Somebody let me know about a debate taking place on the Augustines FB fanpage. I've added to the conversation below, Be well everyone!
B
"Hello friends and community,
It's been a while guys, so hello, I'm well here in my flat in Berlin. I've never participated on the fan page but I was notified today this conversation has begun, so I decided to chime in. It is great timing.
Let's get right to it. I have many creative solo plans for 2017. I'd love it too if Augustines could still be active but it's just not possible due to the fatigue of some glaring and harsh realities. So off I go solo, and I'm gonna give it my all as I always do.
My solo storytelling tour resonated with fans and is a great topic, as is Augustines ending. I met many of you on that tour and thank you again for supporting it. This has all really opened my eyes.
So yes, it sucks Augustines ended. We felt as if the industry just turned its back on us, and we still don't get it. And while it's been only 40 days or so, this is gonna be old industry news and lore very quickly if it isn't all ready.
We rarely played shows that weren't sold out or at least very very full, we generally played on the main stage at festivals around the globe during key slots, we even headlined 5 of them. We were known as an engaging live act that should make their living primarily from the road.
People have suggested bad management, Spotify, illegal downloading and streaming as reasons we folded and let me tell you this is not far from the truth. At all.
It is difficult to 'manage' some glaring realities out there. For example, I'd never looked at our Spotify numbers till last week. I was gobsmacked to see the first song had over 5 million listens, the 2nd over 2 million, and the 3rd 1.5 million. In the first 3 songs I loosely counted 8 million listens.
YouTube the same, 2 million, 1.5 million, 1 + million etc etc.
This has a monetary value, in that it cost quite a bit to make this music, market it and tour to support it.
The world as we know it has really changed for good and bad. Way more tools for young artists, but a much steeper mountain to climb to sustainability with the fleeting attention span of internet culture (are you still reading this?
If you are, I'm impressed!)
It doesn't matter how many t-shirts you make to sell, or how many good people still buy cds/vinyl. Because we've never seen the streaming numbers make it back to us financially to live on. That, friends, is the the truth.
How could this be?! Millions and millions of times people have reached out to enjoy our work for free... literally for free.
I was told by a peacocky record executive (after explaining his record deal offer had zero capital as an advance) we sold only 600 copies of our 2nd record in Canada. And I know we played for 600 people in Toronto regularly. That's only one city in one country! Do you see my point?
Why are we living in an indie ghetto financially and playing 2 1/2 shows every night with great fans, great radio airplay in several countries and returning home broke? This is a small example:
I just spoke to my longtime (fatigued but lovely) accountant. She told me I grossed $24,500 on my solo tour. I toured with our longtime tour manager Sam. I played a 2 1/2 show with a slide show presentation, songs of mine, covers dating back to the 1940's, my journals and stories of my personal life. It received the best reviews I've had in my career. Just us two guys driving, sleeping in travelodges, no frills whatsoever for 5 weeks. I busted my ass building this show all out of pocket.
I made posters to sell, I spent time with fans, got kebabs after the show with folks, and even played on the street when exceeding curfew. In short I gave everything I could to this project. Because I have never understood artists that play the standard hour and 15 minute sets, do 2 encore songs and stay backstage afterwards. They are resting on their perceived greatness and not being great.
Anyways my accountant told me (I was always afraid to ask) this week that after generating $24,500 I came home with $1400. Less than 6%.
I have looked at all the costs. No frills, nothing fancy whatsoever. Two guys in a van.
Friends in the industry are telling me I need to sleep on more floors, sell more merch, make the ticket prices higher etc.
I completely disagree, I like that our ticket prices have always been reasonable, and after a 2 1/2 hour show I don't want to sleep on someone's floor, and I found it disingenuous to go out on a storytelling tour, selling T-shirts of a storyteller to fans. I found posters, which are visual art, to be a better keepsake that warmly represented all these great evenings that we all shared.
Last week I found two companies that are selling their own poorly designed Augustines merch without our permission. I also found out the artist that I had design this poster, has been selling the poster all year online without notifying me or my permission. It's a lawless land because these peripheral characters know bands don't have money to sue, so they do as they please.
As an artist I'm trying to find a way, because let's face it folks, I'm not going to change being who I am as a creative. But this world has gotten really nasty with artists and it's got to stop. Our last west coast tour in America completely sold out, but as you can see there are massive hurdles in just getting there.
I will not complain about David Guetta, I will not indict the crumbling music industry or cry into my sleeve. But if anybody has any ideas on how I could improve this please let me know because it ended my band, and after buying materials, a slide projector, a large screen, visual software for my laptop (all costly), also learning covers and building a show. I came home with zero....again.
I will never sit next to another guitar tech that makes more than me, I have been on so many tours where the merch person is making more than me. And this has to stop.
Anyone that wants to spout off their knee-jerk reaction and hot air towards "well nobody said it'd be easy" or "getting smarter" please take a deep breath first. I have a big heart, I am no dummy but this landscape is nearly impossible. And the first thing that's gotta change is the public perception that artists are not smart or that the industry is toxic. These cases do exist but what I'm trying to explain to you my friends, is that the world has just gotten more difficult for artists and it's not going to stop if we don't figure something out.
I've seen your comments on a subscripton model and I'm all ears. Tell me your thoughts.
Thanks for listening to my thoughts. I miss you all and I hope to see you soon.
BM
