How to actually make money from your music [pt. 2]

The journey begins...

[If you didn’t read part one of how to actually make money from your music (CLICK HERE), then prepare to be utterly shocked by this first sentence.]

I last left you alone on a cruise ship port venue singing to a room of Golden Girl grannies.

Every night the crowd comes and goes, the same as always.

Years pass and that heroic night of psychadelic-funk bliss becomes a memory. You start to question if it even happened (or meant anything) in the first place.

One night you notice the passion has finally and completely faded from your performance. After a lackluster gig, you leave your gear at the venue and wander off into the island forest.

A few hundred feet in, you stumble on a small hut that reeks of marijuana and incense….

You knock at the door. A guy who looks just like me (but is NOT me) opens the door.

He screams, pepper sprays your eyeballs, and raises his (surprisingly delicate) fist in fear.

You shout “Have mercy! For I am just a failed musician in search of solace!”.

The man lowers his dainty fist…. and extends his hand.

“Well why didn’t you say so…” says the guy who looks exactly like me…..

“Welcome to La Résistance.”

---

The man opens the door to his hut and you are immediately smacked in the face with the smokey smell of frankincense.

“If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me” the man says to no one.

You don’t chuckle. He notices. He always notices.

You look around at the walls and see thousands of photographs, news articles, and Submithub rejections pinned to the walls...

Phrases like “get to the chorus, stupid” and “the mix could use some low end” are scrawled on the wall in red marker next to a full case of old unsold band t-shirts.

The man sits you down at a fold-out table. You set your hands down and recoil as they touch the surprisingly wet surface.

“Tears.” the man says. “They’re tears.”

“Who the f*** are you?????” you blurt out.

“My name is Mich……. Frank. My name is Frank Walters.” The man coughs.

……

“I am a failed musician” he continues.

You blink.

“I used to play Margaritaville on the Norwegian Caribbean route?”

You sigh. He sighs.

“Anyways this……..” the man holds up his arms triumphantly…

“is Mad Records….. the future biggest record label in the world!!!”

*Silence*

---

After an incredibly long hour in Frank’s living room listening to him rattle off his life-story about his “career in finance” and his “failed indie band, ‘telco’” and how “this country is a f****-ing joke nowadays”, eventually Frank tires himself out enough to ask a question.

“So why are you here?”

Your eyes unglaze and you sit up.

“I’m lost.” you whisper.

“And broke.” you continue..

“And worst of all, I don’t even love music anymore.”

Frank gasps.

“Wow” Frank whispers, ”broke and lost and a disappointment to their parents”

“I didn’t—-”

“What else?” Frank interjects.

“Well…” you continue, ”I used to feel like I had meaning in my music. I felt like I actually had something to say. But somewhere along the line, that feeling evaporated… leaving only the muscle-memory but none of the joy.”

*Silence*

“Now I just kinda go through the motions hoping that someday someone will notice what I’m doing and tell the world about my music….”

You chuckle and look down.

“Just saying that out loud makes me realize how hopeless that actually sounds…”

……

“Can you repeat that, I zoned out” Frank jokes.

You grab Frank’s shirt collar and slam him against the wall.

“I’M SERIOUS MAN…. YOU GOTTA LISTEN TO ME……..If I have to lip sync my song on camera one more time I’ll…. I’ll……I’ll…..”

“Silence” Frank shouts. “Please. Please silence.”

You release Frank’s shirt and sit down.

Frank rubs his head and exhales loudly.

“You don’t need to lip-sync, my child.” Frank began. “In fact, you’ll never need to lip-sync again once we’re through here….”

“Because as of right this very second the revolution has begun. “

“Pack your bags, we leave tomorrow.”

Frank leaves the room.

You don’t have any bags.

< END CHAPTER 2 >

---

Music is not a product.

A prayer can not be a product. Culture can not be a product.

If fact, nothing authentic can ever be a product, simply because it was never yours to sell.

It belongs to God or, at the very least, Warner Music.

But these authentic actions can be attached to products.

Music was attached to vinyl. Prayers were attached to books. Cultures were attached to pieces of “content”.

And somewhere along the line, we started judging the success of a piece of art by the respective sales of its accompanying product. In essence, we became convinced that the art and the product were one and the same.

Why did this happen?

Well, in the beginning of any industry, art and products often feed off each other.

Vinyl spreads music. Books spread prayers. Content spreads culture.

But the incentives of these two interests (the artist and the business selling the product) are rarely perfectly aligned. Therefore, as time passes, the interests of the two parties become quite distant from each other.

The musician wants to make music. The label wants to sell vinyl.

The spiritual want to pray. The church wants to sell prayer books.

The culture wants to be nuanced. The social media platforms want to keep the culture engaging.

These misaligned interests require a reconciliation. And a reconciliation requires a negotiation (or a revolution).

And a negotiation is awfully hard when one side holds all the money and power, and the other is a group of musicians armed only with the link in their bio.

But alas, God favors the artist in this dispute.

How do I know?

Because the music industry is not a “chicken or the egg situation”.

The vinyl cannot sell without the music. The prayer books cannot sell without the church-goers.

And social culture can’t dominate if the people refuse to participate.

Now I know what you’re thinking…. that sounds lovely, but how are we supposed to survive on our music if we aren’t participating in these industries?

That is why I am here. And that’s why this SubStack series exists.

All jokes (and creative writing techniques) aside, I retired a while ago from trying to make it as a musician so I could work on changing the industry instead. I was so exhausted with dumping thousands of dollars into my shitty music career just so I could get a few extra 0’s on my Spotify monthlies that I stopped promoting my music altogether.

Instead, I started working with my team at Mastering.com to build a record label that reconciles the interests of the labels with the interests of the artists they represent.

Unlike the traditional industry, we take $0 from the artists we sign. Instead, we fund our record deals through education programs for artists, producers, musicians, etc.

We also make educational content (like this SubStack).

A few months ago, we signed our first artist to $20k deal using this very model. We own 0% of her music and take 0% of her income. In exchange for the record deal, she works with students in our music school.

The artist gets funding for their music (which isn’t an advance you have to pay back), the students get to learn from real world examples, and we grow as a business through education.

But it’s going to take some time for us to transform the industry.

The model itself works incredibly well, the hard part is getting people to know it exists.

That’s why I spent my Sunday writing this instead of….. well….. I’ll be honest, I’ve got nothing better to do……. I love this job.

Anyways, here’s my offer to you:

I’ll share as much as I possibly can from building this record label, as well as from my background in finance and music business through this series. (Next post I’ll cut the creative s*** and actually focus on helping you make money.)

I’ll also do everything I can to help you find creative ways (like we did) to monetize your music career while Mad Records works on changing the industry from the inside.

If we can work together during this period, we can shift the power balance back towards the artist and find ourselves in a 21st century Renaissance.

All I ask in return is for you to share this SubStack with a friend who can benefit from it.

You’ve passed the forest and the thick of the trees.

Next week the real journey begins.

Now get out of my hut.

🫡⚔️🫡⚔️🫡⚔️🫡⚔️🫡⚔️🫡⚔️🫡⚔️

Michael from Mad Records