Trent Reznor Offers Tips to Young Bands

Posted on Jul 10th 2009 1:30PM by Mike Ayers
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Although he just announced Nine Inch Nails' final set of U.S. gigs, Trent Reznor has some sound advice for those bands who are still in that oh-so-cute stage of infancy. In a lengthy post to the NIN forum, Reznor discusses what he thinks is a good way to proceed with your musical career. The first step is to stop thinking that any sort of profit or breaking even is going to happen with your music. "Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales," Reznor writes. "Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters."

The next -- and probably most crucial to Reznor -- would be to master the Internet and use it for your own means instead of allowing others to search you out and find your work at torrent sites. "What you NEED to do is this -- give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s," he says. "Collect people's email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers." So, for all the time and hard work you put into your band's innovative ukulele use and emotive lyrics about your recent breakup, your reward should be a telemarketer-style database so you can wisely promote your goods down the road. While this seems a bit sad, it's probably a good tip.

This generosity should also have a limit -- Reznor suggests eventually selling albums in rare, limited edition forms, just like he did for 'Ghosts I-IV' (and to a very successful degree, we might add). We'd suggest waiting awhile before plugging anything in a limited form -- while you may think you're the next Bon Iver, for the most part you'll need to actually have music people want to think is rare. In the end, Reznor gets straight to the point with these suggestions: "Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS."

There you have it -- if all else fails, be interesting. Especially on your Twitter account. No one likes a boring tweet.