Timing is everything and that is certainly true of being in a band. It helps to consider your band as a brand or business and apply all of the same criteria that you would for any other career or enterprise. Even amongst such creative processes it is all about knowing when to make your move to the next level and more importantly who can aid you with such a process.
Bands, more often than not, begin as labours of love, moving along creative and social paths unconcerned with the idea of making money or courting fame. But even in such an industry, and you are foolish to not acknowledge that music is anything other than just that, an industry, moving upwards requires careful timing and a well thought out strategy.
Just as you might employ experts such as Mississauga Real Estate when looking to upgrade your home, a band needs to identify similar specialists – be it a producer or a PR company, an agent or a manager – when looking to begin writing the next chapter. And such analogy will sometimes match real world events, such as if you decide to relocate to a more thriving cultural hub, often still an essential move even in this on-line world. There is only so much you can do from rural Idaho and depending on the type of career pathway you envisage, you might find yourself employing a firm of Los Angeles movers to help you get nearer the action. This can be seen both as another analogy of getting on in the business and as a literal move in the physical world. Few cities have the same draw for music, art and culture as Los Angeles!
Similarly the health of the band, its upkeep and mental well-being is something which needs to be kept in mind, a lack of shared vision and the old “musical differences” being more destructive than any external problems. And again, thinking of the band as a body is also useful. Using a Bandaid to cure bigger issues doesn’t work in real-life and neither does it for bands and musicians. Just as in the real world, when a specialist in something like, back problems, mental health or diabetic foot problems is called for, then you have to accept that these are not things that you can fix yourself. Again another place where such an idea is both analogy and reality.
The music industry is a tough place and to get on in the business you have to acknowledge that more so than ever you need allies, specialists and organisations which both understand the cultural and creative landscape help carry the burden, thus allowing you to concentrate on the thing that you first fell in love with…making sweet music!
