Ever wondered how a band transforms from garage jams to a brand with loyal followers? Strap in as we're about to unravel the art of band marketing with Beth Norris, marketing maestro by day and electrifying vocalist by night. From the raw energy of live music to the strategic moves behind building a brand, we're peeling back the curtain on what it takes to make a band stand out in a sea of melodies.
This episode isn't just about the buzz of the stage; it's a goldmine of wisdom for bands navigating their identities and social media presence. Listen as Timmy13, together with John Sonic, join forces with Beth to dissect the nuances of creating a compelling narrative that strikes a chord with fans. We're talking the tightrope walk between relentless promotion and keeping your audience wanting more, the surprise hits that come from stepping outside the comfort zone, and how a band's aesthetic can echo through the ages.
Get ready for a rollicking ride through tales of DIY merch magic, the balance of personality in branding, and the unexpected success of Metallica covers in unlikely places. With insights on content strategy, networking, and why stage presence matters even if you're just the drummer in cargo shorts, this episode is a backstage pass to the strategies that will amplify your band's voice. So, pull up a chair, pour yourself a cold one, and let's turn the volume up on the music marketing secrets that could just make your band the next big thing.
Ever wondered how a band transforms from garage jams to a brand with loyal followers? Strap in as we're about to unravel the art of band marketing with Beth Norris, marketing maestro by day and electrifying vocalist by night. From the raw energy of live music to the strategic moves behind building a brand, we're peeling back the curtain on what it takes to make a band stand out in a sea of melodies.
This episode isn't just about the buzz of the stage; it's a goldmine of wisdom for bands navigating their identities and social media presence. Listen as Timmy13, together with John Sonic, join forces with Beth to dissect the nuances of creating a compelling narrative that strikes a chord with fans. We're talking the tightrope walk between relentless promotion and keeping your audience wanting more, the surprise hits that come from stepping outside the comfort zone, and how a band's aesthetic can echo through the ages.
Get ready for a rollicking ride through tales of DIY merch magic, the balance of personality in branding, and the unexpected success of Metallica covers in unlikely places. With insights on content strategy, networking, and why stage presence matters even if you're just the drummer in cargo shorts, this episode is a backstage pass to the strategies that will amplify your band's voice. So, pull up a chair, pour yourself a cold one, and let's turn the volume up on the music marketing secrets that could just make your band the next big thing.
Thank you, so Thank you.
Speaker 3:They said I'd never do anything. Well, you showed them. All right, what's up everybody. I am Timmy13. I am joined by my co-host way over there, john Sonic.
Speaker 4:Hey, hey.
Speaker 3:Thank you all for coming out today. This is awesome. We also have our special guest joining us Beth Norris, brennan Hi.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Beth.
Speaker 3:She has all kinds of names.
Speaker 2:I'm sure yeah.
Speaker 3:Some of them good, some of them good, some of them good. Well, awesome. We are super stoked that everybody's here. Um, live, we did this, uh. I've done two shows. One was with my buddy over here, dano he's now in the audience um, and uh. Then we did john's hidden garage. Yeah, it's like a fortress, it's an awesome place, and Paul Barber saw the show and said I want you guys in my bar. So here we are. Thank you to Paul, who's not here, but we will thank our producer, who's hanging out in the back. She will not be on camera, she refuses. Her name is Megan. She's awesome. She's answered my calls and texts throughout weird hours of the time when I have ideas and things, and so she's been awesome. So we credit her as a producer, uh also, what'd you say, making it happen?
Speaker 3:making it happen. Also somebody who's not here, um, but will be here in the future our stage tech, jeff Baker, helped us put together the lights. Actually, we spent about three hours putting this together yesterday and we have future ideas of how we're going to set this all up, so we're excited. We're excited. This is our first live. I don't even know what to do here. What do we do, john?
Speaker 4:I guess, that's it. That's it, good night, all right.
Speaker 2:Oh drink. This is sponsored beer.
Speaker 3:We are sponsored by Ziggy's here in Hudson, which is awesome. Again, thank you to Paul Barber, Justin, who owns the Hoppin Barrel next door. Also, he's talking to sponsor us, so we're very thankful for that.
Speaker 2:IPA.
Speaker 3:Which one you got.
Speaker 2:I got the IPA. I'm an IPA girl. I like it strong and kind of aggressive. It's rock and roll.
Speaker 3:You want me to edit that out later?
Speaker 4:Nope, okay, I'm going in, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:We had an eclipse today. This is our first time live all brand new equipment. What could go wrong?
Speaker 4:Absolutely nothing. Everything that does go wrong is because of the eclipse. You know what?
Speaker 1:That's what I'm going to say I'm certain of it, I like that.
Speaker 3:All right, that's what we're rolling with. So there's a lot of people here. We've told you if you enter the building and you walk in front of the cameras and you end up on camera, that sucks for you. Not editing you out, not blurring you. You read the sign on the door, cool.
Speaker 2:Unless you're into it. Yeah, huh, no, I didn't mean that in a bad way.
Speaker 3:And you like it strong and aggressive, you know this is totally not how I thought this was going to go Sorry, are you? Are you? Anyway so anybody here?
Speaker 1:I see a lot of people here.
Speaker 3:My good buddy Brent over there. He's a very good drummer. Ryan, how'd your audition go, by the way? Good? Yeah, see this is what happens when you're live. We get to bug you.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to say it went poorly on life.
Speaker 3:I would. If it went poorly, I would Okay, you know what it sucked.
Speaker 4:The band was terrible. I really nailed it.
Speaker 2:I rocked, but everybody else it was good.
Speaker 3:I did swell, jake. Audio Circus I saw you perform for the first time just a couple weeks ago. You guys killed it. So for the people watching, if you have not seen Audio Circus, make sure you get out and see them. That was some of the most fun I've had, along with Beth here we've got Paul in the audience, part of Sugar Buzz. Yeah yeah, awesome. We have some feral people, feral parents, who actually started because of John. Well, yeah, the jam.
Speaker 4:Is that fair to?
Speaker 3:say, straight out of the jam. So let's talk about that, for a minute?
Speaker 4:Yeah, let's, I'd be happy to. Um. So yeah, this guy over here, randall, joined us, uh, for the first time about jam five or something, and his buddy talked him into signing up and getting on stage. And it not only was it his first time being on stage, he never played with other musicians before, and that, really that.
Speaker 3:So the jam was your first time getting up there yeah, oh, um.
Speaker 4:I asked him you know what he thought of it, and he said I effing love it and I'm gonna be back every week. So the next thing you know, now you're in a band with these two characters every weekend. Uh, right on, right now it happens, yeah, happens that is how it happens.
Speaker 3:No, that's awesome. I mean, they play at every jam and every time they play it it's like you can tell they're leveling up every single time.
Speaker 4:Yeah yeah, that's awesome so congrats to you guys.
Speaker 3:That's awesome.
Speaker 4:If you're watching from home, you notice how we do call out people from bands, so it's a good promotion for you, oh.
Speaker 2:Wait, there's my fiance, come on out.
Speaker 3:Oh, wait, wait. Did you just say you're engaged? Yeah, sorry people, steve Hill.
Speaker 2:Yep, he is in Hellion, which is a Judas Priest tribute band, and Halfway there, halfway.
Speaker 3:There, and you just joined Halfway there, bon.
Speaker 2:Jovi, what About a year?
Speaker 3:ago, oh, about a year ago, okay.
Speaker 2:And I met him at a jam.
Speaker 3:Well, look at that, so there's other benefits to jamming. If you go to jams, you're going to get hard and aggressive and you're going to start a band.
Speaker 2:You missed the hard and aggressive part, sorry.
Speaker 3:But we hear good things.
Speaker 2:This is how you're taking it there. What happened? I'm going to start drinking what?
Speaker 3:I'm lost, so anyway. So let's talk a little bit more about the gym. We've got the next one coming up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the next one is coming up next Wednesday. It'll probably be today when this airs. Oh yeah, april 17th at the Stillwater Z's location One week after that will be our very first gym here in this building Ziggy's in Hudson, upstairs.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be at that one.
Speaker 1:You're going to be at this one. Yes, I am going to be at that one Because I was asked by somebody to do a particular song.
Speaker 2:What song? The Steelheart song.
Speaker 3:If you haven't heard Beth do that song, it is, you're Going to Cry. It's so emotional. Like she gets into it and says oh look, who just walked in the door.
Speaker 2:You can sit there.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. That's the judging table.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the judging table.
Speaker 3:We're absolutely judging everybody that sits at that table.
Speaker 2:This is live right now and I'm drinking a live beer on live TV. It's a live one, yeah.
Speaker 4:My beer was recorded at another time.
Speaker 2:Oh that's another band. That's Sarah from.
