Leaps and Boundaries

I found an email in my inbox this past Monday from a marketing company based out of Chicago called Platform-One Entertainment. Normally, I delete emails like this (especially those in my personal inbox regarding band stuff) unless it's someone I know because more often than not, it's just some creeps trying to take advantage of all the naive dreamers out there. But I actually recognized the name of this company (they do marketing for some pretty big names out there, like John Mayer and Kings of Leon), so I thought what the heck and read their spiel. Turns out they listened to us on MySpace, loved the music, and wanted to take us on this summer. I emailed them back saying that I was interested in learning more about the opportunity.

After a few calls, I got the skinny; they would market us in the mid-west, passing out CD compilations (with one of our tracks on it) at various music festivals (Bonaroo, Vans Warped Tour, etc.), get us played on radio stations in the mid-west, do some online promoting and distribution, and generally get us some really great exposure. I, for one, was really excited about this, especially considering that they only take on 12 bands per quarter. Then we started talking cost. For all their services, Platform-One was going to charge us $4000 for the summer months...we negotiated a bit and they went down to $3000. Unfortunately, that's $3000 more than we can afford, especially with the album coming out and the need for $1000 (which we also don't have) to press and print copies. Plus, it doesn't make much sense for us to promote the heck out of the mid-west when we live and operate out of Southern California. No one from Ohio is going to drive a thousand miles to see us play at the House of Blues no matter how much they like us. Ultimately, we decided that Platform-One wasn't for us. At least not now. Bummer.

In all the deliberation about Platform-One, however, I came to the decision that it costs just as much to produce and promote a 5 song EP as it does a full-length, 10 song album...so why not go for broke? Besides, we can sell an album for $12 or so whereas we can only sell an EP for around $5, so it makes more financial sense to do more. This would all be well and good if the guy mixing our CD was faster. In the past 3 months, he's handed us back 3 mixes...maybe I don't know a whole lot about the mixing process, but that seems really, really slow. Don't get me wrong - he's incredible. The dude has a Grammy under his belt for mixing/mastering. But the terms of his contract with us seem to be a bit unreasonable, not to mention the time issue. If we're going to produce a 10 song album by August/September, then we really need to get crackin'.

Fortunately, I go to a church full of artists, musicians, and industry folk and I know more than a few recording engineers. A friend of mine sent me some estimates regarding how much it would cost per song for him (or really anyone - his rates are pretty standard) to mix our songs and the cost for a really great mix hovers around $250-$500 per song...so with a 10 song album, we're looking at a budget of around $3000 plus the thousand I mentioned earlier for printing. Seems that $4000 is the magic number these days.

As many of you know, I lost my job back in April because of the poor economy. I saw this as an open door to spend all my time focusing on music, which I've been doing. So needless to say, I barely have the money to pay rent, let alone shoulder the entire 4k burden of the album. The others in my band are no better off, so splitting the cost isn't an option either. This album has been a long time coming and will open so many doors for us...it's a shame to stop moving forward because of something as transient as money. I've asked God to provide the financial means for us to keep going if this is His will because I don't have the ability to take this any further on my own steam. Maybe I'm intended to get a line of credit and take a leap of faith? In any case, I'm moving forward because it's all I know to do. I'm walking towards the edge and trusting that there's a bridge I don't see...or that the fall won't kill me.