Sharks, sharks, sharks… the music industry is full of them. We gotta know it & accept it. And… be aware! They hide behind the name of managers, producers, promoters, artists, even friends!
Let me tell you something, first thing you have to do in your artist life is to decide what way to take, once you’ve done that the next steps will be easy… I recommend you to choose the right way! Which normally is not as easy as we think, but not as difficult as we would think either. Know one thing, in the music industry there is one gold rule: THERE IS NO GUARANTEES.
So following that rule, anybody telling you they can GUARANTEE something should raise a red flag in your mind. So here you have a few scenarios that should tell you to RUN:
– You are working with a producer, but you happen to find ANOTHER producer that tells you that the producer you’re working with is too expensive, doesn’t have experience, blahblahblah… (it can come with different words after, however, the second producer is always trying to imply that he’s better than the first one) that HE can do better than that and has better contacts to get your music signed to a major record label. RIIIIGHT….
– A manager comes in BEFORE (or even while) you have something going on and tells you: “You know, for THIS MUCH money, I can get you to sign with this major record label, open up for “place-big-artist-name-here” & you will be the next big thing”. WRONG!!!!!!! Managers should always be paid by commission, you should never have to pay for them to work: you make money, they make money.
– “For this much $$$$ I can get you a sit down with the A&R for “place-big-record-label-name-here” – For what? For them to say NO? That’s if you even get to sit down with anybody from that record label, furthermore, do A&Rs exist anymore? LOL! NOOOOOPE, SCAM ALERT!!!!!!! (I’ve seen SO MANY of these)
– Promoters: “For this much money I can get your song played all over the US”. This exists even though it’s illegal, it’s called PAYOLA. It’s your call if you want to pay them… I don’t play with that
– Artists: “With your music, if we did a collaboration, it would be FIRE!”, ahaaaaaaaa… it sounds to me like you want to attach yourself to me in some way…
These are just a few of examples of the different kind of sharks you can find in the music industry. You can find them in various shapes & forms.
You HAVE TO remember:
If you had NOTHING going on nobody would be interested in attaching themselves to you and they would definitely won’t have all kind of opinions about you. They would just go with the “oh yeah, that sounds cool” thing.
So, once you’ve learnt your rounds (hopefully without making any mistake, at least any “not-fixable” mistake) & you’re working on making everything happen for yourself, don’t listen to anybody who try to discourage you or get into your pockets. Keep on doing what you’re doing and listen only to professional advice (commonly known as “entertainment attorneys”, hehe).