Tips And Traps For Young Singer / Songwriters

I’m aiming this month’s column at singer / songwriters because these days, if you are a singer you are expected to be a songwriter as well, regardless of whether or not you actually want to write songs. If you are a specialist songwriter most of this still applies.

As the new kid on the block, you will be copping advice from all sides about what the first single should be, what you should wear, who should direct your video for CMC, what The Industry is looking for this week etc. You will also get a lot of advice on songwriting, which can be really dangerous … especially from people who have never written a worthwhile song in their lives. Your songs are the start of everything you do … with a bad song, great production, nice clothes and a good film clip can’t save you. I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to wear but after 40 years and 500 recordings of my songs, I am prepared to send a little songwriting advice your way.

Your Audience

Contrary to what your advisors may tell you, this isn’t pop music. A large proportion of country music fans are “grown ups”. No one expects that you can have a great deal of life experience to bring to your work at 19 or 20 years old but
endless songs about your latest boyfriend/ girlfriend are not going to really touch people raised on a diet of Dolly, Kenny, Willie and Reba. When I first started playing professionally, I was given some great advice “You’re here to entertain them … not educate them”. Everything should be in balance … give the audience what they want to hear before you give them what you want them to hear.

Listen To Where Your Music Came From

You can’t write in a vacuum. While I would always caution you against copying other writer’s songs, you can learn so much by listening to artists and writers who have earned their place at the top of the tree. Listen to how they work your emotions, how they set up the hook and how the lyric works seamlessly with the tune. You may never have heard of Loretta Lynne or Merle Haggard but they’re all there on YouTube. I worked with a very talented young songwriter recently and she asked for a list of songwriters she could listen to … and this was someone who already had a good knowledge of country music.

Co Writing

When I first started writing songs, I learned so much from writing with more experienced writers. They taught me things in 5 minutes that took them years of trial and error to master. Songwriting is an honorable profession … I now hand on things that took me years to learn. I still learn every time I co write. A new writer brings enthusiasm, a lack of fear and preconceptions and a sense of what is cool. What the older writer brings to the table is discipline, technique and a sense of what works. By now, your advisors have probably told you there is no future for you unless you write own songs … if that is true, you should, at least, explore co writing as a way to come up with the songs you need.

It’s Not The Kind Of Song The Industry Wants

There you go, using the “ I “ word again. No one ever made it big by being the same as everyone else.

1. You can’t have an album full of singles. What some people see as ‘fillers” are often the songs that will define you as an artist. The fact that they are not lightweight, hooky little pop songs in no way means that they are not important.
2. Merely getting into the charts or on CMC is no guarantee that your album will sell or that people will show up to your shows. Trying to write songs like the one’s on the charts only guarantees one thing … that you won’t develop a voice of your own
3. If the song you are writing doesn’t immediately scream HIT, don’t give up on it. Merely writing it is helping you develop your skills and you never know …people may love it.

That’s Old School

Yes, I know it is but that’s what a lot of country music fans want. They’ve been making country records since Jimmie Rogers back in 1927 and there has been a lot of history and quality since then. Taylor Swift is a talented writer and singer but country music probably only needs one of her … maybe you should try being you instead. Maybe, the question you need to ask yourself is … are people still going to ask you to play this in 10 years time.

See you next month … Maybe.

If you have a question regarding any aspects of song writing or are interested in my “one on one” private song writing coaching service (based in the Blue Mountains) contact me at allan@allancaswell.com

Independent Of What?

By now, you know that my time of writing this column is running low and, in the interests of political correctness, I have avoided the subject of this month’s column for some time … time’s up.

I have grown tired of the pathetic “us versus them” attitude of independent and “mainstream” artists. Being an independent artist is something to be proud of, in terms of creativity and taking ownership of your future not something to hide behind or use as an excuse for your lack of success. The “Industry” doesn’t hate you because of you are an independent … you are the industry. If you are not happy with the Industry … change it.

