February 23rd, 2010 | |
Posted in Curt Smith, Music Industry, ReverbNation, Tears for Fears, Tech News, Top Tech News, Topspin, Zoe Keating, blip.fm, celebrities, facebook, interview, music, myspace, news, spotify, twitter
Musician Curt Smith, otherwise known as half of the international hit group Tears for Fears (along with Roland Orzabal), took a unique approach to finding a collaborator for a recent solo project: he used Twitter. Still touring with Tears after an early ’90s breakup and early 2000s reunion, Smith somehow also finds time to raise a family and pursue a solo career as an independent artist.
We had a chance to sit down with him recently and find out more about his collaboration with avant-garde cellist Zoe Keating made possible by Twitter, why Creative Commons licensing is a no-brainer for artists, and how the Internet is forever changing the mechanics of the music business.
Can you tell us a little bit about how Twitter became an integral part of the “All Is Love” single? (Stream the track at the song link.): It’s sort of interesting, the people you find. What happens with writing a song and demoing it, for me the demo always becomes the master. I never really demo anything, I just get a rough idea and then continue. And I got to the point where I really knew that I wanted cellos. It was kind of the mood of it and the verses really scream out for that. And in the best case scenario, you always want to use real cellos, because they sound so much better. But then it’s a question of finding a great cello player.
So I went home that night and started looking — actually initially on YouTube. I had read something about Zoe before, because she has so many Twitter followers, now up to 1.4 million. So I’d heard about her and went to YouTube to actually see her, and then I just sent her a message and said, “It’s me, do you fancy playing on this track if I send you a copy of it?”
Was it a public message or a DM?: It was a public message initially and then she followed me and we got to direct messaging. So I sent her the track, just e-mailed it to her, and she liked it a lot and started working on it. She finished it and she handed it to me when she came to see a Tears for Fears gig. So that was the first time we met and she’d already finished it, the 80-odd tracks she did. So we take it back and pare it down to what we need.
Was that 18 different interpretations of the song or takes or…: Eighty! 80 different parts — that’s how she works. She wants to give you as much as possible to work from and see what you want to use. And a lot of the times it’s cellos just doing the same thing, but it’s just a much thicker sound. Sometimes I don’t want that, I just want a single cello — so she’s given me both options basically.
But she was great. I loved what she did, so we’ve sort of become friends since then. That’s the way social media can work, which is great. Before, we’d have to find someone who represented musicians: their agents, someone who specifically dealt with session musicians, sort of going round and round and this was a very direct way of just asking someone to play on my stuff, which was great. And what she did was fantastic and perfect for the song.
So you were pretty happy with how the results turned out. Do you think it was significantly different from other collaborations where you’re actually with musicians in the studio collaboration in real time or comparable?: It was very different. I’ve gotta say when it works it’s much easier. You haven’t got to sit there and do anything; the track just turns up and it’s good. I kinda like it. Also I think it allows them to interpret it the way they would interpret it, which I think is a good thing.
I think the idea of working with somebody of Zoe’s quality — it’s different if it’s just a session player that might not be as creative as Zoe is, because she’s actually a writer and incredibly creative. I think it might be different and they might need more direction. Because she is so creative she doesn’t really need much direction and the reason we’re using her is because she’s her. I’ve heard what she’s done and I love what she does — so it was sort of “can you do some of that on this song?”
Do you think this kind of asynchronous collaboration is one model of how music might evolve or how people might be able to be creative independent of geography?: Yeah, I don’t see any reason why not. What made it simple for me was the direct contact we had. So many times in the past, no matter who it is, normally you would have to go through a manager and then get a record company’s permission for them to appear on your record and obviously none of those things existed with Zoe. And for a lot of artists they don’t — if someone wanted to work with me, there’s no one you have to go through, you know where to find me. And if I listen to something and like it, there’s no one else you need to talk to. I don’t have a record company, I look after myself — obviously Arlene (manager) helps me. But certainly with musicians I find that they communicate a lot more than they used to.
I’ve heard of people doing asynchronous collaborations before, but this was the first time I’d heard of social media actually being involved in matching up people who hadn’t necessarily collaborated before.:
I think it’s just getting over that stigma of approaching someone directly — certainly it was for me. I thought, ‘Do I dare really just say “would you play on this song?”‘ And yeah, what are they going to say, ‘Yes or no.’ Zoe was thrilled because it turns out she’s a fan. So in that sense I find it much easier.
