7 Things I Learned About the NYC Music Business Last Year

Around the New Year is always a good time to think about lessons learned over the previous 12 months, and how to apply those lessons moving forward. For my part, in the past year my band released an album of ten original songs, the culmination of about 2 years of songwriting, performing, and recording. When you send a big creative work out into the world, you don’t want it to get lost in the noise. I wanted it to be successful. So last year I also started a podcast with guests who could offer advice about the music business where I live: New York City. This article is about 7 main takeaways from the conversations I had.

If you want to hear more, the podcast is available on the major streaming platforms. More info here. And you can stream the No Love Songs album anywhere you get your music – or listen for free on Bandcamp. Check it out here. 

And now, here are the 7 things I learned about the music business in NYC last year.

Pay to play: Alive and kicking

For the first episode I spoke with Julian, Joe, and Travis of NYC power trio Violent in Black. In our conversation, we talked about contracts for bandmates, the benefits of working with a manager, and how they got a residency at Manhattan Club The Late Late.

We also spoke about booking gigs with pay-to-play schemes, something new bands need to watch out for. These sorts of deals are common in NYC, hawked by people who book venues, sign bands who are expected to self-promote, and operate payment structures in which bands don’t make money unless they pack the club. Instead, the majority of ticket sales go to the bookers themselves. Good deal, right?

Guitarist Julian says, “The craziest part is that’s not even describing close to the worst deals that we've seen. The fact that it’s a good deal that they're ‘letting’ us play with no cost to us is bananas. There's a million offers out there that require the bands to pay the venue.”

Bassist Joe adds, “There’s more sharks than fish in the ocean. And they're all trying to chomp at you.”

Julian sums it up like a true New Yorker: “That’s New York, baby!” 

Rock fans like it rough

For episode 2, I talked with songwriter and guitarist Dan of Long Island heavy rock group, Hold Fast Hope. Dan is studying music marketing in college, and he puts those skills to work in self-managing his band. I picked his brain about single promotion strategies, how to get on the radio (more on that in the episode 6 discussion below), and why your band should get off Facebook and Twitter. One topic that stood out was that with rock audiences, you need to post on social media more than you think.

Dan says, “It definitely varies from demographic to demographic. When you're talking about hip hop, rap, pop music, it doesn't need to be consistent. It just needs to happen. Because the audiences for that type of music are just always tuned in and always paying attention to what's going on. With the audience for rock, generally, you really need to beat the fans over the head. They're not always on their phones. They're not always checking in on things. One post is not enough – it's nowhere near enough. You gotta just really keep letting people know – this is happening.

“You may feel like you're trying to shove things down people's throats, but at the same time you need to pay attention to the fact that social media is limiting your reach, generally. You're not hitting your full audience every time. You need to kind of keep hitting people, and hitting people, and hitting people with it, because you're gonna catch new people every time.” 

Don’t book too many shows

I spoke with John and Marissa of Golden Hour Booking for episode 3. They book shows mostly in Long Island, with a mix of local and touring bands. I asked them what bands need to know about working with a booking agency. A big criterion Golden Hour looks for when booking local bands is how skillful they are at promotion. 

John says, “When it comes to especially younger bands, trying to get bigger I hear a lot of them being like, oh, our show was great. Everyone on the show was killer. But no one came. There were like 10 people. 

“It's like – you guys just played last week! Sometimes it's even the same venue. You played there last week. It's the show business.You gotta make it a show. You gotta make it like, oh, you don't get to see that all the time. You want to be able to draw in people. When you have six shows that you're playing, it's hard to promote all six of them.”

Build a network

For episode 4, I spoke with Mike of Brooklyn ‘trash pop’ band Nihiloceros. We spoke about what success means as a DIY project, how to find a happy home for your music, and why you need to be interested in what other artists are doing. By caring about them, they care about you, and that caring becomes a kind of value. It is also what’s known as building a network. 

According to Mike, “The big thing for me has always been that you should care about what other people are doing as much as you care about what you're up to. I've always sort of lived by the philosophy of, why would anyone give a shit about what I'm doing musically, if I don't give a shit about what other people are doing musically? So I try to be where things are happening. I try to make it to people's shows.

“Like taking pictures. I, in a band, like when people take pictures of our band that we can use for social media and things. So if I'm in a show, I take pictures, because that's something that I would want done if things were reversed my way. I try to always just sort of be that person that I would want at my show, or part of my community. We're all out there trying to play music and get people to hear it. So share people's music and their Spotify link. Share photos. It just takes a second to connect people, and the more of a social media network you build, the more people are seeing those things, and the more eyes get on the things that other people are doing. So utilize that and build that in a way that it not only benefits you, but benefits those around you and that you're interconnected with.”