I write my own songs, make my own records for an independent label (Shoestring), book my own gigs and invest my own money in my own career … I guess that makes me an independent. It has always been a roller coaster ride but I don’t regret it. I am not jealous of other people’s success because I know that they have worked hard for it. If you are prepared to put all your resources, time and effort into your dream and go into hock to finance recordings, travel, film clips, publicity etc … I admire you for it … you deserve to succeed. That you deserve it doesn’t mean it will happen for you and the cold hard fact is that no one is twisting your arm.

My guess is that there would be, maybe 15 to 20 acts signed to major labels and hundreds independent artists. We all make up the Industry but by sheer weight of numbers, the Industry should be independents based. If it is not, it has more to do with our own unwillingness to band together to make the pie bigger, than it has to do with some faceless people who run “The Industry” and are trying to steal our share of it.

If we spent less time hustling each other on Facebook to vote for us in some dumb award or flawed chart and more time writing better songs, making better records and getting our act out in front of people, we would be better off. Winning awards because we have lots of friends on Facebook doesn’t say much for our ability as an artist or writer.

Artists signed to major labels are not a bunch of privileged silvertails. They are, generally, young artists who have talent, work hard and have what record companies see as having “market potential”

Suggestions that the mainstream artists “have it easy” are, frankly ridiculous. Whether you are an independent artist or a mainstream artist you are still expected to pay for everything yourself (the major labels may front the money but the artist would need to recoup all the costs before seeing any money at all).

The reason that being in the country music industry seems hard is because it is. There is no conspiracy to hold you back, no one is trying to stand in your way and I have found the best way to get your album reviewed, played and getting interviews to promote it. … Is to ask. I had an interesting conversation with a journalist recently who pointed out the number of calls he receives from independent artists complaining that “The Industry” is being mean to them but completely forgetting to tell him about their latest album or sending him a copy to review. The industry is relatively small. Done right, you can network your way to airplay and publicity or hire people who can do it for you.

The music industry demands so much in terms of time, money and commitment just to be a part of it. You need to love what you do to get you through the tough times. Having been signed, at various stages of my career to major labels as well as small independent labels, I have to say that I preferred the latter. I have appreciated the lack of interference in my work and though resources are less available I never feel that I have to take my place in a pecking order for the attention of my own label.

See you next month … Maybe.

If you have a question regarding any aspects of song writing or are interested in my “one on one” private song writing coaching service (based in the Blue Mountains) contact me at allan@allancaswell.com

Where The Money Comes From

The most asked questions from young writers always concern how to make money from their work. I have always avoided writing a column on this before because it tends to reveal the dark side of our “industry” … I am, however, running out of columns … so here goes.

A survey a few years ago revealed that the average Australian actor earns under $20,000 per year. Your average songwriter would earn substantially less than that. That said, when you come to terms with the fact that the most important thing is to create work that you can be proud of, it is possible to make significant money doing something you love.

APRA and AMCOS

Nearly all your income as a songwriter comes via these two organizations and you owe it to yourself to become a member of both. APRA pays you directly for any performances achieved by your songs, whether live, on radio, television or on film. The pool of money collected by APRA every year runs into millions of dollars and is divided up between all the writers and publishers on a pro rata basis depending on the relative success of your songs.

AMCOS does much the same job as its close relative APRA except that it collects money primarily from the sales of CDs and DVDs etc.

When an artist or record company releases an album a licence fee is paid to AMCOS and a royalty is paid to the writers and publishers of the songs on the album. If you don’t have a publisher you need to be a member of AMCOS in order for them to be able to pay you. APRA pays you the performance royalties direct (and pays the publisher’s share direct to them.

If you or another artist performs one of your songs live it should be logged on a Live Performance Return. The venues you play at are licenced by APRA and you are entitled to a share of that money if your songs are performed live.

Synchronisation Rights

When your songs are used in a movie or in a television show or on pay television there is a fee to be paid to you. This is negotiated, either by your publisher, or directly by you.

Advances

If you sign a publishing deal, you will often be offered an advance, this is effectively a loan against future royalties. This means that you are earning money ahead of time. There is a downside … if you pay off a loan with a bank you own your house … you can find that with a publishing company, they can still own part of the house 70 years after you die. You need to be really careful whenever you accept an advance from anywhere.

Theft

OK, now for the dark side … in your quest to make a living out of your songs, you will almost certainly come up against theft.