I think people will do it more and more. It is so easy now with, ‘Here’s the track, I’ll just send it to you,’ and you just send us whatever you have back, and make it Pro Tools-friendly or whatever system you happen to be working on, and it’s not that difficult to do anymore.
How do you approach your own use of Twitter as a solo artist. Do you do a lot of interaction with your fans?: Yeah, there’s a lot of interaction. A lot of politics go down and the odd argument now and again. It’s multi-layered and I think that’s the joy. There are things that I might talk about — the other night I posted a picture outside of the Justin Bieber sold-out gig and said, ‘This is what I get to do on Valentine’s Day,’ which made my kids very thrilled, and me not as thrilled.
While I was on tour I do the same: photos from the road, what I’m getting up to, where I am each day. Zoe, asking her to work with me. We get into politics — I make my political views openly known on Twitter, which some people take an issue with, but I think that’s okay.
It’s multifaceted and I think people that follow you become very appreciative of you sort of making them a part of your life. I think it tears down a lot of barriers. When we were younger and we did have those screaming fans and that kind of stuff, I never really understood it. And the reason I never understood it was I’d be thinking: ‘But you don’t even know me, how could you possibly be that enamored of me? I might be a complete asshole.’ That personality is still here, and people can actually get to know me now. It normalizes you. You don’t become an icon anymore, you just become this guy, which I think is a good thing and healthy.
How would you break down the value of Twitter for an artist? I’m sure it’s different for individual acts, but I see opportunities to expand the existing fanbase versus keeping an existing fanbase more engaged. Do you have any sense of how that utility plays out for you in particular?: I think it’s certainly expanded it, because there are people that, say, may be fans of Zoe but wouldn’t necessarily think of following me that would now be following me. Certain people who agree with my politics that wouldn’t necessarily follow me for music but are interested in the politics. So yeah, I think it expands it — I don’t know what the retention is as far as keeping fans you already have. I think if you already have them, I’m not particularly likely to lose them at this stage of my life.
I think what’s interesting also on Twitter is the age range. The age range is incredibly broad, which is not the same with Facebook or MySpace or anything else. They definitely have demographics, Facebook and MySpace, which I don’t find as much with Twitter.
Do you have a presence on Facebook and MySpace also?: Yeah, and the Twitter feed goes to both. I go on there at times and post stuff but nowhere near as much as Twitter because I have my phone with me all the time. It’s more readily available. It’s 140 characters.
When I was on the road I would blog, it would be longer, not limited to 140 characters. But when I’m on the road I have the time. I don’t have kids with me and I’m traveling and so… I’m bored. There are other things that occupy me when I’m at home. I find that once I get home I don’t really have the incentive to write a large blog post about something, whereas an idea that comes to mind I can quickly Twitter. Or if I see something I want to post a picture of, whatever it may be, it’s just fast and simpler and I’m more likely to do it.
Do you think any particular platform is more valuable for artists in general? MySpace is trying to transition itself to MTV 2.0.: MySpace is just spam central. I mean, every day I just get mail inviting me to gigs that are nowhere near Los Angeles! No, I’m not coming to Florida tomorrow. There’s not really much of substance on there — that’s my personal experience. I find there’s a bit more substance, at least person-to-person contact, on Facebook. I rarely get mail or comments on MySpace other than the mail inviting me to some gig. Maybe one every few days that’s a fan actually writing to ask me something. A lot of the comments I just delete. ‘Thanks for following me’ — I wasn’t aware I did follow you. ‘Buy my new CD’ — I don’t even know your new CD or who you are, so I’m hardly going to recommend it to everyone. So it’s primarily that stuff, which gets a bit tedious.
We keep each one updated but as far as stuff coming back to me, that’s my experience with MySpace.
But there are some people who do, and they tend to be younger, use Myspace and don’t go on Facebook, so you’re wise to keep all of them updated. I find Myspace is younger, Facebook is older and Twitter goes from whatever to whatever. My youngest Twitter fan is 15, and the oldest one is… me, maybe!
