Wendy Day warns that record labels sign artists with regional buzz and fan bases, not cold demos. Avoid middlemen charging thousands for A&R introductions; instead build local momentum through shows and social media, then contact labels directly using free directories like MusicRegistry.com. When a deal nears, hire an entertainment attorney paid on the back end, not upfront.
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Hey guys, welcome back. So today I want to talk about, um, a scam that's been going on in the music industry for quite some time. Somewhere you guys got the idea— you guys meaning newer artists— got the idea that you could just get your music to an A&R guy at a record label and they'd be so amazed and dazzled by your talent that they would want to sign you to a recording contract. And in the 24 years that I've been doing this, I've never seen that happen. I've seen A&R guys sign artists, obviously, but never from a demo that they received in their— in their office. A record label is a business, right? And they're in the business to make money, and they want to reduce their risk as low as possible when they're signing an artist. So very often they will sign an artist that has a bit of a buzz. In fact, almost all of the time they'll sign an artist that has a buzz in the marketplace and a fan base in the marketplace. Reduces their risk. If a record label signs an artist that nobody's ever heard of, then they have to start from zero, from ground zero, from scratch, building that artist. But if they find an artist that's got a bit of a buzz and a fan base already in place, at least people within a, a, a couple of state area that know who that artist is, they may pay a little bit more to get that artist on board but they know that that artist is acceptable to the, to the fans and to the public because they've already got a fan base. And then they can apply their machine and their money and their know-how and get that artist to the next level and help them, help them pop, right? So when you're starting your career, you want to make sure that you build a buzz in your area as strong as you possibly can. That doesn't mean that you should ignore the industry, but it means that you need to, you need to be popping a little bit in order to attract a record label. Once you get your buzz going, you can then reach out to the A&R folks at a record label, and they're going to be happy to have a conversation with you. They're going to ask you to send your music. They may even reach out to you first and fly you to New York or LA. And again, this is for the folks that are looking to get signed to a record label, they want a record deal. The scam part in this is that there's a lot of people around the industry that have relationships with these A&R guys, and they are happy to charge you a fee. They're gonna middleman a meeting with a label, and because they're getting paid a fee to introduce you to the A&R people that they have a relationship with, they don't care if you're ready to get signed or not. Their goal is to get money out of you. Your goal is to get a deal, and the record label's goal is to find someone that's in a proper position where they can just take them to the next level. And again, you've got to have a little bit of a buzz surrounding your name in order for a label to sign you. So the scam comes in when somebody is trying to separate you from your money and they are willing to arrange to send out your music to label A&Rs. You know, maybe they charge you a couple thousand dollars for this. Then when it's time to negotiate your deal, they want a finder's fee, and that can be anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 as a finder's fee. This is basically something that you can do yourself, because if you get your buzz strong enough in your own regional area, you're going to be able to interact with the labels directly. You don't need a middleman. In fact, there are lists out there of record labels. Music Registry has one, Rap Resources has one. The Rap Resources one is urban labels, so it's for rappers, reggae artists, R&B singers, producers who are trying to reach A&R guys to sell beats. That's at rap-resources.com. And then Music Registry has a list of of all labels, for rock, for country, gospel, like all of the other genres of the music industry. But you can build a relationship yourself with these A&R guys if you reach out to them either by email or if you start to watch them on social media and you find out, you know, who they are, what their interests are, and you start to build a relationship with them. It would make sense that you could be your own middleman. You don't really need a middleman at the point where you're ready to get a record deal. Then all you would need is an entertainment attorney to negotiate that deal for you, and that way you're not paying somebody else to middleman your relationship. And, and again, you want to have a direct relationship anyway because your relationship with that A&R person is only as good as either you or that middleman, and you just never know what kind of relationship that middleman has. So, um, don't pay somebody to shop a deal for you. You don't have to do that. If somebody like myself or an attorney or somebody that, that has experience, a manager has experience in shopping deals, they're going to get paid on the back end. They're going to take a percentage of the upfront money, somewhere between 5 and 10% of your advance. That's how people in the music industry get paid to shop deals. But until you have a really nice buzz and until your— not just your city, but like your whole state, you know, the state next to you— what the labels are going to look at is, are you getting shows and are you getting paid for your shows outside of your own city? You know, what are your YouTube views? How strong is your social media? What are you actually doing? How much music have you put out into the marketplace? Do people know who you are? When they start making phone calls to the people they know in that area, are those people saying, yeah, that artist is really popping out here, you know, really doing their thing? That's what the labels are looking for. And you can't buy that, you can't cheat that. You've got to actually do the work and build the buzz. But what you shouldn't do is pay somebody up front to shop you a deal or pay somebody tens of thousands of dollars, or any money at all really, to make an introduction for you to somebody at a record label. It just doesn't make sense. They're looking for you to have a career. You don't want to just be them hitting a lick, okay? So be careful out here. There's a lot of snakes. Thanks for tuning in. Um, those, uh, uh, websites are musicregistry.com and rap-resources.com. .com. Take care, talk to you soon. Peace.
