Yowza! There’s little to no resources on how to make it in the deathrock/gothic scene, which is probably why we have a scarcity of original bands. If cool bands can’t play outside their garages, sad disco music will surely eliminate the lot of us. This is why I asked the frontmen of two happen’n bands in our scene about establishing yourself, promoting, and the whole kit and caboodle. Mucho thanks to both Andy Deane and Voltaire, their advice should help us all!! 
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Voltaire 

About Starting Up

Q: How did you secure an initial fan base? Did you actively cater towards a particular demographic when promoting shows, projecting an image?

A: Well, I believe there may have been special circumstances to my building an audience so quickly because of the nature of my first show. I played my first gig in March of 1995 and at that time, comedy and Goth DID NOT MIX! Or at least they weren't supposed to. So the fact that my show was so different from the usual Gothic act I think caused a bit of a stir. Also, the fact that I did so much interacting with the audience was very unusual. At that first show, I told stories between songs, as I still do, and half way through the set, I stopped and we played Goth Bingo. Of course the game was totally rigged! And the winning number was 666. ; ) I had a mailing list out that I invited people to sign so that I could invite them to my next show, a technique that is VERY important to building an audience. The mailing list itself was actually a skull encrusted book I called The Book of the Dead, that looked like it was dug out of Poe's grave. So the book itself was very inviting.. and people seemed excited to put their names in it. Mind you this was before the internet so everything was done via the mail. I would NEVER send out flyers with a computer generated address on a sticker. That seemed WAY too impersonal to me. Instead I would send the invites in black envelopes with their names and addresses hand written in silver ink. It looked like someone had gone to a lot of trouble to invite them to the show and I'm sure a lot of people were excited to receive these mailings even if they didn't particularly care about the show itself. ; ) 

Finally, I refused to just hand people flyers at clubs. God knows that at the end of a weekend of clubbing, my pockets were full of them and I would just throw them away without even looking at half of them. So I created a small, 8 page comic book called Oh My Goth!. I would draw these little books, xerox about 500 of them at Kinkos, fold them, staple them and hand them out at the local Goth clubs. I got the idea from those religious tracts they give you on the subway that have a picture of Bart Simpson on the cover. You look at it and think, "Cool, A Simpsons comic book!" but by the end there is religious scripture explaining why poor little Bart is going straight to hell! In my books, Oh My Goth!, I would be chased by the minions of Satan as they tried to prevent me from playing my next show. And then of course, whatever they did would actually cause the show to happen, and naturally the information for the next show would be on the last page. The idea was to give people a little free entertainment. If they liked it, perhaps they would be inspired to come to the show. There were nights were I would look around at the Bank, the big NY Goth Club at the time, and everyone would be sitting around reading those little Oh My Goth! mini comics. Eventually, Oh My Goth! took on a life of its own. I got a publishing deal and a full length Oh My Goth! comic book was released. To this day, it remains a GREAT way to cross pollinate and to attract people to the music, who perhaps were only into comics. 

Q: What did you do to book gigs early on, before you had any sort of publicity... How did you get promoters/venues to take you seriously? 

A: I would talk to promoters in the scene that I was familiar with. They seemed pretty open to giving me a shot. And I played for free (and in shitty time slots) A LOT in the beginning. Truth be told, I had a pretty strong turnout at my shows early on and so the clubs were fairly eager to book me. Subsequently, in time, the time slots got better until I was bringing in enough people that I was consistently being booked as the head-lining act. It wasn't until I got signed though, and had a national release, that the money got to be substantial.

Publicity/Labels 

Q: How did you go about putting together a press kit for magazines/webzines? What advice would you give to a band putting one together - what are some good rules to follow..? 

A: Because I was already a stop-motion animator and director, I already had a press kit full of press clippings... so I just added to that any bit of press that I got as a musician and it seemed like I had a really full press kit. (even if there were only a couple articles about the music, specifically) A word of advice: Keep in mind that a lot of lazy magazine writers just copy what's in the press kit when they are reviewing your CD. So the trick is to write in your press kit what you will want to see written about you in a magazine! And you probably WILL see it written word for word in a magazine at some point! 

Q: How did you shop yourselves to labels, and what helped you get recognized by the local press: image, fans, sound? 

A: I was lucky and didn't have to shop myself to a label. I had developed enough of a fan base and was getting enough press before getting signed that it attracted the attention of Cleopatra and Projekt, the two big Goth labels. I played my first gig with the whole band opening up for Switchblade Symphony and Christian Death in NYC. When those bands got back to California at the end of the tour, they told Cleopatra that the band that had opened for them in NY had a really original sound. That got Cleopatra to call us. Eventually though, I realized the deal wasn't right and I passed. Then I opened for Black Tape For a Blue Girl when they came through NY in the hopes that band leader and president of Projekt, Sam Rosenthal would get a chance to hear us. Unfortunately, I discovered after the show that he was backstage the whole time and missed my show. However, I had handed out a couple hundred cassettes of our demo during the show and one of them fell into the hands of his then girlfriend and bandmate (now wife) Lisa. So they apparently listened to my demo on their way back to Chicago where they were based. That week I got a call from Sam and he communicated his desire to come to NY to see us play a showcase for his label which we did. Soon after we signed with Projekt and have released 3 LPs to date with more to come!

Distribution 

Q: Lots of bands have financial problems early on, how did you go about recording songs, and putting together a demo/ep/single? Any advice to bands looking to get in a studio or D.I.Y about recording?

A: Sorry, don't know. 

Q: How do mp3s fit into your usual methods of distribution? When you record an LP, do you advocate it circulating on the internet in it's entirety, or just a few selected tracks? 

