How to Make Your Band FAMOUS in 2018

[@thedirtyshwa_]

Take your camera off auto focus. If you're just sitting there and it's a fixed shot, you don't need it to be on auto focus. Your camera tries to auto focus every time you move slightly, because there's not high contrast between you and the background, and your videos often go blurry. Thanks for all the advice- extremely useful tips. You got to get into instagram, It's much more personal than facebook and also image/video based- less clutter. 100% agree with you on on spotify. I think i'd MAYBE put 3 songs on there, just to be on that platform- and if people really liked my music it would give them more insentive to seek out a website or facebook page/bandcamp.

[@rockboy360]

I haven't downloaded any music since I got on Spotify.

[@OwenAdamsMusic]

Sweet video, dude! Hey, props to you for *actually* having the guts to DO this stuff and make it work. Funny story for ya: I've been uploading my best, most beautifully edited music videos for almost a year now... NO VIEWS on youtube...LOL! In real life, during the same year I released (and sold quite a lot of copies of) my new full-length album, played *sold out* shows, and even developed a sizable audience on Facebook over time...but it's like KZbin is giving me the cold shoulder, man! Haha, that ain't gonna stop me though 💯💯💯

[@KevinGoetz]

Thanks man! Congrats on your success! KZbin's a really tricky platform to get right, especially compared to Facebook, where with the right advertising strategies, anyone can start making a profit almost immediately. KZbin though, the problem is that unless your titles and tags are packed with keywords you can rank for, and unless you're uploading very frequently, it's almost impossible to build an audience. That's why I suggest covers in this video, because those are rankable, searchable concepts that can be churned out at a good pace.

[@OwenAdamsMusic]

Hey I appreciate the speedy reply! I've been on KZbin since 2008 with an old channel, I remember when it used to be a much more open platform. Anyway, I subscribed and look forward to continuing the conversation! You're right, we all need to be sharing our knowledge and experience on these platforms. They probably won't be teaching courses on metadata or keyword-tagging at music conservatories any time soon, lol.

[@lilactheruevet2424]

yeah back in 2013 i was able to get 40 subscribers from animal jam videos... these days with actual work its different and better to link something to youtube :,

[@quentin536]

Some of my buddies and I are starting a band and we are thinking of starting out with the classics that we are into like pink Floyd, Boston , van halen etc,etc and then starting to write our own stuff

[@lilactheruevet2424]

how the fuck do you find buddies that want to start a band

[@lilactheruevet2424]

i found 5 ukulele players...

[@doomzy8622]

i found a guy on instagram once

[@lilactheruevet2424]

@@doomzy8622 yeah but like im Australian... everyones American

[@rogerdunphrey9961]

sweeet glad to see another group of people in the genre that no one lives in lol we were getting lonely

[@leahcarrollmusic]

Helpful video topic, music in background was distracting.

[@jddixon6274]

everything you said you do in your to promote your music I see you doing. I don't see being famous as a goal for me but doing what I want to do. you guys are exactly what ive been looking for...... you will b hearing from me a lot more.. I have been playing music and composing for a bit of time now. I'm 56 now started when I was 14.im just stepping into recording so thanks for the encourage ment.

[@OrbisExterior]

Thank you for this video. I'm a one-person music project and it's so hard to get a number of fans. A few years ago my sound was terrible, now I think it's much better. I use GarageBand, only free daw. My music is something between folk and metal.

[@lilactheruevet2424]

cough traction

[@jddixon6274]

I was contacted through facebook so your efforts work.......

[@rid4786]

Hi Kevin, thank you very much for the video. Very insightful, despite we are in 2022, I think there is still lots of stuff which can still work. I lost a passage and wanted to clarify. How do you build the email list? What is the passage that makes them subscribing after sending the ads out? Thank you!

[@jasonday8334]

Thank you for sharing your wisdom, I dig people helping other people achieve success in anything. I will probably watch this like 20 times just to soak it in.