Speaker 3:Red Duck. We were doing band shout outs. I am running sound for them this friday.
Speaker 2:I am, so that's gonna be exciting surprising us all with different things he's doing for our bands.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh really I am a I I do so many different things. You know what I'm gonna do. Less, though, what drumming I'm gonna do.
Speaker 2:Less drumming, um Just kind of Because you want or they're just booting you.
Speaker 4:I wish they were booting me After a while. You just get sick of bands.
Speaker 2:No, that's not wrong.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely, it's the stage unhinged. We are unhinged right now. No, I'm.
Speaker 2:So then, why are you surprised with anything I say?
Speaker 3:I'm not, it's just so. Well, no, I am, I guess, because I always picture you as like this, I don't even know this person Go on Like prim and proper, what was that? That's kind of what I see, and so I've always I've always admired beth. So when you hear things like that, you're like, oh my god, you went from here to here real quick, because now you're on my level, yeah I, I'm, I'm half bulgarian, so I'm, but only half not sure what that means, but I is that the hard aggressive part no, that's vulgar.
Speaker 2:it's the vulgar part, it's the blue language.
Speaker 4:I see.
Speaker 2:I can roll with it.
Speaker 4:Did you say vulgarian?
Speaker 2:Vulgarian Okay, vulgarian. What did you think?
Speaker 4:With a V.
Speaker 2:With a V, Okay yeah, that was a joke.
Speaker 4:No, I thought you just said vulgarian.
Speaker 2:Oh, not said Bulgarian, oh, not Bulgarian, no, bulgarian, bulgarian, vulgar. That just landed so bad.
Speaker 3:Can we? Take again, okay Did you say, can we take again? Can we, Absolutely not.
Speaker 3:Oh I know, but no, so I want to dial back on drumming. The last two summers I've been so busy and my daughter I have not been able to spend any time with her and that's driving me absolutely insane. So if you're a parent, you understand being able to. Right now she's young enough that she wants to hang out with me. She still thinks I'm kind of cool. I've got about two years left of that before, right, you understand. She's 11 years old, so by the time she is 13, it's yeah, so I want to hang out with her.
Speaker 2:Come on in. There's a comfy couch over there there is there, really is it's awesome. That's where I'd sit, but that's just.
Speaker 3:I'm up here. I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 4:But anyway, back to the gym. Back to the gym. So the 24th here, the very first one here, though yeah, yeah, that'll be the first time we do it. We'll be here once a month, still water twice a month, and uh, right now we're in the middle of our featured guest series, so what is that? I've seen that online, but what is that sort of it's's guitarists right now, right yeah so we're bringing in, as a member of the temporary house band, a guitarist from around the cities, because Tony Williams is out right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, because he's supporting Queens right.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's an armored saint.
Speaker 3:Armored saint yeah.
Speaker 4:So on the 17th we've got Dan Monaghan from Good for Gary. That's going to be a killer show. 24th, when we come here, we've got Jeff Rutland from Pop Rocks and we've got some Pop Rocks fans.
Speaker 2:I think it was Jeff who requested the song actually.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the Still Hard One.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm Okay.
Speaker 4:We did it once in Still Water.
Speaker 2:Yes, we did.
Speaker 3:I must say it was Brant, because that I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I I.
Speaker 4:I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I I.
Speaker 3:I, I, I, I I with that statement, 100% that Beth nails it.
Speaker 4:It was still a hard song. Yeah, absolutely Blow you away. So come and see it.
Speaker 2:So the guest series you said Jeff was the 24th, and then who's after Jeff?
Speaker 4:Oh, may 1st, We've got Logan Stolliker. I'm excited for that, just phenomenal.
Speaker 3:We're bringing Backcountry into the jam for that, yeah, a bunch of sevenfold. I got drums, brad, don't worry, that'd be cool.
Speaker 4:That's going to be fun, yeah. So anyway, we can wrap up that segment, but if you want more information, ziggy's all starscom you can find everything on there that you need to know. There's frequently asked questions page that will help actually talk about the new feature you just put up.
Speaker 3:Um, did you just put that up today?
Speaker 4:the uh setlist archive yeah, so you can go on a site and now there's an archive of, uh, every jam we've ever done. The set lists are posted there, so if you want to see who played when and where, check it out. It's cool. There's another feature that's relatively new. Last week released the event calendar, so right now you can go on there and find the jams from now until may 22nd and it it shows the locations, there's maps and directions and everything that's happening at that jam. So I think I've gotten ahead of everyone's questions, but they still come to me with the same things.
Speaker 3:Do they come to you in the middle of the night. Sometimes Absolutely. Some ideas come to me in the middle of the night and I try not to message you. I don't want to piss off your wife.
Speaker 4:And they'll say, hey, what did I sign up for tonight? Awesome.
Speaker 3:So the Z Jam you know I go and I get to play every now and then, but I mostly record and it's just so much fun. The atmosphere is great, everybody loves everybody there. I don't know how many good praises I can give it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's just a great group of people and everyone's very supportive of one another. So if you've never been in music or you've been a lifetime performer, I think it'll suit all of you.
Speaker 3:I mean, you've got people who've never been on stage and now they're in a band, and you've got yeah, again last week we had some heavy hitters coming in who've been performing. We sure did so real quick just because I want to make this place loud. How many people are here from the Ziggy's Jam? Make this place loud. How many people are here from the ziggy's jam?
Speaker 3:that was not hard and aggressive we'll get there make sure you guys tell your friends about this show. Make sure you tell them that it's live. There's going to be things yes, we're going to post this also to youtube, but there's going to be a lot of things that I edited out because we want you to come experience the show.
Speaker 2:I saw that coming.
Speaker 3:Sarah, what did you do? I thought that was me.
Speaker 4:That's why I asked what did you? Do but anyway, yeah, if you're a musician, yeah, it's a place for you. But if you're a fan of live music, you've got to be one or the other because you're watching this podcast. If you're a fan of live music, it's an awesome show. I feel like you can go out and see 12 different bands in three hours. It's a really great format. You really get to see a lot of entertaining songs played.
Speaker 3:That's every other Wednesday starting at 7 pm at the Ziggy's in Hudson, except for April 24th. We will be here upstairs featuring Beth again so just go to the website check the calendar.
Speaker 2:Still, yeah, Stillwater. Oh, I'm sorry, you said Hudson twice. 17th.
Speaker 3:It's because they're our sponsor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we're sponsored by beer.
Speaker 3:I'm obligated to say their name so many times.
Speaker 2:Hoppin' Barrel, Hoppin' Barrel, Hoppin' Barrel. This is the name. Hoppin' Barrel.
Speaker 3:So this episode, we're moving on. Now that you've formed your band, we figured you know we're going to talk about marketing your band. Yeah, before we do that, I want to ask where are we at with the unhinged burger? Is that ready to come up? It exists. Can you start it? It's good, all right, so we're going to talk. I actually tried it earlier. Have you guys tried the unhinged burger yet? Holy cow, it's super good. Like you read all the ingredients, you're like is it going to be good? And you try it Freaking good. So while he's cooking that up, let's talk a little bit about marketing. And that's when we bring in our expert, beth, yeah, who can be seen on either side of the screen or right here in person yes, beth, you are a part of Sugar Buzz. And right here in person. Yes, beth, you are a part of Sugar Buzz. And Queen of the Reich, yes, which was actually also formed at a jam.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was yes, absolutely.
Speaker 3:So tell us a little bit about you. Okay, who you are, now that we know you're not a delicate flower, but who you are, what your experience in music is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, elevator pitch. So I'm actually a corporate marketer by day. That doesn't mean that I do social media marketing and the different kinds of marketing that we're going to talk about now, but it means that I had a natural proclivity or interest in that. So I'm a corporate gal by day but a singer beast at night, and that's what I do. I've been with Sugarbuzz since we were toiling in obscurity, since at least 2009. I would say the last five years we've really put pedal to the metal to kind of push our own brand and get there. And so I'm the singer and I play a couple instruments poorly there. And then we formed Queen of the Reich.
Speaker 2:About a year ago, at a jam, after doing a Queensryche song, a group said there's no tribute band to Queensryche right now. Let's get one together. Easier said than done. This is complicated music. It takes a while. So it's interesting because when we're talking about marketing, I've got two diametrically opposed kinds of bands. One is at its infancy and one is at maturity, so I'm kind of looking at it through multiple lenses at the same time.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 3:And how's that worked out for you?
Speaker 2:It's interesting, it's good. It's good when I asked these guys what the focus was in marketing, because marketing can cast a very wide net. So you, are you marketing to get followers, to get people to enjoy your band and to follow your band? Are you marketing to get venues, um, and to get gigs? And, and primarily, the marketing is going to be around getting your band awareness out there, just from a follower standpoint. But they are inextricably linked.