A: I will put a couple of tracks out there on the net to whet people's appetites... but the bottom line is that I want people to buy the CD. Unfortunately there are thousands of people that don't think musicians should get paid for their work. I get tons of emails from people that start out, " I am your biggest fan. Can you send me the lyrics to your songs." The lyrics to all of my songs are printed in the booklets that come with the CDs so, naturally these people clue me into the fact that they have never bought any of my CDs. It's really sad. I have a son to feed, I have bills to pay, but for some reason, people feel they should own my work and the work of other countless musicians without giving a red cent to the person who created it. I am all for streaming music on the internet, I think the net should be one huge listening station and that you should be able to listen to any song before you choose whether or not to buy the record. But downloading and owning is different! . Truth be told, I will stop caring the day I can walk into the supermarket, fill my cart with groceries and wave at the cashier as I walk out of the store proclaiming, "I'm going to take this food home now and I'm going to eat it. Maybe if I like it, I will buy something from you in the future.. or maybe I'll just fill my cart again and walk out. By the way, I LOVE your store, I'm your biggest fan." So, yeah, don't get me started. In all fairness though, I will say that I DO get emails from file sharers who say they got turned onto my music by file sharing and then went and bought my CDs.

Sustaining Your Appeal / Creative Control

Q: After you have a consistent show turn out, how do you sustain their interests? Do label's or fans' expectations influence what you produce as an artist? Is there a catch-22 when it comes to weighing artistic integrity and progressive ideas against fans' loyalties, label interests, and ultimately, the money you make?

A: The way to keep the interest of the fans is to consistently write good music. The way to consistently write good music is to be true to yourself. My formula is that I only write and release music that I would want to listen to. Then I cross my fingers and hope that there is an audience for it. But the day you start writing what you THINK people want to hear is the day you start writing drivel. So you might as well call it quits at that point. (In my humble opinion).

Thanks!

Voltaire can be found here www.voltaire.net 

About Starting Up

Q: How did you secure an initial fan base? Did you actively cater towards a particular demographic when promoting shows, projecting an image?

A~ At first we weren’t really concerned with who was there so much as someone was there. I think that we used the Goth thing to our advantage unintentionally at first as there wasn’t much of that type of music around here at the time. So of course we’d throw the word on a flyer and every kid that was hungry for that type of music would crawl out of the woodwork for the shows. 

Q: What did you do to book gigs early on, before you had any sort of publicity... How did you get promoters/venues to take you seriously?

A~ At first we handed out demo tapes and would play at parties or whatever. Then we started talking to clubs here in C’ville and in Richmond. We were very focused on the local scene at the time and it’s still very important to us.

Publicity/Labels

Q: How did you go about putting together a press kit for magazines/webzines? What advice would you give to a band putting one together - what are some good rules to follow..?

A~ We took a look at what some other bands had done and used what ideas we liked and threw out the ones we didn’t. I would advise a new band to keep it short. I know that most record executives aren’t going to read ten pages about a band they have never heard of. Keeping it to one sheet of info (bio, discography, profiles) and one photo looks very professional and may get some extra attention.

Q: How did you shop yourselves to labels, and what helped you get recognized by the local press: image, fans, sound?

A~ We just sent off a CD and our promo pack and waited. There really wasn’t much more that we could do at the time. Lucky for us everything worked out in our favor. As for the local press, I think that our strong local following got them looking our way. There was a long span of time where we were in feature articles at least once a month… That kind of coverage certainly helped us!

Distribution

Q: Lots of bands have financial problems early on, how did you go about recording songs, and putting together a demo/ep/single? Any advice to bands looking to get in a studio or D.I.Y about recording?

A~ I’ll start with saying sometimes less is better. If you’re on a really tight budget and need to cut a demo, focus on three songs instead of trying to record a full-length CD. Three really solid songs is far better than ten that sound rushed. As for getting in a studio, look for digital recording, which is pretty easy to find now… It saves money on buying tape and cuts editing time in half. If you’re doing it at home, just be patient with your work and check out your sound in a few different sound systems before calling it final. Plus, a cheap mastering job at your local studio probably won’t cost too much and can mean a world of difference.

Q: How do mp3s fit into your usual methods of distribution? When you record an LP, do you advocate it circulating on the internet in it's entirety, or just a few selected tracks?

A~ When you first start out, plan on giving away your music! You might have a few sales here and there, but be sure to keep everything available to the public. Later on you can slow down on releasing everything on the web… not that there won’t be a fair share of pirating…

Sustaining Your Appeal / Creative Control

Q: After you have a consistant show turn out, how do you sustain their interests? Do label's or fans' expectations influence what you produce as an artist? Is there a catch-22 when it comes to weighing artistic integrity and progressive ideas against fans' loyalties, label interests, and ultimately, the money you make?

A~ I think that the most important thing is to make sure that you are personally happy with the work you produce. I know that some people get into the music industry simply to make a few bucks, and I really wouldn’t know what to tell them except to just do whatever their label tells them to. As for me, I keep writing music that is true to myself and the fans seem to pick up on that. I think that roots are very important to a band’s integrity. As for there being a catch-22, I don’t think so… Everything is laid out in front of you and you just have to decide what works best for you. If you decide early on that you won’t compromise your art, then there is no problem.

And finally

Q: Any local movers and rabble rousers that you'd reccomend newer bands look into if they're interested in promoting, recording or distributing their music?

A~ Look into fanzines and webzines! Plus, try to hit up labels for distribution. Long before we signed with Metropolis, they were sending out Remains for us… The worst thing you can do is get a rejection letter, and that does no harm whatsoever.

Bella Morte can be found here: www.bellamorte.com