The more obvious methods of stealing from you are plagiarism and illegal copying and downloading, which are an ongoing battle but there are other methods, which are more sinister, because they come from your fellow artists and writers. If you are an artist and don’t obtain a licence from AMCOS you are effectively stealing from all the writers who contributed to your album. You are stealing from the very people who made your album possible.

A Leading Australian songwriter says: ” For a long time the record companies diligently paid their AMCOS Royalties to songwriters and songwriting was at least worth some money. Lots if you were successful. In these ‘post record company’ days the Independent artist rules the day. They need lots of great songs to get to move forward in their careers. Sadly the ‘License To Manufacture’ from AMCOS is often the last thing the Artist thinks about paying “

When you fill out your Live Performance Returns for APRA and claim to have performed your songs when you didn’t you are stealing directly from your fellow songwriters … feel good yet?

I know some of the artists who are stealing from me but, thankfully their talent is at about the same level as their honesty and the recordings would not have made much money any way.

See you next month … maybe.

If you have a question regarding any aspects of song writing or are interested in my “one on one” private song writing coaching service (based in the Blue Mountains) contact me at allan@allancaswell.com

Alternative To What?

When I started in Country Music the Legends of Australian Country Music were still around. I got to work withTex, Slim, Buddy, Smoky, Stan Coster, Chad Morgan and Reg Lindsay … they tended to look at people like me as upstarts who didn’t even understand the music and wouldn’t amount to anything. Back then I was too pop for country or too country for pop … now I am apparently too country for country.

As this column is potentially ending soon, I thought it might be fun to get a debate going so here goes …

The kind of music the artists like Alby Pool, Bill Chambers, Karen Lynne, Clelia Adams, Doug Bruce and … well … Allan Caswell play is now referred to as Alternative Country, the question is alternative to what? The problem is that the jumped up self-important people who think they own Country Music are so obsessed with “the youth market” and “making Country Music cool” that they miss the point. Country Music has never been cool, wasn’t intended to be cool and never will be cool. Please believe me, I accept the right of any Country artist to be as pop as they want to be, push the barriers, make the clips and “rock the country”, ultimately the fans will sort out what they consider to be the wheat from the chaff.

What irritates me is being marginalized into some kind of alternative wasteland on the grounds of age, a sense of history and a connection to the roots of my music. When the term alternative country was first coined it referred to rock musicians who wanted to nibble around the edges of Country Music now it is used to describe people who want to play hard core Country … the tail is now wagging the dog. By all means call me old school or “traditional” but never alternative … I prefer country.

When I started in the late 70s the Legends, hillbillies, bush balladeers and young upstarts like me could coexist quite nicely without any problem. It was about the music … we weren’t jockeying for positions on the charts … there weren’t any. Getting your clip on CMC wasn’t an issue … you sang live on the Reg Lindsay Show … it was fun.

The people who want to “change the face” of Country Music always refer to “what’s happening in America”. What they fail to realise is that in the USA it is all cyclical … the pop country thing will keep going for a while but when everything gets too Shania, Rascal Flats or Taylor Swift, they always turn up another George Strait, Randy Travers or Jamey Johnson. Country Music has always been a pretty broad canvas and should stay that way. Nashville has always had, at least, a sense of its own history and a reverence for the people that built it.

A member of one of Australia’s leading country bands claimed in a clip that was repeated over and over on CMC that there was no difference between a country song and a pop song except that you might use a banjo on a country song. Look, ignorance is fine in the privacy of your own home but probably shouldn’t be aired publicly

Aside form “3 chords and the truth” no one has come up with a workable definition of what makes a country song … but the words honesty, simplicity and emotion come to mind. I don’t have the right to tell anyone that their song is country or not but no one has the right to push their bias onto me either.

I guess my question is  … Do you think the emphasis on young artists playing pop country is weakening Country Music or do you think that it is a natural progression and that it will guarantee a stronger Country Music in the future. Email me and let me know what you think.

See you next month … maybe

If you have a question regarding any aspects of song writing or are interested in my “one on one” private song writing coaching service (based in the Blue Mountains) contact me at allan@allancaswell.com