Speaker 2:One be begets the other and I'm an interesting you know I was talking to Jake a little bit and and what's really interesting is when, when you build the brand of your band and what it's going to be, it sort of forces you to check yourself as a group. Meaning, let's say, a sugar buzz, I can tell you right now is a variety band. If somebody says what is Sugarbuzz, I said we're a really high energy. 70s to today. We play everything from Lizzo to Metallica, multi-instrumentalists, we all sing power vocals, power music, boom, done. There's my elevator pitch, like I can say that off the top of my head.
Speaker 2:What is Queen of the Reich? Well, that is a group of musicians from top musicians from around Minnesota, bands who put a face melting tribute to the band Queensryche. It's a, it's a promise, so but when you're putting your brand together it forces you to think about who you are and what and what you are as you form. So for instance, in the Queens Queen of the Reich, you have to do Queen's Reich music. That's pretty much it. But if you're in a variety band, that's kind of the challenge.
Speaker 2:But if you're in a variety band like Sugarbuzz, we could have gone a number of different ways. And most cover bands out there are some variety, whether it's a variety of country, a variety of rock, a variety of top 40. And when we introduce a new song, if somebody suggests a song to the song list, you have to kind of stop and go does that fit who we are? Does that fit who we are? And if it doesn't, then that forces a conversation, or should force a conversation on okay, are we expanding who we are? Are we changing who we are? Because if we're doing that, that has to be a conscious decision changing who we are Because if we're doing that, that has to be a conscious decision. So every marketing choice that you make also sort of forces a choice on what kind of band you're going to be, and you all kind of have to gel toward that. So that's kind of the number one thing that I was thinking.
Speaker 2:There's a symbiotic relationship between the band that you are and the band that you say you are if you're doing it, um so you've got to know who you are in order to sell it yes, and and you guys talked a little bit on your prior episode about when you're forming the band you kind of have to make those decisions right who you're going to be, who your primary audience is.
Speaker 2:And when you go after venues or when you build your following, you have to know who your primary audience is going to be, what, what kind of venues you're going to try and play, how often you're going to try and play, and y'all have to be on an agreement about that. So, but if I narrow it down to the marketing, when you decide who you are and you say I want to play these places this often, this far out, then that's how you start cultivating your following. Of course, social media is a very easy one. When I first started, social media was just a little bitty baby. There wasn't a lot You're still putting back in 2003, I was still putting flyers on cars.
Speaker 3:I was going to say there's so many people today that will never understand having a thick pack of flyers like this and just going out and handing them out to everybody.
Speaker 4:I mean, I was 18 doing that. This would be the greatest thing in the world to see your picture in city pages, right, right, yes, absolutely, I'd never achieved that?
Speaker 2:I never achieved that. But of course, social media is the easiest way to get started because it takes like five minutes to set up a page. So the easiest way is to start there and you invite your friends and family, just like when you're. If you're selling insurance, that's right, you start with your friends and family. But your brand too, you have to be able to say on your page or to in a conversation who you are.
Speaker 2:Come and follow my band, sugarbuzz. Well, who are you? What kind of music do you play? I came up with it like that. You have to be able to come up with it like that. Easy if you're a tribute band, not easy if you're a variety band, because the first thing, the first sentence, is going to be this is who we are. We're a variety band with high energy, power vocals, tons of instrumentation. What kind of music do you play? And so, instead of rattling off the list, if you've got a point A and a point B, we play from Lizzo to Metallica. That gives you an idea of what you play Very quickly.
Speaker 2:That's just L to M, just L to M, anything A to Z. No, we don't do that. Sorry, adamant, we're not covering you. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We have a, so, but the other part, social media, is only part of it.
Speaker 2:Um, being in the community is a very, very important part. Um, you're practicing and you're getting your craft together and, by the way, you know, trying your best not to suck Um and this. This seems obvious, but when you're building your following, you got to try and put out the best product that you can and uh, a way, especially if you're building your following, you're trying to build both venues and following at the same time. And open mics, like Ziggy's, is a wonderful place right To get your band out there and get them known.
Speaker 2:Whether you're just looking for what we call reps, which is just opportunities to get together on a stage and play and own that, or to get opportunities to be seen by other individuals who run those clubs, or to build people who say, yeah, I like that band Absolutely, even if it's an open mic, you've got to come with your best game. Come with your best game every single time, because you just never know who's out there. So, being in the community attending open mic nights very important. Also, follow other bands them online, see what they're doing, see what kind of audience they have, see how they engage them I, I feel like that one too.
Speaker 3:You can also see, because I mean, there's so many bands out there. You can get an idea of what works versus what doesn't work I.
Speaker 2:I tell people if they're like I'm stuck or I need to, I'm like, okay, if, if I ask people, I said measure yourself against other bands, like yourselves and be honest, like what is the kind of band that's similar to what I'm doing? Where are they playing right now? Go see them where they're playing, see how they're interacting. Now you've got notes on the types of venues that you might like to pursue, as well as what is working and what isn't. Sugarbuzz has been together for a very, very long time. All of us still go out to see other bands and when somebody says, hey, I just saw Jacuzzi Puma the other week, somebody did. And the first question back to the group is great, what did you learn? What did you did you learn? What can you learn?
Speaker 2:that's what you guys ask each other we ask each other that, yes, what did you learn about other bands? So I think it's very important just to hone your own craft, but as well to to see what works and how to build your following, um and and talk to people there. This is really hard for introverts and and, believe it or not, there are a lot of performers who are actually introverts. They only get extroverted on stage.
Speaker 3:Well, the stage is where you change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the stage is where you change. The stage is where you change, but talking to people, you become unhinged. I had a gig this past week. I see what you did there. I just ignored it because I didn't think it was very funny. Wow, I'm sorry You're such an easy prey. I know we got done with sound check and I walked around because I'm we're always trying to build our following like 24 seven, and I walked around to you know if people weren't deep in conversation.
Speaker 3:I would just stop. Which one are you trying to build? 24 seven, both Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, both One's in its infancy, so that's just a different angle. But we're trying to grow Sugar Buzz and so I would talk to people and I'd say, hey, thanks for coming out, how did you hear about us? Some of them are just like I don't know, I just came here for dinner and you know, I'm just here. So some said, hey, I actually follow Queen of the Reich and I'm here for sure. And I'm like, well, this is a very different show. I hope you know that's a very different show. Um, and some said, hey, we had friends who said that you were good. Some said we were just in the area and we saw your facebook.
Speaker 3:So that tells you things I feel like that's a big one, like for for me, when I'm not working on the weekend, I will automatically go to Facebook to see who's playing where, so obviously advertising your show is a big thing.
Speaker 2:With Queen of the Reich it's different because the makeup of that band are people who have been in bands for a very long time. Nobody's a newbie there. But you do kind of fall into roles, and I fell into the role of marketer for both. Just because that's where I gravitate, you go with your friends.
Speaker 2:yeah, I know right, um, with that it's more about, yeah, let's get the followers that we had from our other bands. Um, but also queens rec is a very niche band and so some people come to see out of curiosity sake. Some people say, can you actually do that music? And some will be like I've never even heard of Queensryche, I don't even know what you're talking about, and all of that. So with that, we have a goal, like we're going to do, we're going to get X number of minutes of material, we're going to do X number of shows, we're going to partner with X number of bands per year and you've just got a goal to build. Um, you know my uh for the following one queen of the right.
Speaker 3:we're at about 1400 which is not bad for 1400 for a year. The stage on the hinges at 250 yeah, and sugar buzz is at 6600 so you guys out there help us?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, and you all can help. But you can follow all the people's bands that have been mentioned here, and and. As a band, I follow other bands if you go to the sugar buzz page, and and. As a band, I follow other bands If you go to the sugar bus page or the queen of the right page. We follow other bands online as well and it's a support. It is a support. This is not. You had a wonderful post the other day and you said if it's a competition, compete with yourself.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:There are enough gigs for everybody.
Speaker 3:I swear, there really are. You and I actually talked about this. I mean, yes, there's a thing as healthy competition, which I mean that's just friendly, whatever. But I agree with you that we're not against each other here, we're not. We should be boosting each other up. We should be helping each other out when we're not playing, go into each other here we're not. If we should be boosting each other up, we should be helping each other out, going to when we're not playing, going to each other's shows. I mean, there's enough space for everybody. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 4:Absolutely. And yeah, like you said, it's just, it's great to be able to share the community, it's great to be able to follow, share the community, it's great to be able to follow other bands, to go see other bands and, um, you brought up learning from other bands. Yes, and still doing it. You know, to me you're comparing yourself to another band, but I don't feel like that's competition. Competition is just sitting back and saying, oh, oh, we're better than them, and you take nothing from it.
