Today I went to a class about taxes in Europe, yep! It may sound boring, but if you’re gonna be an artist and eventually create a brand of yourself, you have to learn tricky & boring things about taxes, benefits, losses, etc. That way you will be in total control of your finances (even if you have an accountant or somebody who helps you do your taxes).
However, it is not about taxes that I came to talk about, it is about something far more interesting than that that I see over and over. I see artists being impatience and doing the wrong moves because of that, hell! I even made that mistake with the release of “Forgive Me Now”! But I learnt guys, because I had to work double to recover from that mistake. Some artists though don’t have that luxury & we see great talent wasted because of choosing the right timing to do things. These are my advices for you not to make the same mistakes I made:
– Don’t quit your day job before you’re established as an artist or you have enough money to live doing JUST music. I also had to work in a boring job that I didn’t like to save money to do what I really wanted, go to the US and record a bad a** record!
– Don’t release songs that are not finished: You want to be seen as a professional, in this music business there should be NO DEMOS! Only between producer & artist, not to be released to the world. When your song hits the world it has to be properly recorded, mixed & mastered!
– Don’t release songs/singles before you have all that you’re gonna have recorded & ready to go. It doesn’t matter if it’s a single, EP or album. You should have everything COMPLETELY ready before you release anything.
– Don’t start performing songs that you have NOT for sale (I’m talking original songs, you can do covers! of course!). The important thing about performances is to reach NEW audience that go & buy your record. If your record is not for sale, you’re gonna loose the audience, since most regular people ARE NOT gonna wait until your album is out for sale, they’ll just go to the next artist. People, in general, are volatile & have a very short attention span.
I think that’s all for today! Don’t make the same mistakes I made! Be patient, it is the secret to a music artist’s success!