You’re going to do a live performance here in L.A. with Zoe, March 23)? What material are you going to do?: We’re going to do a few tracks together, yeah. We’re going to do ‘All Is Love’ because she already knows it. She’s doing an arrangement for ‘Mad World’ right now because it’s one of her favorite songs. So I’m going to attempt to do that one, and we’ll see what it’s like with just me and Zoe. We’ll find out when she comes down to L.A. Right now those two we definitely want to do, and we’ll see when we sit down together if we’ve got time to try more.
So the single for “All Is Love” did very well, can you talk a bit about the success of the track and how it was distributed and promoted?: Initially we gave it away for free, through Amazon. It became their free download initially of the day and it did very well so they continued it. And I think it’s more about building up and widening a fanbase, so giving it away seemed like a good idea.
A lot of it doing well was down to it being retweetable. Twitter played a bit part in it. Obviously MP3 Amazon have their own Twitter feed, so they sent it out to everyone who follows them. Zoe sent it out to 1.4 million people, and I sent it to my fans, and the reaction we got from people who listened to it loved it.
So I think a lot of it was to do with how much people enjoyed the track. I think if it was a piece of crap then probably people wouldn’t be tweeting about it, so I like to think that some of it is down to it being a good song and recorded well.
Do you think that people were excited about the nature of how the track was produced, too?:
I think so. I think all that fascinates the online world, the social media world. The fact that social media was directly involved in this track being put together definitely added an extra interest for a lot of people.
Arlene [Curt's manager]: One of the first comments on Amazon was from a fan of Zoe’s, who basically said, ‘I’m a fan of Zoe’s and I hadn’t really listened to Curt’s stuff before, but now that I heard this I’m going to go check out his other stuff.’ That’s exactly the kind of feedback we love to get.
You also have a unique plan for releasing some of the upcoming solo work that you’re doing, track by track as opposed to, ‘Here I’ve worked for two years and here’s an album at the end of that time.’ Does that have to do with changes in the music industry — are singles becoming more important? Is the album format becoming more disintermediated?: I think the album format is definitely sort of on the wane as far as the general public goes. I’m sort of of a different age group than the demographic that probably is likely to buy my records — they would still probably buy albums, I’m thinking. My kids don’t really buy albums. They buy singles. But I think it’s more that you want to find new ways of doing things. I didn’t really want to sit in the studio for a year and wait and then release it at all at the end of it. I think it’s more now sort of immediate gratification — that’s what I want. I want to get this track, let’s finish it, let’s do that one, it’s over, goodbye.
Normally doing an album you go from track to track and go, ‘Let’s not work on this one today, let’s go work on the other one,’ and I think you tend to get more self-indulgent that way. I was interested in doing it where a track is written, we record it, put it out there. I think it’s an experiment that I’m going to find interesting as well, to see if there’s any thread at the end of it. See if there’s any reason to release what I would consider an album at the end of releasing every single track.
What happens also when you do an album is you can go from track to track and you find a new way of doing something, whether that be a guitar sound you use or whatever it may be, and then you go, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to put that on the other track.’ So it ends up with everything having a sort of uniformity because you go from track to track and you’re updating them all the time. This way I’ll be interested to see if it has a uniformity or if it progresses, with the last track sounding nothing like the first track. So it’ll be fascinating — maybe we’re working with Zoe now to working with Metallica at the end. Probably not, but…
That would be kind of awesome, actually. It’s interesting, too, in this sort of episodic content model, too, which matches more of what’s going on on the web now. It reminds me of how blogging works.: Yeah, it is the same, it’s really sort of updating people each time as opposed to, ‘I can’t tell you what I’m doing, you have to wait until I’m finished.’ As soon as I’m done this one, I’ll give it to you. So it is very much updating people as you go along. For me it’s going to be an interesting experiment.
Arlene: We got started on that when a couple of years ago he started doing a free holiday song. He and Charlton (producer) would go into the studio and record — I think the first one was ‘Silent Night’ — and we just gave it away for free on the website. And last year he did another holiday song and gave it away for free on the website. And we realized, if we keep doing this there’s going to be a holiday album there at the end of it — who knew? It wasn’t really the thought going into it.
CS: Yeah, in ten years we’ll have a Christmas record. Just in time for my retirement!