Speaker 3:You know, I remember when we did the first award show Again, anything negative I will never mention, Nobody will ever mention names. So but somebody did message me and was like, hey, you should do the best guitar player award One. How? Because how do you know? One person is the same right? No, guitar player is the same as the next guitar player. I don't mean if you put me in criteria yeah.
Speaker 3:If you put me and Brant in the same room drumming, we have two absolutely completely different styles of drumming Singers. You're never going to find the same singer. You know one. You're either good or you're not good, I figure you know. So I feel like when, when he, when this person asked me you should do the best guitar, I was like I don't want to do that Because I, how do you? What's the criteria, how do you judge? And there's so many great guitar players and there's so many different styles of great guitar players, I wouldn't even know how to do that. So it's just for me, even with drummers like I, I just love anybody that wants to get out and play anybody. Get out and play anybody. That's if you're a drummer, I love you. That's simple as that. So you know we don't have enough drummers.
Speaker 2:And I love connecting with me me, I mean anybody who's ever asked me for advice. I don't give advice without asking, except sometimes I proselytize on my facebook page and you can just scroll by and just go. Hi, um but, personally.
Speaker 2:personally, if somebody, if somebody ever asked me, I would be more than happy. And and I know bands and sarah knows this there was a band that retooled and they've been been around for a very I'm not going to say who they're very, very long time. They have a very big name and when they retooled they redid their entire show. They did it in a place in private and asked people to critique them. They asked people to come in and critique them and you know, obviously, with positive intent, with positive, you don't say you suck or anything like that, but like, hey, were you? You know? You know, was this transition good? Or this song selection was kind of off, or this, you guys are dressed kind of weird, or you know whatever it was, or or you know the instruments weren't coming in at the right part or whatever it was.
Speaker 2:I think it's very valuable and I think if you ask other band people or even your following or the following that you're trying to get, they'll be kind. Just say be kind, please, but give me feedback, because that will help you improve. Sometimes it's hard, but we still do it to this day. So when you go into a show, you don't say well, they suck. You just kind of go well, what can I walk away with that?
Speaker 2:I'm not doing that. Maybe we should explore Would that make us better? Would that still fit our brand, or is that something just way out there and they're going to do it, and they're going to do it great, and we just go with it, but anyway I don't want to digress. Go with it, but anyway I I don't want to digress. So, building your, I have a lot of like social media tips because, aside from the uncomfortability of talking to people and, by the way, you should be talking to bartenders and wait staff and, um, the sound person when they're not running, sound when they're not key when they're not running sound or video key um management because they do show up at these places that they own and that they work and they have a say.
Speaker 2:We got a casino gig because a sound guy called a guy at a casino and said you should hire these people. I mean, you know, it's a fantastic way Again I'm getting into venue, but that's also a way this person's also got throw in in building your following, because but you're not off.
Speaker 3:I mean, megan, how many bands have you booked here just based off hearing how good they are from somebody else? So there's a perfect example right there um, she's not mike, but she said several several okay, so that just shows you know. Like you said earlier too, bring your A game every time.
Speaker 2:Bring your A game every time. I don't care if it's a freebie, like bring it as if it was like your only show trip we're going to have. I had a lot of notes, so you guys kind of tell me where you want to take this, because I had a lot of social media tips that are kind of similar.
Speaker 3:So, yes, let's get down to social media. All right, we're back, we're back.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Oh wait, my name is Jimmy13. This is John Sonic with Beth. We are back, right? Is that how this works? I think so, all right.
Speaker 4:Making it up as we go.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so we were discussing real quick. You know, the sun's really bright now, but during the eclipse there was nothing.
Speaker 4:That's the first time I've seen the sun in three days.
Speaker 3:Three damn days.
Speaker 4:No, anyway. So, yeah, I think I want to take this as a transition from that first episode. We did about building your band, yep, and we talked about how miserable it is to argue about what you're going to call yourself. Oh, talked about how miserable it is to argue about what you're going to call yourself, and now that you've finally agreed upon a name, you have to build that brand. So you know, you need logo design and you need to promote yourselves, uh, with photography, with videos, and then we'll take that to social media. And how do we disseminate all of that stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So I think, you know, a graphic designer myself and our background. I think your brand is very important what it looks like. You want to be able to grab people's attention, but you just want it to be known, know, you want to build your following, so you want people to have heard of you. Or when they see your name, they're like, oh yeah, I've seen that somewhere before and the more they see it, the more they think, well, that's probably worth checking out. And, as you know, you carry that with you for years and that defines you as a first impression of who you are. So you want to bring people in with that and I think that's a very important step.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. I'm trying to think when Queen of the Reich first started because that was less than a year ago or about a year ago First thing we wanted is we named our band. Then we said we need a logo. How did you come up with that? We went to a graphic designer friend and there are people who will do it for you know other reasons as well but a graphic designer friend who was really into Queensryche happened to be, and I said do you think you could whip us up a logo? And I said we'll pay you for it, just tell us what your hourly rate is. And he did. It was Eric Bulo, who was also Wisconsin resident, eric Bulo and he created that for us. And then, off of that, we could use that as the fulcrum of all the other branding that we did. And then you have to kind of design your tagline and, as you said, you know, our first gig was basically a three song Jake was a part of it a three song gig for a benefit for John Scott, the first three songs we ever did as a band.
Speaker 2:After we decided we're going to be a band, we had somebody take video of that. Was it the great? Was it pro video, nope, but it was content and unique content, and it had content, with lots of people in the shot right, lots of lots of fans and audience on a great stage with great sound. So we just said, okay, now we've got some content. We took some quick pictures in the back and, and you know the the first thing to do is don't let perfect get in the way of good Um, just get your content out there.
Speaker 2:Sometimes that's the first thing, before you know. And then when you get some um ideas as as to how you want to formally pose in photographs and some of that and you want to, then, of course, go out and hire the pro video and all of that. But if you're just getting it going right now, awareness is key. So get the video out there. It doesn't have to be perfect pro, but if you sound good and you look good, get it out there. Um, every opportunity is an opportunity for content yeah every single opportunity I have practice tomorrow night.
Speaker 2:I'm going to take either pictures or videos of practice tomorrow night because I know queen of the reich hasn't had some content out there in about a day or so, because I'm hawking t-shirts right now.
Speaker 4:So t-shirts that you put your logo on. Yes, you put your logo on, uh, put it on the videos, put it on the images, put it on pint glasses, put it on coffee tumblers, put it on everything. And you know, gene simmons was the master marketer in that respect. Yeah, flood the world with your marketing, not sure? I recommend and I.
Speaker 2:I will say sugar buzz is a very unique position because the person who took on our marketing I used to do our t-shirts and I would just there's a lot of online places that will do t-shirts at a volume. You just give them a logo and they are off to the races and it's commoditized now. And that's where we're at with Queen of the Right, because we don't have a lot of people who are willing to do a bunch of bunch of stuff. We're still starting, so we're just like let's just start with t-shirts. See where that goes. But for sugar buzz, if, if you've seen any of our stuff I mean paul's wearing a hoodie with a t-shirt, we've got, we've got oven mitts, the oven mitts, the oven mitts.
Speaker 3:And did you say you have one?
Speaker 2:yeah, so and that, and you know what it gets. It gets the word out there, because what other band has oven mitts? You know how that came about Ann, who is recovering from surgery right now. She would have been here tonight but she just had surgery on her eyeballs. So, hi, ann, she's Mark's girlfriend. And she said I can, I can up your, your game. And I'm like up it, go, have fun. And she actually bought heat press. Up it, go, have fun. And she actually bought heat press. So you could do, you could diy if you find somebody who's connected to your band who has a pension for that. I mean, um, and she created these oven mitts as a christmas present for sugar buzz and then said somebody, and we put it online. Right here it is. And somebody said do you sell those? I'm like I don't know. You want you want to buy.
Speaker 4:Well, here's what's funny talking. What are we?
Speaker 3:talking. So Timmy knows somebody. We're talking about advertising, right, and we're talking about photos and video. We happen to know somebody who does photos. He does amazing work. John hit him up. He does absolutely amazing work with photos. We happen to know somebody that does video I do. All right, give me a call, I'll hook you up. Uh, I also happen to know somebody who does shirts, hoodies, the banner. Uh, my wife, she'll hook you up, whatever you need.
Speaker 3:Um, there are people and part of what we when we, when we got the all the t-shirt stuff is we wanted to help bands. That was our like. The first thing we talked about I was like me, bands, we can help with this, like we could give a great, you know, I mean obviously we have to charge because ink is not cheap, but I mean we're not going to be like a corporate who's oh yeah, you want 25 shirts, that's 500 bucks. We can do better than that. So I mean there, right, yes, who do you know that does shirts? Who do you know that does photography? And I mean you'll see so many comments come down. I mean just, but right here, I mean in this room, we, we have everything covered yep, ask the question online.