[@ironicpunishmentdivision4226]

Thanks for what you do. It’s nice to hear this kind of thing coming from a fellow metal artist (even though I’m traditional doom). Most of your advice can be tied to any genre, but it still appreciated coming from this point of reference

[@KevinGoetz]

I'm so glad I can bring you some encouragement! It's definitely still entirely possible to succeed in metal, honestly perhaps moreso than some of the more mainstream genres because of fan loyalty being so high.

[@YaboyrazTV]

Positive vibes...I like what you're saying! It's called back to basics, and having will power...

[@abedabdo1544]

Hey. Nice advices, thanks. But my question is, why should we not upload our songs on Spotify? I need an answer please. Thanks again

[@lilactheruevet2424]

as a smol one i Only listen to stuff on spotify like people are gonna share it anyway

[@josephcamuglia8118]

good info...Thanks man...I look forward to learning more ...from you.. Peace

[@pakoti96]

Great tips, Kevin. Did you get to that Larger Than Life Live Sound video? I couldn't find it.

[@adambraun1990]

Your band Mute Prophet led me here so I guess the methodology works lol

[@markchristopher2signal2]

I love those speakers

[@jddixon6274]

ok I'm a new fan. of just of your music but of he way you promote your music

[@songoflovecovers123]

Audio ngineering is a headache but can be learned i was wondering it wiht adwords it is easier to get fans good video

[@rljeric]

How well does this apply to solo artists? I'm working on an album right now completely by myself, so it's really just going to be me in all of this.

[@KevinGoetz]

This works absolutely fine for solo artists :) The only real difference is that you have to make sure you have (or develop) a captivating personality, since no one else can do that for you. Also, you'll have to get a friend to help you film those moving shots for playthrough videos, rather than having a bandmate do it. But ultimately, yeah, these methods will work 100% whether band or solo artist. Great question!

[@lilactheruevet2424]

same

[@jerryocrow1]

Use short (5 ms) cross fades, not hard cuts. Turn your auto-focus off (too many blurs). Your example shot at 3:51 needs three changes: change the camera focal length for a much wider shot to avoid young males focusing one one small portion on the screen and no longer hearing you, 2 use a shot with the musicians showing they can play with the thing in your hands for the entire clip without needing to check their fingers as if they don't know how to play with the thing in their hands or looking at the camera only to see if the red light is still on, and 2, turn off auto-focus. Keep up the good work and good job.

[@adamruedas1999]

Best one yet love it

[@Denots208]

Thanks man, great advice! My band "Denots" is Heavy Metal similar to Pantera or Machinehead. I have a hard time with all of this because I do most of the work myself. Can't get the other guys to help, I need to learn to delegate or pay others to help me out. Question is, do you run full videos as your Facebook ads for page likes? and do you have a call to action at the end?

[@sleeplessdenverband]

Denots I’m gonna check you guys out!

[@Denots208]

@@sleeplessdenverband cool, thanks man!

[@andheraband8728]

Some really great tips!

[@ConnieLansbergTE]

Great info. Do you have any sort of manual to follow while trying to do these ads? It seems that facebooks ads are so easy to get wrong and waste money. Thanks!

[@KevinGoetz]

Absolutely! The single best decision I made for my music career was taking a course called Music Marketing Manifesto. That course on its own is the single reason I was able to start making money from my music. I do have a review of that course on this channel, and if you want to take it yourself - and feel like supporting my channel at the same time - I have an affiliate link as well: bit.ly/2MyCRRT

[@vincevillafanmusic]

so rad, thanks dude \m/

[@hungurgaming9415]

Honestly i can't even play an instrument properly but i really want to play music in front of a crowd. In time i will for sure get better but where do i find band members? Please answer! Thank you!

[@paulinepeep.jksn.511]

Hungur Gaming there are websites where u can search band mates in your local area who need whatever instrument u play. Or u can make your own band on it

[@hungurgaming9415]

@@paulinepeep.jksn.511 Thanks! I didn't know.

[@pedroestrada4825]

I'm on CDBaby and havent made much $. Would you reccommend it or should I take my music elsewhere?

[@KevinGoetz]

Honestly, it doesn't matter. I use Distrokid for the same things CDBaby does. The important thing is how you go about promoting your music. Try out the strategies in this video, you're much more likely to start making real money.

