Compass S1-1.1 | Why Most Artists Fail: It’s Not the Music

Welcome to the Make Our Music Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Roberge, with Jim Foster, Shawn Lichtenstein, and Johnny Roberge. Today's episode, why most artists fail. It's not the music. So today we're going to dig into, you know, the mindset of why artists, you know, typically they get stuck in, you know, just writing music and creating music and not doing anything else besides the music part of it, you know, don't end up really going anywhere. And that's what's unfortunate because there are some amazing artists, amazing musicians that create great music, but because they don't have anything else lined up in regards to, you know, ensuring that music gets out there properly and there's a strategy for it and their mindset isn't even like, not even, not even executing it, but their mind isn't even on that to then even make the, the next steps in order to do that is where you see the failure happen. Right.

It's admittedly, that was definitely me back in the day when right before my band was going to pop. I was only living in music world and honestly, luckily my singer only lived in business world, so we were very lucky. But that's everything you just said. That was me. Like I had no brain outside of the music. Yeah.

And if you don't have the mindset shift to even understand that you need to have that, I didn't— or know that you need to have someone in your band or someone that you need to have, you know, I didn't know that. Yeah. Well, so that, that helps ultimately. But understanding that is like a big piece because you know, you can make the greatest— I tell everybody this all the time— you can make the greatest song in the world, but if no one hears it and you didn't do any of the things that help get it out there to the world and then ensure the world hears it, then no, it doesn't exist ultimately, right?

Did you even create it?

Yeah, it just exists in your world, right? It doesn't exist outside of that. So having, uh, you know, the, the mindset shift to go, listen, you know, I got— I, I can write these songs, but now I got to figure out a way to now do the next steps in order to get out there is, is a big piece. Yeah.

And having a system in place that, you know, that I need to follow these steps, uh, every time.

Yeah. So, you know, this is, you know, pretty much a brief episode. We're just going to kind of focus in on the mindset, but ultimately, you know, the biggest thing is awareness, right? If you, if you're not even aware of this, then how are you going to fix it? So, you know, this is kind of like our wake-up call to any of the artists that are, um, you know, part of our community that are listening is like Listen, we understand that your, your main passion and what drove you here is to create music. We get it. Cause we did too. This is what we do, right? My favorite part of what I do is always still, you know, getting in the studio and writing a song and producing it. Right. It's still the best part. It is. But ultimately, if we only did that and our minds never shifted anywhere else, we wouldn't be where we are today. And we also wouldn't have never have done the things that we've done and accomplished. Um, and it, this, the industry is just, it's a different world than it was back in like the '60s, you know, we're, we're so far beyond that now. It's like, you need to have an understanding of what it takes to, to then, you know, create the music, but then do all of the other things. And like, even understanding what all those other things are is another thing, you know, it's like its own, like to be aware of, I guess the biggest thing is like to know what you don't know. Right?

Very hard to know what you don't know.

Yeah.

And you can never be blamed for not knowing. Yeah.

And you got to understand that you don't know something. And then ultimately, this world is so— there's so much information out there. It's so easy, especially with obviously like, you know, Google and search engines, but now even like ChatGPT. Like, there is no reason why you don't— shouldn't know about it, right? You can go and find that information and, and have enough awareness to parse through what's, what's bullshit and what isn't, right? There's just— there is a lot out there, but ultimately you'll find something that's, you know, cohesive across all of that information that you go, okay, that's the thing that I need to be doing. Like, just as simple as like, you know, you know, how, where to, where to aggregate your music to Spotify, right? Which distributor do you want to utilize? Why do you want to use them? You know, understanding like, okay, now how many, you know, weeks out in advance should I put it out? It's like these steps need to start. You got to start understanding these things.

You know what's funny? All of my calls— so I'm guessing you do DistroKid or, you know, one of those, or TuneCore— and every time they're like, yep. And I'm like, well, can I ask why? And they're like, I don't know. Every time, every time they don't know. But why would you pay for a service if you didn't know why you were paying for it? And it— and I'm not saying it's something you need to know very deeply, but have these things, have, have an answer, be mindful, like understand what you're doing. I think it's huge.

Oh yeah. I think these are the things that separate a mindset of a hobby you're passionate about and a real career path in music. Yeah.

I mean, that's a good point, right? It's like if you're trying to establish this as your career, it's, there's more than just like writing songs, like all the other elements need to be on your mind and you have to be understanding of what that, those other elements are in order to successfully release a record and then build a fan base. And then from there, do all the other things that come with having a fan base.

Yeah. You're no longer a musician. If you're a guitar player, Now you're a songwriter. Now you're a fucking filmmaker, social media guy. Now you're managing, uh, everything.

You're an entrepreneur. You have to be an entrepreneur.

Your band is a business.

Your band is a startup. Yeah, you know, ultimately it's like you're, you're, you're the, you're the boss of your new company and you need to understand what, what, you know, what elements of that company need to, to happen and function in order for you to be successful.

Yeah, and if you're a guy in the band that doesn't offer a lot, know that and then be ready to help when that person in the band asks you to do something. Yeah, that's right. It's huge.

Or if it's just you, you don't have a band, guess what?

It's—

it is you.

Yeah, it's all you, and you need to know what you don't know. And that's our biggest tip to you, is to understand that there's more to writing music, and then you need to understand what those things are. And ultimately, you know, we're, we're packaging it very well for you with the whole Make Our Music and Indie Artist Compass book and podcast that we're putting out now. So follow along and we're here to help, you know, ultimately, you know, if you follow our podcasts, if you read our book, if you're in our community, we're here to help guide you. We've been there and we've done it all. And actually we're still doing it. We still have, you know, we're still releasing music and touring. So we practice what we preach and we're happy to help. We're, we're actually happy to be the guys that are giving the advice that we wish we had when we first started.

Actually, yeah, that's huge because I was at the very beginning of this pod, I was going to say one thing that you could really look forward to as a mentor, but I guess that's kind of what we're doing if you care. And as far as the community goes, if we're missing something, ask it, we'll answer it.

Oh, and if there's ever an episode that you want to hear from us that isn't part of this book, Um, please let us know inside of the community, you know, join makermusic.com, um, join the Circle community. And then in there, you know, feel free to reach out to any of us or just post it in the general chat and we'll, we will respond. All right.

Yeah, it's all right.

Awesome.

Yeah. Later.