Speaker 2:Don't ever be afraid to ask a question online. Or when you're at these venues or when you're trying to drum hey, do you know anybody? Who does you know when you're going out to see the other bands? Right, hey, I noticed you have an, a really cool merch game, or your really cool photos or nice video. Who's doing that for?
Speaker 3:you. She said nice video yeah, I haven't even seen your video yet. I hope it's nice I hope it's nice too that's gonna be nice I mean, some people here keep buying them, so I'm going to hope they're nice, all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot, thank you, but getting your logo out there is really huge. In whatever small way you can, I just say content, always create content. You're always creating content.
Speaker 3:So let me ask this you had mentioned about Queen of the Ring. Not posting in a day or two? Yeah, what do you consider overposting?
Speaker 2:When you start getting unfollows. And how do you know if you're getting unfollows? You assign one person in your band to watch your social media. Not three, not 12, one.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because that person will be your voice when you have too many people administering. You know, one marketing director once told me years ago the way to starve a dog is to make everybody in charge of feeding it. You got one person who's really in charge of that, who?
Speaker 1:I look at the analytics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I look at the analytics. I look at how much, and then I also look at other bands how much they post, Do I get annoyed after a while? You know what's my annoyance point when do I get?
Speaker 3:annoyed. And then I back up something that you had mentioned in your notes to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:This new thing that Facebook released. Oh yeah, the followers and highlight.
Speaker 2:This is best personal opinion. I hate at followers. I hate at because to me it's a spam trigger it's just, it's just spammy, spammy, spammy.
Speaker 3:You know, if you haven't posted in a while and you're posting something, hey great, because we, we all know Facebook algorithms are just crap, right. So if you haven't posted in a while, or Algorithms are just crap, right. So if you haven't posted in a while, or if you have a really good show or something, but if you're, there's people we know, again not mentioning names that will always at followers or at highlight and it's like I really don't want to see your stuff. I already see it Like it's coming up. And when you're doing it every single time, especially when they're reposting a show for the 12th time because you know that's coming up in a week, I get it. You have a show coming up Now. I kind of don't want to go.
Speaker 2:By the way, I will on Facebook. That will give you and this has just happened within the last six months as the administrator, I'm the administrator on both of the pages and he'll give me and he'll say um, a number of people have reacted to your posts in the last x number of days who do not follow you. Invite them to follow you and you can click off the list and do, and I think that's brilliant because they're already interacting with your stuff for some reason. Somebody might have reported something for some reason.
Speaker 4:Usually I find that they're already following you.
Speaker 2:I've gotten.
Speaker 4:I have gotten more out of that yeah, because I'm like how are you not following? Oh, they are, but it's best to invite them anyway.
Speaker 3:But yeah, the followers thing, it's like if I'm not in your band, I don't want to tag in your band's post yeah, facebook got really weird with the like and the follow. It used to be just like our page. Now it's like but follow, or you can follow but not like. It's weird, it is hard to follow.
Speaker 4:Being a follower is out of spite. They don't really like you.
Speaker 2:They can follow us out of spite. I don't even care why they follow us, I don't care. They can follow us out of spite. I don't even care why they follow us, I don't care, they can just follow us If you want to be a hater follow us to just hate on us too, because all publicity is good publicity With other social media tips.
Speaker 2:I did say assign one person, because that one person has your voice of your band and you will notice if you go to the Queen of Rike page and the Sugarbuzz page. I'm the person behind the curtain, but I do have a slightly different voice for Sugarbuzz than I do for Queen of the Reich. Queen of the Reich is a more serious band because they're you know, queen's Reich is a very serious artist and they talk about serious issues and all of this where Sugarbuzz is just kind of like a really crazy party. And so we we do a wink and a nod on a lot of things and when we don't have specific show stuff and I think this has garnered some more followers as well we'll just post funny crap.
Speaker 3:Real quick. Who here has seen Sugar Buzz live? You can make noise, the camera picks us up. If you haven't seen Sugar Buzz, the first thing I'm going to tell you is get there early if you want a table, because otherwise you're not going to get a space. You guys are a ton of fun live. I absolutely love watching you guys live, and that's so important.
Speaker 2:And that's part of our brand.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:That's what we try to do.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Anyway.
Speaker 3:So where are we at here? We talked about.
Speaker 2:What you should post.
Speaker 3:What should? Yes, because this is something I come across a lot, and I'll kind of preface this. I follow a lot of different bands where there are multiple people who are in charge of posting and the one thing we're never going to get on the show is political uh or anything that's made, could we? We're all about uplifting and being positive, but you see that stuff coming now one person's post and then somebody's trying to correct the post. Oh, you know what I mean. Like so, so you're having one person. I mean what? And exactly it. What should you be posting versus what should you not be posting?
Speaker 2:Obviously you should create an event for your shows. We try to go a couple months out. We don't put every single event out there that's upcoming. I will tell you and this could be controversial, I don't know Paid advertising does work on our events, like I'll throw 20 bucks at it for the event about two weeks before the show and it works. I take a snapshot of the numbers before I throw that 20 bucks at it and then I watch and it gets in front of eyeballs. I mean, that's the cycle.
Speaker 3:So what you're paying for is that basically all you're trying to do? You just want to get it in front of more people.
Speaker 2:Yep, you're just trying to get the event out in front of more people, because you don't, you can't I mean, engagement would obviously be nice, but engagement would be nice, but you just want it there um, when you're talking about hey, I've heard of them before, I've seen them, right, it might just be scrolling by on somebody's feed.
Speaker 2:Um. Other things to post obviously, video and photos from your shows. If you don't have a show and you're still working on getting a show, get a video of your practice if it's decent. Um, get a video of a set list has worked really well.
Speaker 3:That that was you guys post your satellites all the time why do you do that?
Speaker 2:and I said because I'm sick of people going. Well, what do you? What kind of stuff do you gonna play? What are you gonna play?
Speaker 2:here it is here it is and it actually it was an experiment, and I think that's an important thing is to experiment also. We were surprised. I did it once and I'm like people usually it's like a taboo topic, like, no, you don't post this. You want to surprise people, you want to. You know. Know, here's the genre we play. But you want to be surprised by our setlist. And we got so much engagement.
Speaker 2:People would pick out different songs like, oh gosh, I haven't heard that one before. Oh, we should go that. I just kept doing it. I don't. I think I've done it for the last several shows. I may not do it for every single show. I won't do it for queen of the right, because it's pretty much hey, you're gonna're going to get more Queens Rike. But for Sugarbuzz we do swap songs in and out per show and that does get. We get a ton of engagement on that. So if you're a variety band that does tend to swap songs out per show, people are really interested in that and you get feedback on what people really like too, which is like, oh, I love this song.
Speaker 4:OK, noted, didn't know that. Yeah, and that's a, that's a keyword engagement. Yes, you want people interacting with your post. So what to post if you, if you don't have a show, if you don't have any new band?
Speaker 2:I have a funny meme. I have a funny meme collection put a funny meme up there.
Speaker 4:Ask a question. Yeah, get people interacting with you.
Speaker 2:I respond to everything too. Every single comment, if somebody comments on something.
Speaker 4:people that are friends with them will see that they commented on that thing and now they're sharing it for you, unwittingly.
Speaker 3:Something I wanted to ask you, and this is something I've had a conversation about with other people before, and this is something I've had a conversation about with other people before. So when you're promoting a show or you're promoting whatever it might be right, is it worth posting as the band, or do you think it's better tagging the band in your post as yourself?
Speaker 2:The answer is yes.
Speaker 4:Both yeah.
Speaker 2:The answer is both. So I will post as Sugarbuzz. And then there's at least three band members who immediately go. Dale will go in and post on his page right away. He'll share it though he will share it onto his page. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because I always thought, when you tag the band, or any page for that matter, from your own personal page, the only people that are seeing it then are your friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do a public setting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, whereas if you, but if you post from the band page because there's going to be how many people are following sugar buzz that you're not friends with?
Speaker 2:I've got probably like three. No, probably like four or five. You max out, yeah, facebook.
Speaker 3:No, I'm not. For some of us who are not as lucky, we sometimes have more followers on a band page. So I just kind of think, because I was looking this up one day, I'm like the only way for the general audience to see what my band is if you tag it, they have to go to the mentions. How many people are going to the mentions? Whereas if you post from the band page and then share it that way, I kind of feel like that's the better road to go.
Speaker 2:maybe I post from the band page and I do share it from my personal.
Speaker 3:All you guys do, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, big time so that was just something I want to make note of is when you're, if you're posting from your personal page and you're just tagging the general public, who are not your friends are not necessarily seeing that post. So you want to post from your band page and then share it that way and you can tag your band doing the same thing. But in order to get the public to see your band and what's going on, make sure you're posting from the band page. Don't just tag your band because you're not friends with everybody who might be following your band. 13 insights.