Touring is not the end all be all

Episode 5 of the podcast featured AJ of Shakeout.  AJ is known as the punk rock guru. He’s done it all, from touring to TikTok. Now he’s scaling up from the tour van into a multifaceted music media company. I asked him why he made that shift.

AJ explains, “I used to think, Oh, I gotta get into a van and tour. And that's how I'm gonna make money, because that's how most musicians make money. And when the pandemic hit, I was actually on tour. I had to turn around. And I saw a whole lot of friends have to cancel everything for two years. I have friends that make their money, full time touring. And they just had no income. I realized that that wasn't the safest route. Nor is it easy. Well, nothing’s easy…

“So now I switched all of my focus, basically, into content creation. My real goal is that Shakeout isn't really a band as much anymore, as it is a media company. And I am creating a lot of media. I'm going to scale all of it to be one income. A bunch of different income streams through media, to scale an income that'll help me live. 

“That's what I'm dead set on doing now. I still tour. I still do that stuff. But I'm more set on that being the thing I get to do for fun, and just enjoy, and not have to worry about that being my income. 

“If you have a successful YouTube channel, if your Spotify is successful, if you have a podcast, if you do live streams – all of these things can bring in income that can be sustainable. It just takes a long time. It's just patience. It's just a lot of upfront work that most people probably wouldn't do, keeping your head down and just knowing that I have something, and I need to just keep working towards it until it becomes what I want it to be.”

The Post Office is your friend

In November, for episode 6, I spoke with Blake from Brooklyn post-punk band ALIENS. The band just recently put out a recording, their first in a decade. The last time around, Blake found success by mailing out the band’s CD to independent college and Internet radio stations. Their success allowed them to set up two national tours. 

With this new recording, Blake enacted the same strategy, which has been a success again: ALIENS made it onto the North American College and Community (NACC) chart, overtaking Bjork (!) sometime in December.

Blake explains, “I decided to make CDs rather than just send a digital file, because I'm sure they get inundated at stations with digital files. And it's kind of ignorable. So I figured if I sent a physical thing, it would maybe make more of an impact. So I put this together and sent it out. And years before when the Head First album came out, I did the same thing. And tried to push it to radio and fortunately, got quite a few songs from the album out on the radio, nationally, all over the place. And that kind of snowballed and led to touring the country. 

“And one of the most shocking things was people, in a place I'd never been, singing songs back to me while I'm singing. That was just an incredible experience. Afterwards you're like, how do you even know? It turned out they had played the songs on the radio and people had liked them enough to download them, or order the album or something. 

“When you go out into the world, it's really fascinating what comes back to you. There's something really great about it. That's why so many musicians do that.”

Nobody is making a living as a band

Sam Sumpter has spoken to about four hundred bands over the past few years while writing for her blog. In episode 7, we talked about her new book, Bands Do BK, a guide to Brooklyn by local bands. I also asked her if she knows any musicians that are making a living only playing in a band. 

“Um…” she started. 

I laughed. 

Sam continued, “I'm trying to think. Man, that silence as I try to come up with one speaks to the fact that it's not easy to do it. It's not common.” She then offered a call to action for fans, saying, “But I mean, for the sake of having this platform, I think this is a call – if you're listening, and you're a music fan: buy some merch, baby!”

Summing up

To summarize these conversations and the 7 things I learned last year, there was a mix of positive and negative. Starting with the negative, there is the fact that bands are not supporting themselves financially with their music. There is money in this music ecosystem in NYC, but most of it is flowing away from bands: towards venues, bookers, photographers, ad agencies, playlisters, recording engineers, rehearsal studio owners, and generally all of the people around bands who aren’t actually creating the music. 

Yet I also learned some proactive things that rock bands can do to reach more fans, think outside the box, and ultimately be more successful. They are:

• Post more on social media than you think is necessary, because rock fans are not always paying attention to social media – and the companies limit your reach.
• Only book the amount of shows that you can effectively promote. Don’t overbook.
• Build a strong network by being interested in people and providing value. You get what you give.
• Think about building income streams beyond just touring, such as creating consistent content on YouTube or starting an email list.
• Mail out copies of your physical CD to radio stations. (Pro tip: ship via USPS Media Mail to save money.)

To all of my fellow musicians out there: I wish you a successful new year!

-Ryan from No Love Songs