[@pedroestrada4825]

Thnx

[@kevinvanburen3751]

Mute Prophet Band so I’m young in a band should we start as a cover band then start to slowly throw in our own songs in our setlist or should we just start writing our own music and produce it ??

[@KevinGoetz]

What I would do is start with your own music, personally. But if you're having fun with playing covers, there's no reason you can't keep that up while working toward original music. :)

[@ca_marchant86]

Hi mate, awesome video. Very interesting info. I would like to know why post a play thru video instead of a videclip?

[@KevinGoetz]

Thanks for the question! I think I'm confused by what you're considering the difference between the two. Any kind of video synced to your music will work, it's just that videos that are just the band playing, rather than fancy cinematic music videos, tend to be easier to make for independent musicians on a tight budget.

[@ca_marchant86]

Mute Prophet Band Oh, now I get it. Sorry, english is not my first language. Thanks for replying! Great channel!

[@lilactheruevet2424]

i need sum bandmates yo but i guess i gotta wait till i fukin move and shit

[@kylemacdougall8355]

This is kind of a tangent, but most music marketing advice (for obvious reasons) assumes you play one particular style of music and tells you how to carve out a niche in that style. What would you do differently if you don't have just one or two styles? I'm a multi-instrumentalist who wants to play just about every style of music there is, including unusual combinations of existing styles. (I feel like this is something most music marketers would strongly recommend against trying, but personally, I would get really bored if I tried to stick to a particular sound. And if I'm bored by my own music, there's not much point in making it. Plus, always doing something different is a good way to push myself.)

[@KevinGoetz]

That's really tough. Most fans stick within their genre pretty rigorously. My best advice would be to try to find a unifying sound that stretches into other genres. For instance, Nightwish has done jazz, folk, even country, but it's still impossible to mistake them for anything other than a symphonic metal band. The unifying factor is their orchestrations, guitars and female vocals. So, can you find a unifying factor or a "main" genre? If so, you can branch out toward other genres as a songwriter, while still keeping a unifying crowd interested. Does that make sense?

[@kylemacdougall8355]

Yes, that works, thanks. I think my unifying factor would be experimentation and music that doesn't take itself too seriously (a little bit like Weird Al, but without the song parodies...that might not be a very good comparison). I really like experimentation in music, but I generally hate experimental music because it's too "artsy," too self-indulgent, too pretentious, too hard to listen to. You want to make it listenable and accessible and prioritize the quality of the song above the need to do gratuitously weird stuff. So you could boil it down to: "experimental music with popular music sensibilities."

[@Ignoramuse]

One thing im sure you know how to use is tagging, making sure when people search black metal (as an example) that my videos will show up? Ive tried tagging other bands and my specific genre, and tons of other things. But my videos never get viewed. All the views ive aquired are just my total sum of my youtube channels existence. If you get my drift some insight would be great.

[@KevinGoetz]

Great question! Unfortunately it's an incredibly complex topic. Check out Roberto Blake and Derral Eves for more detail, but as an overview: Use the plugin "tubebuddy," if you're not already. It lets you see how your videos rank for tags, competition levels and other things. Text in your video's description and title matters a LOT for whether you rank for your tags. Single word tags also don't work. I rank for "symphonic metal 2017" and "progressive symphonic metal," but there's no way in hell I would be able to rank for "symphonic" and "metal" and "band" as separate tags. You want to try to anticipate the full search term and tag for that, since not as many people are trying to rank for them. Also, the more frequently and consistenly you upload, the better all your videos will rank for their respective tags.

[@Ignoramuse]

Mute Prophet Band thanks for the reply! Im looking into to this. :)

[@NicoTheRipper]

Someone who’s not famous at all telling people how to get famous, great idea.

[@KevinGoetz]

Hey man, this advice has been used by people a hell of a lot bigger than me - take it or don't. But famous or not, I do make a full-time income from my music doing exactly this.

[@zz.158]

Can you explain how you get the people to your email list thanks to your FB ad campaign?