Speaker 4:Good good, good, good points. You mentioned how, where was it? How far in advance should you post your show and it? That's a good question. Uh, I just know if, if you want to post your new year's eve gig, right?
Speaker 2:now, that's too soon. Yes, unless it's something like so amazing. Like so amazing, I would okay. So I'm. I posted a show that's a month ago. That's not till june 14th and usually I'm only a month or two out, but it was such an amazing show I'm like I gotta post this one now, because we're pretty pumped that we're opening for hairball.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know, so I'm gonna post that right now, because here's the other thing I'm gonna get followers of hairball that are not followers of sugar buzz, because shaka p or um canterbury posted it on their page right, so I so I'm consuming it and going heck, yeah, I'm going to throw that thing out there.
Speaker 3:I feel like that's a different kind of show, though that's not your typical mainstream.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, but it's also promoting stuff that's already there. Sometimes, if you're creating an event page and you're sending out invites to something that's six months from now, I'll probably forget about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would too.
Speaker 3:Luckily now Facebook has added that add to your calendar, but it still doesn't pop up until the day of. So I totally understand what you're saying.
Speaker 2:And I do invite. I don't. Okay, this is personal opinion again, so take what you need, leave the rest. I don't spam all my friends. I don't send them all.
Speaker 2:Here's every show that's coming up Gosh. So I do try to be very. If it's in the East Metro, I'm going in, and personally from Beth's page. Right, beth, I'm inviting people who might have a shot at actually going out there. They live on the east side, they, you know. I'm inviting you guys to the doghouse because I know you live over there somewhere. I'm not going to invite somebody who's in Mankato, you know, and just spam everybody.
Speaker 3:That's crazy talk.
Speaker 2:But it does happen because I'm invited to stuff and I'm like I'm never there, like I'm and I'm gigging that night, you know.
Speaker 3:So I try not to invite other band people who I know have a show that's the hard part is, so many of us musicians are friends with so many other musicians that it's like I want to see all of you guys and hopefully by doing more video I'll be able to do that. But when I'm playing like, I'm like, oh, I wish I could, but I can't. John's retired, he gets a little more freedom.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:On the weekends.
Speaker 4:On the weekends.
Speaker 2:It does take more work, though. It does take more work to be really.
Speaker 3:As long as you, of course, approve. Oh, that's.
Speaker 2:It does take a little more work, but I do believe friends appreciate it. I do believe you know I mean followers. You don't necessarily know where they're from, but your friends do appreciate it when you're not inviting them to every stinking thing that you do.
Speaker 4:The only thing that can get kind of overwhelming and I might be guilty of it as well, but it's. I don't know how you can fix it If you're a member of many different Twin Cities music groups oh, I spam those and you're sharing something like, say, on four different ones, and then you'll be scrolling Facebook and you see the same.
Speaker 3:But only if you're following all of those. You might only be following the East Metro ones, you might only be following the West Metro ones. So I don't feel like that's over spamming at all. I feel like you're just putting it out there. One you're making sure everybody sees it. Two you know, you don't know you really in those pages. You don't know who's following who or what.
Speaker 2:So you're getting out there that is tough to understand who and when we're talking about there. There's pages that are devoted for those who don't know, that are devoted to like metro area.
Speaker 3:Randy's Rock and Roll Report. Randy's Rock and Roll.
Speaker 2:Report Yep, yeah, that's a big one, hey, randy.
Speaker 3:Never met the guy, but he's awesome.
Speaker 2:Party Rock and East Metro, and there's a West Metro one, and there's Twin Cities, twin Cities cover band musicians and there's like a Minnesota cover band musicians.
Speaker 4:There's like a Minnesota cover band musicians and there's like Minnesota tribute bands what is it?
Speaker 3:Who's playing? The twin cities? Oh yeah, who's playing? There's a lot.
Speaker 2:And then there's upcoming rock, rhythm blues. There's Midwest, there's there's.
Speaker 3:Do you take questions? We are going to do that here. In just a second Did I use my microphone again?
Speaker 4:But on that line, it's great that people are so invested in local music that they want to create these groups to bring people together because that's what it all should be is just one great big community of people sharing ideas and sharing a love for music.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to Stage On Hands. I'm Timmy 13 and sitting here with my co-host, john Sonic, and we have the lovely Beth Norris Brennan joining us. Yes, we are talking everything marketing. I did that again. Oh my gosh, that was Sarah again. I don't know how she did it, but she did it.
Speaker 2:Those of you at home can't see it's a beautiful placard of one of the beers from Hoppin Barrel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for those of you at home who actually miss out on a lot of the cool things we do live, you've got to make sure you come down here. Our next show is April 22nd Ziggy's Hudson. We have so much fun here.
Speaker 2:I mean this is a great time, is that for Earth Day?
Speaker 4:Monday again.
Speaker 2:Earth Day Is the 22nd Earth Day.
Speaker 4:Oh, is it Earth.
Speaker 2:Day.
Speaker 4:I don't know Eclipse Day or Earth Day?
Speaker 3:Is it Earth Day?
Speaker 2:22nd is Earth Day. Everybody knows when 420 is, but nobody knows when Earth Day is.
Speaker 4:Is that on the 20th Of April.
Speaker 3:Also real quick, just to kind of bring up. Our next episode is about booking your band, and we will have Paul Barber, who is the owner of Ziggy's Hudson and who does booking. We might be able to squeeze Megan in on camera and talk about booking as well. I love it, because she's completely ignoring me right now. But anyway, so back to the marketing. Cargo shorts.
Speaker 1:Yes, have you seen Cargo?
Speaker 3:shorts? Yes. Have you seen this crap online? Yes, I'm sorry, but it's crap. As a drummer who is constantly if you've ever seen me drum, you know what I'm talking about Cargo shorts and shorts in general, I'm wearing them.
Speaker 2:Well, you're a drummer, nobody's going to see it anyway.
Speaker 3:You don't know, I stand up, I run around.
Speaker 2:I was hanging with a drummer the other day that had cargo shorts and compression socks. Wow, If you're watching this, you know who you are Aaron Cole.
Speaker 4:Call it out, pay now.
Speaker 3:You know what's great though.
Speaker 2:Now he's got publicity. See, all publicity is good publicity.
Speaker 3:Cargo shorts and compression socks.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Casey, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 2:He swears by him.
Speaker 4:But the idea of why I brought it up how you present yourself on stage is the same as how you present yourself well, it's even more important than how you present yourself online, because now you're a person that's representing that whole brand that you've worked so hard to create and, uh, if, if you're going to present yourself in person as though you couldn't care less, then people are not going to care about your band.
Speaker 2:I always say when I show up to a gig, when I walk in, I want people to say, oh, she's in the band. Right, she's in the band, not that she's there to watch one. Except now, cargo shorts can be appropriate if that's your band style, like if it fits within a specific genre thing. But I know in Sugar Buzz we all talk to each other before what's the color this week? Really.
Speaker 3:Because I feel like Mark's always wearing red pants.
Speaker 2:No, he's not always wearing red pants. And we were just lucky, he wears pants.
Speaker 3:But we do try and coordinate to a certain degree.
Speaker 2:The last gig we did, I said I got kind of a pinky purple jacket on. So paul's like, okay, my shirt's got kind of purple in it. And so we do. We do try to do that for queen of the reich. We dress more gothy black.
Speaker 4:A lot of black, a lot of hard lines, a lot of but, yeah, definitely accessorize anything, make yourself stand out so you look like you belong on stage. Like she said, you're not just there to be in the audience, unless you're a drummer, which apparently nobody cares. Nobody even knows who the drummer is.
Speaker 2:Compression socks. I'm telling you, Aaron swears by compression socks.
Speaker 3:I don't think I can get behind this, Aaron, Sorry. Well, I'm glad we got the cargo shirt thing out of the way because I'm still going to continue to wear it.
Speaker 2:Well, Casey, his girlfriend Casey's in a band. One of her bands is over to cover. A punk rock band. Yes, a punk rock band, but their brand is they cover covers of songs, but they all dress exactly alike. So, like one of their photos for one of their next gigs, they're all wearing blue, like blue. She's wearing like a leotard and a blue tutu and crazy tights, and they're wearing blue like these matching jerseys.
Speaker 3:They're wearing like sparkles, they actually take the idea.
Speaker 2:That's another event that they were doing.
Speaker 3:They take the idea from a band, a punk band called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, which is exactly what they're doing, where they're taking the songs and they're punk rocking them out. But Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, they've been doing it for so many years. In fact, casey and I, we did a show together not too long ago and we probably spent way too long talking about me first and they gave me give me this in the car. Everybody else was sleeping, but yeah, that's that's where they get it from and I think it's awesome, I love that that's part of your as being a punker.
