LA Music Contract Attorney?

[Matt Brown]

During the middle of August I'll be in the LA area for about a week, and I'm going to be looking for a music attorney.

This summer I'm producing my debut album overseas (in China in fact), which has been in writing for years as I've developed my ideas and skills. The music is completely capable, I believe, of taking the interest of a major record label, and I'm thus interested in finding an experienced and high dollar music attorney to help get my music heard by an A&R for a major label.

1. Does anyone have personal experience they can share about what to expect when searching for and hiring a lawyer?
2. Does anyone have any recommendations for lawyers of a high caliber?
3. Perhaps this question is for the lawyer him/herself, but approximately how many "hours" of time/money could it potentially cost to get a demo heard by a label? I'm very in the dark about these matters and need to develop an idea of what budget I'll need.
4. Any general advice, things to keep in mind?

[erthquake]

Whoa, can 'o worms here, but here's some things to think about.

Why do you want a major label deal? Do you need it for distribution, marketing, etc.? Or do you think big labels offer a better payday?

Before you spend one penny on anything, I'd recommend reading Moses Avalon's books, "Confessions of a Record Producer" and "Million Dollar Mistakes". They are a great starting point for getting some idea of how the business works as well as how to avoid getting ripped off. This town will suck you dry if you're not savy.

I'd say you have a very tough hill to climb. This isn't exactly the golden of age for the big labels. Labels don't exist to give artists record deals. They exist to make money. No matter how good your music might be, there's little chance any label is going to take a risk if you have no evidence that anyone is even going to like and BUY your music. Do you at least have a myspace page where people can hear your music and leave comments saying much they love it? Can a label rep see you play live to a packed room of rabid fans who are buying t-shirts, cd's and other schwag? Labels are now leveraging tour, publishing and licensing revenue. So if you're not going to tour, get your music placed on TV or in movies, or sell song books, your chances of getting signed are even more slim.

You'll already have the record done. Assuming it's top notch, you only need the label for distro and marketing. Labels notoriously suck for marketing. If you don't fit into one of their nice prepackaged ideas, they won't know how to market you and you won't get any push behind the record. As for distro, you can get yourself onto iTunes using something like Tunecore.com. If you market yourself well, and assuming you didn't break the bank recording the record, you could sell the record for cheap and still make more money than you would if you were on a label.

Realize that most major label artists don't make money from record sales unless they've sold millions of records. Sure they get to record for "free", but they don't make any money until all the recording/promo costs are paid off. Artists make more money from publishing and touring, but like I said, the majors now want a piece of those also.

I'd hate to see you blow a lot of money on an attorney only to have him/her toss your record into the bin as soon as you leave the office. You call two weeks later, ask how things are going, and get told, "I gave to everyone I knew, and nobody responded to it."

Everyone in this town thinks their music is the next best thing. Getting some honest feedback about the record's production, musicianship, and writing, and whether it really is "Big Label" material should be your first goal.

None of this is to put you down or discourage you. It's only meant to inform you so you don't waste a lot of money like so many before you. There's always someone willing take your money to pitch your record. If you are blindly convinced your record is marketable, you could end up wasting a lot of money trying to convince people the recored is something that it is not.

Hopefully others will chime in with more/better advice.

Best of luck!

[Craig F]

try these 2 articles on Mercenary Audio's site:


The Problem With Music by Steve Albini

and

Ballad of the Mid-Level Artist by Danny Goldberg



not that it help you find a shark but interesting points of view

[Matt Brown]

First off, thanks for the replies guys! Very informative, and very helpful.

I'm of the mind that a major label is the star to shoot for because there will be more funds to go around for marketing and distribution. I can only imagine how much money has to be spent on marketing for a brand new act to show up as a blip on the mainstream radar. Still, I'm daunted by all the failure stories of other bands. One particular unsigned band I loved and followed for a while, Trading Yesterday (singer/songwriter David Hodges was strings writer for Evanescence's Fallen album), had a beautiful debut album that generated an intense cult following by those who heard of it through word of mouth. Everyone I showed the album to fell in love with it, and that was the band's story. Then the band signed to Epic Records, rerecorded their songs professionally with a more radio sound (read: boring, dry, and unoriginal structuring), and their album sat in storage and never saw the light of day, its release repeatedly being setback for well over a year, if I remember, until finally the band pulled out.

While the self-made Trading Yesterday debut was absolutely beautiful, it was NOT mainstream-worthy, and it was NOT radio hit material, and I knew that as I listened to it. When I listen to music (and when I write it), I'm keenly aware of whether it has mainstream qualities or not, and why and how it might have such. I've scrapped hundreds of my own songs over the years that I knew might be decent; might be fun for a few spins in someone's car sound system before getting old; but that I knew could never make an adoring fan out of anyone who didn't already have a preexisting connection with my music. If you get only one listen to a band, one song for a band you've never heard before, that song has to be good enough to make you an instant fan, to cause you to Google who it is so you can buy that song and maybe the album. EVERY song has to have the capacity, and that's been my ideal. To write meticulously and with an incredibly strict censorship.

I have yet to find an unsigned act that actually had great, mainstream-worthy music and was still screwed over by a label. Every band I've listened to on MySpace or YouTube (especially YouTube) that's indie and looking for the big bucks has lackluster music. There could be very catchy ideas in the song, a nice tune, a cool instrument, whatever, but ultimately, it's always lacking a secret ingredient. The bands that I know that got signed and then screwed really never had the music to make the cut to begin with. They might have had some good things going for them, but they didn't have the "mainstream" ingredient that any huge success story has to have to make it big.

I will work on self-promotion before I intensely look for a record label, as in the usual acoustic YouTube gig, iTunes where people can buy my music after hearing through word of mouth, on my college radio (and hopefully others in the area), and so forth. I have good connections here where I'm making the album, so I'm going to try to hire a camera crew this summer to shoot a music video for one of my songs, just for the sake of having that juicy visual/aural element that really helps snare fresh and unsuspecting audiences. That might also help with the YouTube publicity. So ultimately I'm going to try my hand at getting out there and heard a bit as an unsigned act, so perhaps I'll have a little leverage when the time comes to go "legit." But even then, there's not really a guarantee that I won't be screwed by a record label is there? I mean, I'm not sure what other than a lot of money and a really good lawyer will ensure I sign a safe contract that will secure my future career. Is there anything else to do?

On a side note, I have released two well-produced singles to a small core group of people I know, many of whom didn't even know I wrote music like this (I've kept my work under tight wraps), and I've gotten nothing but the most positive and excited feedback. They've asked permission -- since it was a private release -- to show my songs to other people they know, and they all want the album when it comes out, etc.

Appreciate the links Craig! I actually discovered and read that second article once a while back, though not the first. Both are inspiring and helpful, thanks again.

Enough banter. I'm not quite sure where I was going with all that, except to expound that I've endeavored for the production quality, musicianship, and writing to be of the highest caliber, and that I'm not sure what else will guarantee me a successful relationship with a record company other than a great lawyer. That, and I'm not sure how I could ever expect to make it to the top of the game with anything other than a major label and the huge funds needed to back such an enterprise.

[sunburst79]

Theres the name of a band you don't see every day. I think I saw their only live show.

Thread hijack over off