Opening Smash Mouth like a Bat Out of Hell

Well, it’s been a fun week! By giving music everything I have, people started noticing me and my music and I was offered an opportunity to open for Smash Mouth! The show was Saturday, June 14 and dang, it felt so great to be on a big stage with all the big lights and space to move around.

Most importantly, it gave me a non-awkward setting to make my songs, not just sound different, but look different! I learned the importance of the look of your live performance by Tom Jackson, Taylor Swift’s live music producer. It turns out, humans process 80% of things visually! No wonder there're lights and pyrotechnics at big concerts! 

I had 11 songs to make look different, so for one of my slow songs, we brought out two stools for my guitar player and I to sit on. I played guitar on “He’s Mine”. For “One Night Man”, I did the infamous pointed finger with my arm straight up in the air on the "one night man" line. “Never Be Ready” was quiet and intimate and one woman even came up to me after the show and told me the story of her special surprise. She said she cried when I sang that song and ended up buying a CD, so she could hear it again and again. That’s what music is all about to me! “All I Need to See” finished up the show rocking it out and the Smash Mouth guitar player, Sean, even tweeted while I was on stage that I was “hitting it hard”!  

Playing that show was inspiring to me! It made me realize what I’m capable of and that I’m not afraid of a big stage, performing, or meeting fans. Those are my favorite parts! I get scared by the little things, the everyday to dos of booking shows and marketing myself, because they're the hardest parts for me. I don’t want to seem like the person constantly marketing and pushing myself on people, asking them to buy my music and support me. I want to be grateful, genuine, and provide opportunities and music that people love! As such, I’m now starting to offer backyard/barn/house concerts to people all over the country! That sounds like a blast to me and a great way to meet amazing people and music listeners! In fact, if you’re interested in hosting a house concert for a birthday, anniversary, event, or just for fun, send me a message! I’d love to speak with you about it!

www.CarolynMescher.com

Special thanks to www.tomjacksonproductions.com for teaching me about live stage production! 

How Cross-Pollination Can Help You Grow Your FanBase

Let’s talk about the birds and the bees. They go from flower to flower and cross-pollinate to allow the flowers to continue to grow.  But what does that have to do with music? It has everything to do with music!

I’m willing to bet money that every fan you have didn’t first see you playing on stage and decide they liked you and wanted to be your loyal fan. They saw your post that their friend reposted, a poster hung in their favorite store or coffee shop, got pulled to your show by a friend, ran across your music because it sounded like another artist’s song on Spotify, etc. Cross-pollination is the independent artist’s best friend. Still don’t believe me? Give these 6 cross-pollination techniques a try:

1. In press releases, write about yourself and similar artists, explaining how you are choosing to take a different approach to the industry, booking, marketing, whatever. A new angle is more likely to get picked up by press and the other artists you mention will likely put it on their websites, not to mention the article showing up when someone Googles the other artists’ names.
2. When you find interesting articles, videos, or songs, post them on your blog with maybe a write-up of your opinion or your take on it. The author of the original post will probably retweet or repost your blog entry as well.
3. Offer to open for another country artist (free of charge) in an area you have not played before to help grow your fan base in that area. If you do a great job, you may end up selling enough merchandise to make it worth it. Plus, you’ve made some loyal fans, who are worth playing for free one night.
4. Determine who your target fan base is for the content and style of your music. Think of creative ways you can play for your target fan base. If you’re truly interested in building a fan base, offer this for free. Loyal fans are worth their weight in gold. If you have to play for free to play for potential loyal fans, do it. They’ll promote you on their own, buy all the music and your merchandise.
5. Country music trends follow pop and rock by about 10 to 15 years. Opportunities to open for “washed up” pop or rock bands are actually great opportunities to target current country music listeners. The current trends in country are going to be similar in style with the rock and pop music of 10-15 years ago.
6. Use Twitter hash tags (no more than 3 in one message) to reach users interested in your style of music or content of your songs. For example, I may tweet about #rodeo, because I have songs written about rodeos and bull riders. Anyone looking at #rodeo tweets could see my tweet and choose to check out my music if they like country.

Now, get out there and start doing that birds and bees thing... cross-pollinating!




Written by independent country artist, Carolyn Mescher
www.CarolynMescher.com