[@KevinGoetz]

Absolutely! It's a bit complex, and the type of landing page I use is very specifically optimized for this, but the dumbed-down version is, we make a very enticing claim to our target audience about our music, then we offer them a free sample of some of that music in exchange for their email address. Here's a video where I go into more depth on how you can learn to set up something like this yourself: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a6TRp3WQf790qZY

[@zz.158]

@@KevinGoetz great, thanks!

[@vladluthor]

there so many questions man! Is there anyway we could make an skype call or something like that? i mean, do you work with something like that?

[@KevinGoetz]

Absolutely! My current rates are $40 for an hour-long call. If you're interested, you can email me at [e-mail] to work out a specific time :)

[@chrisshavard]

Screw Aliexpress, I'm pushing my art.

[@MindseedMusic]

Awesome information

[@KevinGoetz]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed the video :)

[@AstraTheMelodicWeapon]

great word it was helpful 😊😊

[@garfield7157]

are you FAMOUS tho?

[@dustbunnys]

Prolly more famous than any of us

[@KevinGoetz]

Want to start making a full-time income from your music NOW? This resource is what started the whole amazing process for me. bit.ly/2MyCRRT

[@riceb0ll872]

Wait so your band gets payed like do u have allot of money from selling your bands music orrrr???? Cus im 14 and im trying to make a band with a couple of friends of mine and i want to save some money for my mom cus she always wanted to be a hair dresser and i just want to help out

[@KevinGoetz]

That's very good of you :) Yes, we make a full-time income from selling music and merch online.

[@riceb0ll872]

@@KevinGoetz good to know thank you sr.

[@streethippies8721]

Thnx bro

[@coinsforthereaper6990]

Awesome, someday people will look back at this when it has millions of views and be like I wish I had found this in the early days.

[@Solvetcoagula]

Hi, I've seen a handful of your videos and feel the need to write this. Here's my situation, I'm in a band "the earth as we know it" (shameless plug), and we have about 2.3k likes on FB, 400+likes on IG, 43 subs on KZbin. Now, while your bands FB has 15k likes or so, your engagement is still roughly 40ish per post on avg it seems on FB. A local band around our parts has half the likes of us on FB, but way more engagement avg about 100 per post. Our engangment can be pretty low at roughly 15-20ish comments or likes per post. Anyway, I'm not sure having so many followers is of any benefit if these people aren't actually becoming fan fans. There have been many times in the past when I was active on my own personal facebook, and liked bands basically willy-nilly with no afterthought of actually listening to them. Maybe they had a cool music video and I didn't really listen to them, maybe their ad on facebook was captivating but their actualy content not enough to keep me interested. Idk, the music industry is a fickle business, and one strategy that may work for you may not work for someone else. It's a very weird thing. I joined the band a bit later after their formation. They chose to release an EP as bare as possible, basically recorded "live". To show that we can play our material perfectly live without studio magic (feel free to watch some live videos of us if you have the chance, but dont watch the videos on my page because those are audition videos, lol). Anyway, our new EP is about to drop and I'm excited since I feel these release is polished way more than the first EP. I'm excited to see if their is any major growth for this band after the release. We're currently about to go on an 11 date tour throughout the Midwest, and while this isn't our first outing (we've weekend tours to closeby cities a few times), this is our first actual "tour" though, and I'm worried because we are not an established act, we're basically going to be playing to no one. We went through a booking agency and have guarantees apparently, but even so, I'm worried it will ruin the relationship of us with these venues we play at. I completely understand the paradox of the relationship of venues and bands, the blame game of whose responsibility it is to bring the people. On the flip side, I've also seen bands come through our city and while only a handful of people show up to their show, within a few years of them slogging it out on the circuit, they explode within a few years and are on major tours/festivals/winning awards. Sorry for the lengthy rant/question, idk what this is. Good luck to us musicians. It's a tough game but the ones who are about it for real will make a name for themselves.

