The Composer – Damon Smith
Damon Smith is a singer/songwriter/frontman of Damon Smith & the Quality Lightweights, a 5 piece outfit based in Melbourne’s north. We asked him to spill the beans on a song he demoed recently entitled ’1000 Days’:
’1000 Days’ is beautifully stark and simple in its construct, can you describe the creative process behind this song?
Creatively speaking, the song needed little excitement instrument wise as the vocal melody seems to take control. It’s an acoustic guitar with some slight ‘tinkering’ performed on another guitar plus the vocals… keeping the music simple can help illuminate the lyrics I reckon.
You play every instrument on this yourself, is that typical of your demoing and recording process?
Yep, that’s easily typical of at least 90% of my recordings so far. I suppose by having a ‘professional’ command of guitars, piano, bass and drums it makes it convenient to get the bulk of the sound down and then add any little hooky, quirky melodies with other instruments that I have hanging around the studio.
It’s not unusual though to want a musical flourish that I simply can’t perform on an instrument such as a violin. This is where I record a rough version of the melody myself and then get a pro dude to come in and tuck it into bed.
‘Tuck into bed’ – great analogy. Carrying that further, how did you lay this one down? Glass of warm milk and a lullaby?
The song originally started with an roomy organ followed by close mic brushes on the snare then double bass was added to complete the sound. It sounded great, rich and honest but somehow too busy for the simple vocal melody and lyrics. It was a perfect example of an artist wanting to layer and then layer some more but then revising the arrangement as the power of the song was in the storytelling.
The narrative in this song seems pretty obvious at first, but you frequently write allegorically about desire and love. Can we take these lyrics at face value, or is the song about something else entirely?
No, it’s just another love song about a girl sung by a boy. Radio listeners know a love song when it comes on, the words are always the same, love, baby, I need you and don’t leave me. You can place these words all over the show in what ever order but people will still get it! If a song I’m writing seems to be heading down a romantically wet path, then I’d rather explain or describe why I need ‘her’.
Music Marketing in The Digital Age
I read an interesting article on Never Neutral the other day, via Twitter, regarding the plight of artists and revenue streams in the digital age (which was born in response to an earlier piece written by Andrew Keen in the Telegraph). This topic is of course as contentious as they come – I doubt that there are many recording artists today that haven’t thought long and hard about how they’re going to transform a disc (or reel, or hard drive) full of recordings into a sustainable paycheck in this current climate.
The discourse that really struck me though was about artists promoting themselves across the digital medium. With greater frequency now do we hear of digital ‘success’ stories, in which an artist has promoted and marketed themselves in such an innovative fashion that it has captured the attentions of a large audience, which has then translated to a sharp increase in fanbase, packed out tours, and recorded music and merch sales. Ernesto brings the point sharply into focus that these stories are always about established artists, such as Trent Reznor, Radiohead et al. In his words; ‘the problem with using [these artists] as paradigms of the new digital cultural economy is a fundamental one: none of them started out and made their financial and artistic success in the digital economy’. This is of course very true. Many (considerably) lesser-known bands followed Radiohead’s example and offered their music on a pay-what-you-feel-zero-is-ok-too model without even a meagre percentage of the success of the multi-platinum selling band. The argument that you cannot expect this level of success without an already solid distribution model is a persuasive one.
So where does that leave the modern ‘digital native’ recording artist? Good question. Personally, I love stories of successful marketing campaigns across the digital medium, no matter how successful the artist. These successes are inspirational, because they always communicate such creativity and innovation – and really, dissemination and absorption of these two concepts is the backbone of the web (or, at least as far as my amateur-tech mind is concerned).
Success is always relative. Artists at the top of their game increasing their audience by 500,000 fans is on a similar scale as an unknown band attracting 5,000 new fans (then of course there’s quality of fan, which justifies a post of its own). This is an achievable goal with the following:
- A great song (first and foremost)
- A good understanding of your audience
- A well thought out and innovative concept
- A modest budget to action your plan
If an artist can nail the first three, they set themselves up for a far greater chance at success. The traditional label model is flailing, and we’re now seeing a greater level of independence for artists than ever before. To paraphrase Uncle Ben – ‘with great independence comes great responsibility’, artists should take some time to really define their audience, to work out exactly where they are found, and how best to reach them. From there, build a concept. How do you engage your audience? How do they interact with you and your ‘brand’? What will draw them in, and what will keep them there? What will encourage them to spread the word? All these points must be defined at the very beginning of the campaign if an artist is to market and promote themselves successfully in the digital economy.
Steve
Feature Artist -> J-Wess
J-Wess was a chaeffeur in ye olde days
One of the artists we’re currently working with is Melbourne-based J-Wess. His debut record, ‘Tha LP’, was nominated for an ARIA in 2004, and spawned two top 20 singles (‘Bang This’ & ‘Luv Ya’) and the top 10 ARIA gold selling single ‘What Chu Want’.
Over the last 18 months, J-Wess has been back in the studio, working hard to craft his sophomore album, ‘The Director’s Cut’ – and the results so far have been nothing short of meritorious. J-Wess has produced a meticulous, sparkling record awash with his slick production sound and flawless, lively vocals (i’ve always appreciated J’s ability to marry the perfect vocalist to a track), which is filled with a sense of urgency that seems to speak volumes about his time ‘back in the trenches’.
The first offering from the new record is ‘Anything For You’, augmented by a white-hot video set in the 1920′s, ‘Anything For You’ features long-time collaborator Digga and relative newcomer Jerson Trinidad. Well worth a look – check it out:
J-Wess is touring with Flo Rida and Jessica Mauboy through September, and is offering double passes and backstage access to the shows through a competition on his website at www.jwess.com
Other links:
myspace.com/jwessmusic
twitter/jwess
Steve
Hola!
Howdy, and welcome to the very first post of the blog from Australia’s first and only independant A&R consultancy firm, The A&R Department.
We’ve been around in ‘beta mode’ since 2007, when Matt O’Connor left his job as A&R Director of Warner Music Australia, deciding that his goals were more aligned with developing and assisting the multitude of independant Australian artists than they were working in the often creativity-limiting major label system.
The last few years have been spent defining the most highly-sought after services for independant musicians, and in the process working with such industry stalwarts and luminaries as Faker, The Fumes, Ash Grunwald, The Beautiful Girls, Shihad, The Protectors, Magic Dirt and J-Wess, as well as producers Magoo, Jim Diamond and Paul McKercher.
We’re now officially ready to assist in a complete artist takeover of the Australian airwaves, and invite you to visit our freshly-launched site at www.theaandrdepartment.com to check out our services, package deals, or just get in touch for a chat about music on general – we spend all day talking about it, playing it, writing it, producing it, marketing it, profiling it and living it, don’t hesitate to drop us a line with links to your own music or that which you think is cool.
We’ll be using this blog to wax lyrical about what we do, who we’re listening to and working with, what we’re enjoying et al, and you’ll likely find the occasional guest posts, tips and tricks by some of Australia’s and the world’s most interesting musicians and industry types.
Stay tuned, and we hope to meet you soon!
Cheers,
Matt, James, Steve & Mia.
leave a comment