In today’s major label industry… the way it’s going — they want to make it seem like that it’s a big dream for everyone. Getting paid lots of money. Making albums to get sold in all record stores and online. Go on world tours. Bands & artists dream to get their names everywhere as much as possible. A lot of bands these days are obsessed with wanting to “make it”. Unsigned local bands and artists would try to do whatever it takes to “make it”. Really, they don’t care what it takes and they would do everything as much as possible such as playing battle of the band competitions to get to the next level, try out for all these singing competitions such as “American Idol”, “The Voice”, “America’s Got Talent”, etc. Bands & artists would try to market themselves as major label artists when they’re not really.

Seems like all local bands & artists wanna get signed and “make it” these days. Nothing wrong with that. All that is fine and good. I think that the more you obsess with wanting fame & fortune, the lesser chances you’re going to make that happen. So do yourself a favor. Stop dreaming and look at reality.

In today’s music industry, it’s actually very hard to “make it”. In the old days, major labels “used” to sign bands & artists if they think their music is good but they don’t work like that anymore. In today’s industry, you have to have a large enough following in order to get the major labels attention to prove your worth which is gonna be hard. If you have no star power, then you’re not gonna make it.

Just stay humble with yourself and don’t take yourself serious. Leave your dreams and delusions out of your music. Just play for the love of it and that’s it. I don’t really care about “fame” and wanting to “make it” at all ’cause that’s not what I really do this for. I’m into making music for me ’cause I enjoy it and have fun with it. I never really cared for fame and popularity like most bands & artists do. To me, music isn’t a competition. I never looked at music that way. I just wanna write songs. Make the music, express myself and try to get heard. I’m not worried about getting lots of fans. If I get lots of fans, that’s cool… if I don’t, I’m alright with that too.

Most of the time, fame and “making it” happens to bands & artists when they weren’t expecting it. They just make the music and “fame” happens on it’s own. That’s what happened to a lot of my favorite bands that I love such as Led Zep, Metallica, Sabbath, Neil Young, Springsteen, etc. They didn’t seek out the “fame”, they just played the music and it just happened for them.

With all this being said, you shouldn’t care about fame. Why obsess with fame now when the record industry today is mostly shit? If you do “make it” in this day and age of the industry, you’re gonna get controlled. The labels will write the songs for you and why would you want that? They also pick the songs to release for your records. Do your research. The industry isn’t cool as it seems. It’s a pretty shady and evil music industry these days so it is best to stay unsigned.

In this day and age, you don’t need a label at all. You don’t even need to be under an indie label. With all these professional recording technology you can buy on your own, you can make your albums homemade and release it online. Sell your albums on Itunes, bandcamp, etc. or give away your music for free if you want to.

You don’t need a record label or “fame” to get recognized for your music. Just play your music, write the songs and that’s all you gotta do. Too many local bands & artists are playing “rock star” dreams lately. It’s been happening more and more, I’ve noticed lately.

Kev