[@KevinGoetz]

Hey Benny! Thanks so much for the lengthy comment - it got me thinking, which I appreciate. So regarding your question of audience size: Facebook especially is REALLY deceptive. There are pages with more than three times the audience size of my band, who get even less engagement than we do. And yes, also people with, say, half our audience size, who have double our engagement. In my opinion, page likes have become irrelevant - except for one thing. You can target everyone who has liked your page as an advertising audience. These aren't public posts, so they don't build social proof for anyone who hasn't already liked your page, but they can get some good results. That being said, as far as audience building goes, if your goal is profit, email is still king. It does hurt social proof, because no one has any way to see how many email subscribers you have, but your engagement rate can be as high as 80%. As for your upcoming tour, have you seen my video on touring without label support?

[@heavynov]

If that is how playthroughs are supposed to look I'm bound to fail, as I have no attractive singer. :/ Better not to even try... :D Jokes aside, thank you for the video! By the way, what are your thoughts on Amazon Merch? Amazon has a huge userbase so I think it might be quite profitable, however, I'm not sure if it works internationally.

[@KevinGoetz]

Lol! Yeah, that's probably the real secret ;) So with Amazon Merch, that actually looks like a pretty good program, from what I can tell. The drawback seems to be that currently, smaller creators don't seem likely to get invited. Since the system of marketing that seems to work for me relies on acquiring warm fans through advertising rather than waiting to be discovered on other platforms, I don't feel like I'm missing much from Amazon's marketplace. In other words, if someone cares enough about the band to buy a shirt, they probably know me already and would buy it from wherever my store is hosted. The Prime shipping would certainly make things easier, though.

[@heavynov]

Thank you for the quick and helpful reply!

[@KevinGoetz]

You're very welcome!

[@kevinvanburen3751]

Mute Prophet Band so I’m young in a starting band should we start as a cover band then start to slowly throw in our own songs in our setlist or should we just start writing our own music and produce it ??

[@dynamorphic]

What about teespring?

[@KevinGoetz]

I haven't used it myself, since Threadless does everything I need. But I've heard good things about it, might be worth looking into if you're curious.

[@devononair]

Teespring are a shitty shitty company. Best avoided.

[@devononair]

I really like your videos, but that playthrough video was boring! If you're miming, couldn't you move around a little more? I don't really get why someone would want to watch that. What's the video adding above just listening to the audio? In the absence of cool "official music" videos, I think rehearsal or live videos are better, with the actual rehearsal or live audio. They give fans something new to get their teeth into.

[@KevinGoetz]

Not necessarily. To be fair, you're right that there's room for improvement in the example videos. That being said, data doesn't lie. These more simplistic mimed playthroughs perform MUCH better in terms of viewer retention and engagement than flashy official music videos. It's counter-intuitive, because we as viewers are used to really ridiculously slick production values, but just "the band in a room" is much better as a first touch to a new fan who doesn't care about us yet. As for live audio, yeah, that's another way to go, but again, as a first contact to a new fan, you want the highest audio quality you can manage, and that means album audio.

[@blessidunion]

I think the band “Our Last Night” has the cover song video down. They do it the same every time and they look and sound great. They do the traditional videos for their originals but the cover videos are great. You made the point that bands need to be good at making videos. Great advise. Helpful comment by generalxue

[@Trollfest23]

Good tips, thanks for the video. The only thing I would disagree with is in regards of design. It is not enough to possess the knowledge of Photoshop (or whatever other software for graphic design), a person has to have a taste and talent for design. Your music is really good, but unfortunately you guys lack taste in design. Such things as your logo or even wardrobe are terrible. If you hire a good designer, he/she would do magic to your ideas and vision.

[@KevinGoetz]

And that brings in the importance of branding and subjectivity. If our "image," so to speak, was objectively terrible, the sales simply wouldn't be there, because very few people will financially support a band that looks amateurish in design relating to their genre. I I don't want to assume you lack familiarity with certain tropes and symbols within the symphonic metal genre, but the vast majority of our listeners are totally fine with our image because it falls into that familiarity.

[@victorosoriojule1683]

I DIDN'T KNOW OF THE EXISTENCE OF REDBUBBLE! THIS THING IS AMAZING! THANKS

[@STONEDECISION]

What I cannot understand is how you can tell us how to make our bands famous if you can’t do it for yourself

[@ashworthwiltshire7446]

Best advice I’ve heard in two years, “don’t stream”. Thank you.