facebook for bands

I had an funny conversation today with a friend of mine who works with teens who said that he’s noticed that it takes them several days to respond to an email, but only a few hours to respond to a facebook message. Needless to say, he’s planning to make facebook his new communication tool of choice.

Yesterday I set up a facebook page for the band (check it out here and become a “fan” if you would like). I thought it would be an easy way to let people connect to our music. What I’m learning is that there are some cool side benefits.

Once such benefit is that facebook shows me some cool demographic stats about the people who call themselves “fans” of the band.

I guess it’s nice to know that our appeal to 13 year old girls is almost balanced out by the 40 year old men who are browsing facebook. This should be a fun graph to watch.

- Joe

how to get a record deal

A great resource for independent musicians is a blog by a guy named Bob Baker called The Buzz Factor. Yesterday on his blog/podcast he dove into the subject of how to get a record deal. Here are a few nuggets of wisdom from the podcast (in my own words):

• Bring a lot to the table. Most record labels don’t have the time or money to invest in creating an act out of raw talent. If you want to get a deal you’ll have to have the music, the look, and a pre-established record of success that can translate to a larger audience.
• Have good info on your website. Many people (including industry types) will check your website for music, video, etc. to get a good read on what you’re about. If they can’t find that info on your site then they won’t find it.
• Do it yourself. Acts that don’t take control of their own careers aren’t going to get help from industry folks. Show that you can be successful without people’s help and they’ll be more likely to want to partner with you. Take control of your own marketing, promotion, sales, booking, etc.
• Be successful as an independent musician. The best way to be noticed is if you’re growing a large fan base on your own. Attention attracts more attention.
• Have a unique point of view. You know what your point of view is, your songs should reinforce that point of view, and you should know how to get your music to people who respond to your point of view.
• Be personable. If people don’t like working with you, they won’t work with you. Being a nice person can go a long way in convincing someone that they want to work with you.

Listen to the entire podcast now.

- Joe

No Better Way to Spend Groundhog’s Day…

Puxatony Phil says you’ll see his shadow at Cicero’s on Saturday night, yo….

Luke’s Super Hero Theme Song

Russ here, and if Mark’s not gonna post this than I will.

If you’ve viewed the videos, you know that we lost a lot of great footage of our week in the studio last week. One of the hilarious things you missed was the night in which for whatever reason we were all in ridiculous moods, and our producer Stephen wrote the Theme Song for Luke DeJaynes. Luke was pretty much the man all day, and we decided he had saved the day so many times he was a super hero. He was continually in the right place at the right time, doing all the little things for everyone, like serving Joe a buffet of guitars, getting coffee and water for us, etc., and just made our whole day easier.

Stephen grabbed a guitar, wrote this little guitar riff which he described as being a little country, but a little edgy, with a twist of King of the Hill. Conveniently, the tape was rolling, so he sent us all in to record the vocal cheer at the end of his jam. Mark immediately jumped on the computer and began to go to work on Luke’s super hero cartoon (Mark is our resident cartoonist, and you are sure to see more of his brilliant work on this here blog). The result was this beautiful masterpiece….

Making A Tune

So, in the spirit of documenting this recording process, I (Luke) found out that a lot of people are curious about how a song is put together and recorded in the studio….  So I thought I’d share with you a short step by step process of what a typical day in the life of a song looks like @ the studio. 

   The first step before we hit the studio is Pre Production.  We get together with our producer Stephen, and play him the song and parts we have written.  Then after he hears it a few times, he starts giving his suggestions for tweaking, and editing the song and individual parts.  This helps “trim the fat” before we get into the studio, so we maximize recording time. 

   Once in the studio, the first thing to happen is, we all agree on a tempo to make a “click track”.  Basically, we find the tempo that works best for the song and play along to a “click” track to help us stay at the exact tempo while recording the song, so we don’t speed up or slow down.  (usually speed up, right boyz….) 

   After getting the click set, we assume our battle positions.  We all play together just like we would in a live show, except we are in separate rooms, so the sounds will stay isolated from each other.   Mark and I are usally in the same room with headphones because it is important that the bass and drums be as together as possible.  We play the song from top to bottom with the full band, but we are really looking for bass and drum tracks.  Everything else will be re-recorded after we have the drums and bass we want.   Usually we play the song 5 or 6 times, until Stephen decides it “feels” good.  Then, he will go in and edit the best parts of each take to make the best performance.  He’ll also tweak any imperfections in the performance (not that I ever perform less than perfect.  ahem.. ahem.. right.)    

Then after the drum parts are perfect, we’ll punch in any spots where Mark may want to fix bass.  But we try to get as much on the first pass because we have the energy of playing together.  Plus we are brothers, so Mark and I follow each other well.

  After Mark has finished bass, we usually re-record the primary guitar part.  Then they can focus on finding the perfect tone for the part.  Joe has a few guitars, amps, and pedals to pick from, and to get even more possibilites, Stephen has an arsenal of amps and guitars as well.  So we usually spend the next bit of time “auditioning” guitars and amps to find the perfect combination for the tone we want.  Then Joe will lay down his part, a section at a time (verse/chorus), and usually end up doubling his parts with a 2nd guitar.  Joe likes lots of hi-hat in his headphones!

Next we do keyboards.  Dustin records his normal parts, but at the same time while recording, we take MIDI (digital) information from his keyboards into the computer.  This allows us to pick different sounds (piano,organ, rhodes) after the part is recorded, and we can experiment with sounds even after the part is recorded.  Dustin usually takes 1/2 the time of the rest of us to record….

Then finally after Russ has been sitting in a coma for 8 or 9 hours, he gets to start the vocal parts.   When recording the drum tracks, Russ will sing a “scratch vocal” track just so everyone can keep their place in the song, but when it is time to really record the vocals, they bust out the super expensive microphones, and stick him in a room.  (although, one of Russ’ “scratch vocals” was so amazing we ended up keeping it for the final cut of a song, I won’t tell you which one!)  Russ usually sings the song 4 or 5 times through and then comes in with stephen, to pick out the best parts of each performance, to build the best track. 

At this point we go in and add any fun extras like hand claps, tamborine (which Russ rocks) or other randomness. 

From there we move on to a new song, and in the end, they will all get mixed, mastered, and put into your CD collections forever.  Hopefully you will get to see some more video footage of the process I just described,  because it’s way more humorous than it sounds.     Hopefully this gives you a glimpse into our world of making this record we are so excited about… stay tuned for more.

Luke