It’s always helpful knowing how musicians view the music industry and how they use their understanding to prosper. I was given the opportunity to interview the English duo, Georgia Wonder, on their musical pursuits and tricks of the trade. They had insightful things to offer:
Interview
Zach: Georgia Wonder’s social networking is evident in their persistent Twitter postings, mailing subscribers and visual updates. Is there a preferred form of networking that you favor more or find more efficient and effective that connects you to your fan base more than another form of networking? Similarly, is there a form of networking that you prefer, as a music fan, when trying to find out about musicians you like?
Georgia Wonder: More and more you read about the idea that the ‘email list’ is the most important thing to a band, and that collecting subscriptions is the ultimate form of connection you can create with your fans. We don’t necessary disagree with this, but the reality about people is that they will connect in the ways they want to connect. We all know there are ‘lurkers’ on forums, facebook pages and on things like twitter who never ever interact with anyone, but keep an eye out for new stuff. And the beauty of the internet is that there are now so many ways to communicate with other people. So if you had more fans on your facebook fan page than you did on your mailing list, does that mean you’re less popular? If you have 2500 followers on Twitter but you bore them all to tears, will they bother with what you’re on about, or just lose it in the mass of other messages? What we’re trying to say here is it’s very hard to join up the dots with your ‘reach’ – and email is becoming more and more irrelevant for the more social aspects of networking. People are checking their facebook as much as they used to check their email, and most people’s email inboxes are a total mess. Don’t discount anything and be prepared for all technologies to become obsolete in the near future.
At the moment there is a big gap in the market for music discovery on the internet – no one has really cracked it. We have the access with YouTube, Spotify, We7 and various other services, but as far as discovering new music is concerned I don’t think there’s anything out there that’s really fun and engaging that rewards people for actually looking for new music. I know there are things like Last.FM and Pandora which recommend things to you, but there is definitely something missing. It’s almost like we need the Rotten Tomatoes (film site) for music combined with something fun like a Facebook game to get people to actually engage with music they wouldn’t otherwise hear in a new way.
Z: All valid points, especially the point that people will connect in their own preferred way.
Georgia Wonder has been working on and promoting for some new material. Has the duo learned or changed its marketing techniques throughout its musical experience? If so, how would you describe the progress of your thoughts about marketing your music?
GW: You need to stay up to date with all the latest happenings with the internet and music, which is easy with sites like Mashable, Techdirt, Hypebot, and to some extent Boing Boing. But it’s easy to fall into the trap of fad based promotions. I think bands need to focus on creating stories that work away from the internet, that are real and tangible in their own right, and then use the internet to tell the story in many different places and ways. Our ‘Made In Nevada’ project is our attempt to record our entire new album in our local music store. This is a real thing we’re doing in the real world. But we’re blogging about it, creating videos for each song as well as ‘how we did it’ videos, talking about it on Facebook, Twitter and on our own Forum as well as using traditional press releases and other print and PR media to spread the word. A band’s current story could be based entirely on the internet which is fine, but although it’s tempting to do something gimmicky there is a new kind of one-hit-wonder nowadays – the video viral. Although we love cool, crazy and fun stuff like the rest of the planet, we think you should still try and plot a musical course rather than a here-today gone-tomorrow mentality. It may take longer, but it could be worth it. People are quick to point to viral stuff and go ‘see, that’s what you should be doing!’ but there seems to be little evidence of that kind of thing becoming a dependable long term strategy for success. And by long term how about more than five years?
Z: Much agreed. I think the long-term efforts are so difficult to give attention to these days – in our immediate lifestyles and culture.
You’ve been promoting your new song “No Credit†through various types of media, one being videos documenting your experience in the studio. You are recording your new album within the Nevada Music Center in the U.K., how would you describe your recording experience over the years? Have you recorded in the same studios? If not, have you discovered or changed anything new while working within different studios that you may not have picked up on earlier?
GW: Most of our stuff previously has been recorded at home, with the exception of drums when we’ve needed them. We were fortunate when we first started out that our very cool local music studio The Old Blacksmiths helped us out with a fair bit of studio time when we first met them. However, this didn’t solve the musical instrument problem, which of course using the music store does! It’s true you can get good results at home and recording has never been cheaper – however, creating something world class is something else.
We do get a bit tired of people saying it’s easy nowadays and great stuff can be recorded for peanuts at home. Well, it’s partly true, but in all honestly we all have far higher expectations when we listen to music nowadays than I think we give ourselves credit for as fans and bands. And more often than not, that quality can not be done on a budget of next to nothing with no facilities. You need guitars that aren’t crap, microphones that are better than your Skype headset and keyboards, synths and all other manner of stuff to get the job done. And let’s not forget you need the time to do it, and the money to make sure people involved aren’t starving.
Z: Indeed, the hyper-quality of music seems to be more expected and sometimes less appreciated the more we have access to more music.
For musicians, finding a balance in the quality of their product and the satisfaction of their work ethic can be tricky these days. Moving along. Reading up on your discography, I noticed you have two EPs out consisting of 5 songs each. Did you plan on this intentionally with any strategies in mind? How did you decided on this kind of model for your release?
GW: We think that recording tracks in bundles of five is far more true to the way we work than creating ten songs in one go and releasing them all at once. Also five songs feels like a body of work – it’s rare that in one period of time you can have a writing run of ten songs which all feel like they come from the same place. Five feels right. And didn’t LPs once have two sides of four to five tracks each? An EP is like the side of a long play record. We like that.
On the other hand we have our ‘Made In Nevada’ project which is an album project, but we’re recording as we go, releasing each track when it’s ready. This is great because it makes us focus on getting one track out at a time and tell the story as we go. We just released ‘No Credit’ – the first song from the project. We’re nearly ready with the second track and we’ve been working on the third, and have some idea of the fourth, fifth and so on. At the end of the project we’ll look over all the songs, assemble them into a good order and then release the physical copy of the album, as well as have the chance to add anything we thought was missing or think of when we’ve had a little distance from some of the material.
So strangely, our marketing for our first album is to release it as a series of singles! A rolling release. Feels good.
Z: I think your understanding of short, yet fully-embodied releases is a great method for today’s music industry. It’s a great way to adapt to how audiences consume and listen to music these days.
If you’re interested in finding out more about Georgia Wonder and checking them out you can visit their website or their ‘Made in Nevada’ website.
Tags: Georgia Wonder, Interviews, marketing, Music
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