Speaker 4:That's right, that's awesome I mean, a lot of us grew up in the, you know 70s and 80s, when there was makeup kiss up on stage and you remember Motley Crue, all the big hair bands, they all dressed to look like they should be on stage.
Speaker 2:Bootleg did that too. What have we?
Speaker 4:got.
Speaker 2:Holy shit, what's this? Take that in post-production.
Speaker 3:Thank God for editing. What have we got here? Alexa Men of Scots in the Borderineskansen. The border battle this is the pretty one. Okay, wait, graham Elliott.
Speaker 2:Yes, smells like a beer.
Speaker 4:Cheers.
Speaker 3:Cheers. That's good, that's really good. Oh, very drinkable. You guys should start a podcast too. You can get drunk for free. Yeah, it is I like that one.
Speaker 4:You guys should start a podcast too.
Speaker 3:You can get drunk for free. Yeah, it is what one is I like that one. It's the border battle in Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:That's really good, okay, I got glass this time. Well, now I'm trusted.
Speaker 4:I don't know what you're thinking oh.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to come. It's poundable.
Speaker 2:I'll get in trouble. You can pound it.
Speaker 3:I'll pound it later. I'm sorry. I didn't think of, will you be?
Speaker 2:with someone.
Speaker 3:I invite you to stay out of my personal affairs.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. I apologize deeply to the family. Whether I'm with someone or not, this is a 5.2%. It is aggressive and hard.
Speaker 3:This is a 5.2. It is aggressive and hard.
Speaker 2:This is a 5.2 percenter, oh shit you can do all right.
Speaker 4:She started it. This one is the Minnesotans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Minnesotans are 5.2.
Speaker 4:Not bad.
Speaker 3:How's that red wine buddy.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, finishing that point, look at Hairball. They dress big, big. Every band that you see. That's famous. They look like they belong on stage and I know it might feel uncomfortable because you're like I don't dress that way. Well, you're getting up on stage and that doesn't feel comfortable either, and sometimes looking like you belong there helps make that more comfortable. So, by all means, slipping into the persona, put your hair in a mohawk, you know, give yourself the style. I colored my hair.
Speaker 2:I've seen celebrity singers at the airport and I knew, when we saw John Waite in the airport, you knew he wasn't like everybody else. Yeah, like he dressed different. Right, there was just something about the dress that was different that said, yeah, this guy isn't an accountant, right, he's not an accountant.
Speaker 4:Or he's not a drummer wearing cardigan, or he's not a drummer wearing cargo, or he's not a drummer wearing support socks and such.
Speaker 3:Can't get away from it, right, you can't get away from it. Well, cool. Did somebody say questions?
Speaker 2:Sarah had a question. Sarah, she doesn't want to scream though, right?
Speaker 1:You need to get the hand held.
Speaker 2:Yeah, where'd it go? Wait a minute, get a microphone, so you're not like.
Speaker 4:We need to be able to hear you on the video, or at least everybody else needs to be able to hear you. I don't know if that would be on the video.
Speaker 3:I lose everything. I swear oh, there it is.
Speaker 4:It's kind of nice. I can watch the Twins game. I just got to put my glasses on.
Speaker 3:What is your question, Sarah?
Speaker 1:Okay, my question is for Beth, about social media, when you're doing your targeting. Yeah, all right, so you said you do 20. Is that what you said About 20 bucks? Okay, what are you doing for your target audience? You always have you the setting that you use for general. Are you looking at geography? Are you looking at age? What are you doing? What are you doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do a custom list for each venue. So the venues that I, the repeat offenders that I play at, I will do a custom audience and I will do targeting ages 21 plus. Um, I will add in I've started doing this recently and you can add in interests like concerts and entertainment and music and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:You can Facebook. Yeah, you can do that on your events when you're, when you're buying advertising. Um, and then I do a radius within. So I look at the venue and then I'll do a radius about 35, 35 miles from the venue. Yeah, and it's not precise. It seems to be a decent one, where I'm not spamming the east side of the metro with something way out west.
Speaker 4:I bet you live within 35 miles of Ziggy's and still love her.
Speaker 2:Not during traffic, I don't.
Speaker 3:That's fair. Anybody else? That was a great question, great answer. Anybody else? Have any questions? Newbies, get yourselves up. You have any questions?
Speaker 2:You've got a free Tumblr, you might as well ask something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, fair enough B enough biscuits next time I mean, if you guys have questions, feel free to shoot them out. I mean that's, that's fine, you don't have to come up I wish more honestly.
Speaker 2:That was a really good question from sarah and you could have asked me at any time but, I'm surprised that people that artist I'm calling myself an artist because that's what it says on my tag um, that people don't ask each other more questions. I I'm kind of surprised in this community that we don't, because why do you think that is pride, or or is it shyness?
Speaker 4:I don't know that's a lot of it minnesota, uh, yeah, what is it Fear of being what Looked at being silly?
Speaker 3:Rufus mentioned. He said sometimes you just don't know what to ask.
Speaker 2:Oh, sometimes you don't know what to ask, that's fair, that's fair. You don't know what you don't know. Yes, Midwesterners don't want to be a bother? Okay, Jake go ahead.
Speaker 3:I was going to say you're also in a band that that is very well known. What are some of your kind of what? What do you do? You guys follow some of these things that.
Speaker 1:But let's talk about is yes, I've got so many questions for her, but paul's the mic runner.
Speaker 3:Appreciate you, paul. Give it up for Paul, yes.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Paul. You're the next contestant, but one of the questions I had didn't relate to that but was do you do Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and, if so, which one has seemed to pull the most pertinent audience for?
Speaker 2:you, I have not done TikTok yet and I'm still on the fence as to whether I'll get a lot from that, because my primary demographic for Sugar Buzz is not the TikTok group.
Speaker 4:We're kind of all Facebook audience.
Speaker 2:I do Insta and Facebook. I get more pull from Facebook. I invest a little more in Facebook just because I can do events there. I can do events and invite people to events.
Speaker 1:That was actually also my. You can't do that with.
Speaker 3:Instagram.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 3:You can't do that with Instagram. You can put on your story what's coming up, but that's really about it.
Speaker 2:But I do Instagram, just not as religiously.
Speaker 4:You can put a reminder on Instagram and it reminds the person you can set it to give a person, a reminder.
Speaker 3:So apparently you can set a reminder on Instagram.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:YouTube. I have YouTube. Here we have YouTube.
Speaker 1:Are they linked?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually it's in my car because I always carry it, because I'm always doing a gig. I have a big QR code and when you flash it it'll get to our Facebook, instagram website and YouTube channels and so you can pick which one you want to see.
Speaker 1:You would recommend that for any band that's trying to build a following. Yeah, oh for sure, Link trees to link them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have never used a link to link them. Yeah, yeah, I, yeah, I have never used it like search for QR code generator and one came up where I could just okay have it linked to all the things that you have out on social media is almost great to have like on stage. I do have one. It's a big board like this. They do. Yeah, everybody got very good, take a picture and start following.
Speaker 3:It's a great way to land followers, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of the things about Facebook, though, and I don't really understand if it's an algorithm, but when we send out events and you already talked about sending out events ahead of time, too far ahead of time, yeah, but we tend to see that the engagements aren't as much when you create event as when you create an initial post. That's not an event, it's just do you turn that?
Speaker 1:post into an event sometimes we would, yeah, but otherwise generally we have our events like booked way out in the future and we just post them, which then I think it gets lost because the engagements aren't that high. What would you recommend we do?
Speaker 2:um, I typically post events, I would say, only a couple months out. Typically. Sometimes you can't help because the venue's posting it on your behalf and then they're tagging you as a co-host of the event. So you know, I've got stuff like way in the future. I'm like, oh, shoot, you know whatever. Um.
Speaker 2:But then, um, as the date nears, I'll either do the advertising or, if I'm getting a lot of engagement and, and you know, you kind of have in your head after a while what the going number and the interested number is good for something, for your particular band and your particular following.
Speaker 2:But I will then repost the event. I will reshare the event on my band page and say, hey, this is coming in two weeks. On my band page and say, hey, this is coming in two weeks. And then our drummer is really into weird graphics and things and he does little PowerPoint things and he's like here's one for this venue and so the week of I'll post that Thank you, drummer. And so yeah, but I do repost the event as it nears, even though I posted it a while back. I will go back in two weeks before and go coming up in two weeks, here's our next show. Or on a random post, like a funny post at somebody's birthday. Hey, it's Henry's birthday April 3rd. Come and celebrate with us at and then tag the event, and that seems to help.
