But it wasn't to bag the person that wrote it. It was more so just like to really lay it out for anyone that came across that comment. Um and really just kind of explain everything like in there. The main premise of what I said in the video that I presented was that in order to do all of these marketing strategies, you have to spend all this money. Yeah. Five out of the six things that I said, I would spend nothing, you know? Yeah. >> it was just more about you wanting to put in the drive to it. And I think that's the main differentiator of with a lot of that stuff. I mean, a lot of people that want to do stuff in music, that want to get in touch with the brands, that want to perfect their music, that want to learn their instrument, learn how to mix, whatever it is. Anything that requires a lot of substantial effort and dedication in building a network thing and and really making the most out of, you know, not just a couple weeks, like a couple years. Some people, >> Yeah. you know, get to It's that perseverance that's the main difference. And I think, you know, anyone can market their music. Whether you're independent or whether you're getting pumped tens of thousands of dollars from a label, >> Yeah. um if the music speaks for itself and you have a genuine product and a genuine thing that people want to consume and people want to be part of the community, um that will be any sort of virality Yeah. over any amount of time. Your whole channel you built up is was just built from you uploading videos to the internet, which like anyone can do. Yeah. Anyone can, assuming they're, you know, writing good stuff, good at their instrument or or even if they're not, they can still do it, but you know, they they can post cool videos showing off their music and build an audience organically. And and you've uploaded, I forget the number, but it was like a couple hundred videos. Yeah. Um and it wasn't like you had some mass investor helping you build that, you know? So, Yeah. I mean, like you know, if you if you have the ability to watch YouTube, you probably have a phone or a computer, you know, somewhere. Um so, you know, these days, most people have a phone with a camera on it. Um you can get free editing software. You can learn how to mix for free. There's free DAWs like Digital Audio Workstations like Reaper. There's plenty of ways to record yourself. Um and these days, there's a lot of products out there where you can do it relatively easily, too. Like I remember when I was just getting started, the best demos were a little bit different. They weren't so like really great uh great quality sound. Um I just spent a little bit of time to get it. These days, >> Yeah. you can get a really decent interface for not that much. Um I think like 120 bucks, you can get a Scarlett 2i2. And there's cheaper ones, too. The Scarlett 1 or 2i2 is pretty much, so you know, it doesn't mean you have to have a $2,000 interface to have a certain sound. Like Yeah. >> so that you can get it through anything pretty much. You know the guitarist Bernth? Yeah. >> So, he did a video where he he gets like a he he gets like a $120 Amazon guitar and he plays it in front of like 50,000 people in a show. And like, you know, obviously the guitar doesn't play the best or whatever, but it's like if you use what you can, Yeah, yeah. You can you can manipulate it. You can fresh strings on it. You can give it a setup. All of these things where, you know, you can look it up how to do it for free, you know? Yeah. It's all you really need to be. The main thing about it is you can get a NAMM file and start polishing brands and borrow from your sister or something. Totally. There's plenty of ways. Really good free guitar amp modelers or like cheap guitar amp modelers and Yeah, there's plenty. You can get Um and it's just one of those things that like everyone has the ability to sound great. It's just whether you put in the time to learn how to do and then when you can get there, cuz everyone else already sounds so great, and what else is different about you that makes you great? Which everyone's always trying to figure out, myself included. So Yeah, you have a very unique guitar style, I will say. I I got a membership at JTC, is that the one? Cuz I cuz I still I don't know, some of the lessons were cool. I noticed you had one first, well, I think a tutorial. And I went to learn it, and I was like, what the [ __ ] is this? This is the weirdest riff ever. So, um yeah, you have a you have a unique guitar style, I will say. I mean, it's it's just an amalgamation of a lot of bands that I have been inspired by. It's like, you know, I mean Probably like era I guess but Like era as bands that like the new generation stuff like that, but then like the actual sound skating, like, you know, I love bands like, you know, when they did it and stuff like that. That's where like the skating of that sound comes from, like the more like fall out boy and Jason. Oh. All right. But then like the the gymnastics and like the Jackson's decision between the stupid low high guitar and like the fire runs and like infinite anime, stuff like that. Like the Genty sections or like the sugar and spice and everything nice. So, all these things they come together, but you know, that's that's my inspiration comes from. It doesn't all It's always inspired from somewhere, you know what I mean? It doesn't come out of thin air. So, Yeah. Holy man, well, thanks for the time. Thank you, man. >> And thanks to uh Thanks to Barefoot for letting us use their space. Now, Bacon, if you only had 1 minute to give music artists best advice possible, what would you say? I'm trying to send an email right now, and I No, no, you have to answer right now. >> I can't answer right now cuz I got a cigar in my You have to answer right now. >> in my mouth. I don't care. No. What's the I have to make money, and You only have 40 seconds left. The artists are waiting. Vertical video content is the most important thing you can consistently do. It is the thing you do that has the highest chance of going viral, and it is free. Make sure you're doing that. Second, the single most important thing that people miss out on is building community. Go to community building events, go to shows, make friends, talk to people. I know it's scary, but that's what you have to do. People ask me how I do all this crazy [ __ ] in my life. It's literally just from like going to shows and drinking beer with people, and we built all these relationships that become good. That is what you need to do. Once you have that groundwork, everything else starts to lock in a lot more easily if you're releasing consistently and not disappearing. That was a minute. I had a cigar in my mouth for the first 20 seconds. >> Ryan, if you only had 1 minute to give music artists the best advice possible, what would you say? Conflict resolution. Study it. Learn it. Learn how to effectively communicate with your bandmates. Learn how to effectively communicate with the people around you. Solve problems without fights, online or other. Call people, figure it out, sort it out. Conflict resolution. Okay. Second question, since you only had 30 seconds, who are you? What do you do? Uh I'm a booking agent at Fourth Right Booking. I also work as a manager at Powerline Management, and a talent buyer at Substation in Seattle. What is the best thing an artist can do to make your life easier when trying to help them book shows? Communication. Just stay on top of it. Answer emails. Like get an email address listed on all your social media accounts. Get back to the emails that I send, and send me the things that I need. Don't make me click through a million pages of whatever it is. Just have it right there, ready to go. What's the worst thing they could do to make your life hard? Uh not do that. >> [laughter] >> Lack of communication, my guy. Yeah, it's all about communication, just like anything else in life. Now, at NAMM, we also did a 90-minute podcast appearance for our podcast My 4.0 cents. We live-streamed the whole thing, and you can find it on our YouTube channel right here alongside a ton of other awesome music marketing content with me and the other My 4.0 cents crew. We also did an event in Brooklyn, which is behind our paywall. If you're really interested in it, you can grab it just by joining our member feed. And if you want to see more content on this channel, check out this playlist right here. Anyways, thanks for watching, and I'll see you next video. Bye.