Speaker 4:And I think it's also great. I know you guys have a website too and this might get lost. People think it's hard to drive traffic to a website. No, it's not. Just keep doing it.
Speaker 2:So if every time you post an event say it's a month from now, you say, oh yeah, by the way, check out our events page for all future upcoming events that we have yeah, the website there you can list everything. Yeah, Paul manages our website.
Speaker 4:All the way to years 2020.
Speaker 1:Well, that's one thing, tim, first of all, thank you for having this particular this one here, because Beth marketing genius and also John, when I've looked at what you guys are doing and I'm seeing what John's doing for the Ziggy's All-Star my goodness, just a marketing genius for that. And the biggest thing about that and I'm trying to tell some of my friends who are phenomenal musicians I'm like you got to go to a Ziggy's All-Star because that's like a network for anybody.
Speaker 1:I'm like this almost bypasses the audition phase to where other bands can actually come see what you're like, not just with your abilities, but they can see what you're like with the crowd. They can see what you're like if you lock into a pocket with the bassist or the drummer or whatever it is. Oh yeah, that it's like an.
Speaker 2:It's like an un bands have formed out of it and people will come and source people out there. I'm looking for a guitarist and they will come love the jam A selfish plug too for Colmax.
Speaker 3:I record everything at Ziggy's Jam, so I mean you can buy that video for $25, and when somebody says I want to see a video of you performing and when you personally, it's kind of hard with the
Speaker 2:parents trying to get everybody.
Speaker 3:Say, ryan, when Ryan buys a video, my focus is on Ryan, so Ryan can send that video to whoever and say here I am. Of course I include the band and I try to include everything, but I mean the main focus. Would you agree that they've been good? You can tell me if they suck he does. He bugs me about them all the time. So I mean there's so many I know Mike, mad Mike, also records his jams. I mean there's so many benefits and again, we can't say it enough Get out to these jams, have fun, Bring your A game.
Speaker 2:Bring your A game. It's been such a game changer over the past several years. Like you meet other musicians to network, and we've had people come to jams and just say I'm looking for XYZ player for my band and they're checking out people on stage and so bands will form themselves just amongst jammers. There's been like at least a dozen. But then I've heard the people coming in, sourcing, sourcing new players.
Speaker 4:I get it a lot from bands that are looking to fill a spot. They'll message me and they'll say hey, who do you got that's? You know the young female that would be a great addition to our band, or whatever. I hear it a lot. So definitely get out and show yourself off if you're in a band, if you're not in a band. It's just a great community. It's a great way to share a love of music and I think it really benefits everyone by your presence, jake thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Those were great questions, so let's wrap this section up. Beth, what are your do's and what are your? Your absolute do's and your absolute don'ts?
Speaker 2:let me make sure I haven't already stated them. Excuse me while I move my giant murder stating like what, what are you?
Speaker 2:the number one absolute do is experiment, experiment. The whole set list thing did not come about until we experimented and went wait a minute, people are actually digging this. They're engaging with it, so measure it, what's getting engaged on your stairs? My number two and I said that before is always have one person in charge of one thing within your band. So we have one person in charge of mostly social media. We have one person in charge of mostly social media. We have one person in charge of putting together set lists. We have one person in charge who are kind of running that, so that you have that, say in the business world, one throat to choke when you want to know what's successful and what isn't For Facebook.
Speaker 2:I thought this was a good tip and I've seen people do it. Post your events. You can pin them to the top. If you haven't done that before, pin your events to the top of your page. So every time you go to the page, that's the first thing they see is is the pinned events of your upcoming stuff. Um, the don'ts I said at followers. Um, getting the don'ts. Um, getting too opinionated on the voice that you have, unless that's your thing. Um, somebody else had posted something, uh, a couple weeks ago about politics or something. And if politics is your jam and and if it's and that's about your brand as a band, right like you're. You know you're a punk band that believes in xyz, by all means go with that voice. But if you, if you want to get a community and you want to get a group of followers, kind of I would say, stay away from that. Put that on your personal page, you know. Put that somewhere else.
Speaker 3:You can do whatever you want, but you know you want to be as inclusive the thing about music is, that's unless you're raging together machine unless you're raging against it, and that's their thing, though right that they built their whole propaganda, the punk band yeah, the music is what brings us together and people will still follow them, even if the rage against the machine hates them but when we go out to the, to the bars, and we're going out to see these bands, that's your opportunity to and I'm sorry, john, I know we talked about not cussing on the show, megan, I'm sorry. Now that is your opportunity to not give a fuck about what is going on in the world, because you're there, you're listening to the music, you're having a great time, you're with your friends. So nothing, politics, don't matter. I could get into so much more. Stop losing friends and neighbors over it. The music should be what brings us together.
Speaker 4:Like Tom Petty said, if I can make people forget about their problems for two hours, I've done my job.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and that's what we try to do, right, as a government. We're trying to give that entertainment to these people to forget about their everyday lives and what's going on. It can be anything, anything at all. So absolutely just be inclusive, as inclusive as possible, because we want all walks of life to come to our shows. We want everybody to get along, we want everybody to have that same, that bondness of the music. That's where I'm at with it.
Speaker 2:I had one.
Speaker 4:I mean we do, but if you're fun. No, you got another question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you have a?
Speaker 1:question For all three. Actually, when you have a band that they're saying, okay, we need to do 90 set lists, something like that, we need to revamp that. How do you get past the? You have many different players with many different like I'm heavy metal that's where my vocals are.
Speaker 3:I would say your vocals are all over the place, like in a good way.
Speaker 1:Thank you, when you have so many different people that have so many different tastes and opinions in a variety band, how do you land on? Okay, this is where we're going, because this meets our band without maybe rough, rough legs.
Speaker 3:People don't like it. They haven't talked about half the time it's true.
Speaker 4:like she said, it's uh, you have to define who you are as a band before, and then you can look at a new song and say, hey, does this fit or does it not? That's exactly.
Speaker 3:I mean me personally. I'm up for playing anything. I have a three song rule, right, a three try rule. You try it three times, three different venues. If it works here or it doesn't work here, you know, ok, put the song here, but I can't play it here. But if it bombs all three times, no matter where you're at, that's not I'm sorry, it just didn't work. You had three tries. But if it works, keep it. I mean we all play songs we don't like. We can admit it. We play songs that we we don't like that, but it doesn't matter because it's not about us, right? Of course we try to play songs that we love and we'll throw them in. But I mean, I think a lot of it is gauging where you're playing too, because some songs I've noticed a lot of songs that work in southern Minnesota don't necessarily work in northern Minnesota and vice versa.
Speaker 2:So I mean I think, as far as the band choosing like what you like and I'll'll admit we struggled with this for a long time and we continue to battle it on occasion but we put the criteria together. The criteria is X, you know it, it's a dancer or it's a showcase for X Y Z musician. It fits within our brand, like we were talking about. Further, our brand is X Y Z, um it it? We actually, as a variety band, we look at what decade it came out because we're like do we have? Are we skewed too far this way or too far that way? And so we'll look at that. And then we'll look at the talent level, the skill level. Right, can we execute the song?
Speaker 2:And if somebody suggests and we do have it, where people will suggest songs just because they like it, because it has a cool part in it that they like and it's like okay, but what was your other criteria? Does it fit the other things? And if the answer is no, it's like, you know it, it. So if, if your particular band says, yeah, this doesn't fit in our brand, but man, jake is pretty good in that area, maybe we should expand our brand a little bit to incorporate that. Like a year ago we would have never considered Metallica for Sugarbuzz. But man, that sucker goes over. Well, it's probably one of our best crowd pleasers ever.
Speaker 3:You guys do understand that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and it went nuts and we tried it as an experiment but it kind of fit. Hey, we wanted something early 90s. We wanted something that was metal, but it was popular metal Like more people would understand what the song was.
Speaker 3:You could try a walk.
Speaker 2:And we could. No, I'm not doing that, yeah, but we tried it as a walk and we said it's kind of on the edge of what we do. It still fits as a variety because it's pop metal, you know, not necessarily deep cut Metallica, it's something everybody knows. If you said name one Metallica song, everybody knows it's Enter Sandman. So we added it to the set list and surprisingly we're like okay, it fits because everybody knew it, no matter what the generation was yeah, everybody knows it, but every other man out there is doing it also.
Speaker 4:Um that's a great one.
Speaker 2:Don't do it yeah, um, there there are well we're finding a new way to do it.
Speaker 1:I'm all about making songs your own, I mean offense, but I mean, ben's got a hook in it.
Speaker 3:She's well a delicate flower, but she's a metal chick. We've learned tonight that she's not. She's a female that's doing Metallica, which is unique in the cities, right yeah, and doing it well. Doing it well.
Speaker 1:Very well, yes, thank you. Outro Music.