You’ve been working in the music industry for a long time now. What other changes have you seen happening over the years?: To be honest the most interesting have been in the last few years. That’s by far when the biggest changes have occurred. The final demise of record labels — they’re not dead quite yet but they’re on their last legs. They will be soon. All that’s a good thing. What’s fascinating to me is now the power is back in the artists’ hands, which I think is a great thing.
We’re going to have control not only of what we do and when we do it, but more importantly ownership. Because the initial thing a record company will always do is take the ownership away from you, for putting money into you making a record, which you have to pay back to them anyway. The Internet came along and changed everything.
It’s not really worked out yet, I don’t think we have all the answers yet of how it’s going to work — we have to find new models of how an artist monetizes what they do. Who knows what’s that going to be?
You’re releasing a lot of your solo material independently on your own label, but you’re already an established artist.: Exactly — it’s easier for me.
Do you think that new artists just starting out who want to remain independent — do you think that’s a viable solution for them yet or something that’s coming soon? Do they still need label support?: I think there’s still something that’s coming soon, but I don’t think they necessarily need label support particularly. Look at it this way: The record companies never discovered them anyway. A bunch of kids went to see the band and liked them, then a bunch more kids went to see the band, then a bunch more, then the record company heard about it. If you took the record company out of the equation, a bunch more kids would still go see them and then a bunch more… and it’s then a question of how you manage it.
It’s very tempting — and we were tempted and went for it as well — when a record company comes along and says, ‘We’ll give you lots of money. And we’ll put you together with a producer and all the rest.’ Could we have done that on our own if we’d have kept going? Probably. What would we have lived on while we were doing it? That’s the difficult bit. I think that now it’s going to be, if you’re a live band, you’re going to live off your live income while you’re doing it. If you’re a DJ, it’s going to be to keep as many downloads coming as possible and sell them yourself, so that you can make that record — whether you’re going to make an album or make singles. But yeah I think it’s possible to self-finance it, if you’re good enough. Before we had a record deal, we did make enough money to live off. We didn’t have jobs, we did it as a living.
From gigging mostly?: Yeah, from gigging. Because we couldn’t go and do demos and have jobs at the same time. We were in two vans touring Germany — we did all those things. It’s not going to be easy — it’s not the same as when record companies just come along and throw money at you. And the fact is, you might as well do it yourself because record companies right now are not going to come along and throw money at you. They’re going to do it as cheaply as they can but take the ownership. Because they don’t have the money to throw at you either. All that’s gone. Making a record is nowhere near as expensive, so you don’t need them for that. You can do that at home. You used to have to go to a studio for that. Making a video — you can do that yourself too.
You can even do it on an iPhone these days.: Yeah, exactly. You don’t need any of those things you needed from a record company. Like I say, the new model has not really worked itself out yet, but I think these things happen organically, and something will happen that will make it all make sense. In the interim period, artists should just embrace the fact that they have more control and don’t need record companies. And actually get to keep everything they do.
Do you have any other specific advice to those artists just starting out? Should they be diving into these social tools, are there any tools for bands that are out there now — things like Topspin, Reverbnation, they should check out?: There are. A lot of it nowadays is always going to be word of mouth, and people commenting on how good they think you are. You have to keep it organic. The problem with MySpace is that it was gamed ridiculously and I think people are hip to that and you can’t game people anywhere near as easily as you initially could when it first started.
They’re going to have to do what you do every day and make music. They’re going to have to have their finger on every pulse and keep involved in everything. A lot of it, especially when you’re talking about music genres, make sure you’re involved with that genre on social media. Even down to the people you follow on Twitter: Find people in your genre. Social media is a great tool, and the more creative you are the better it’s going to be. If you do go out and make a cool video for next to nothing and it becomes a viral video — you’ve got to use every tool at your disposal. It’s not just going to be, ‘Make a record and hopefully someone listens to it and likes it.’ Be visually creative, too, and all the other things that would actually bring people in.
What do you think about some of the more creative business model ideas coming out from artists like Josh Freese, who would give away a signed CD and a lunch date for $250 or Kristin Hersh whose Strange Angels club members get free concert tickets in exchange for financial support?: We’ve talked about doing all of the above. For me it’s a question of where I draw the line. I can’t say I’m a fan of the sort of Gene Simmons, ‘Buy my axe for $20,000′ thing — that’s taking it to the nth degree and sort of ripping people off blindly. My natural reaction would be negative, but it’s a different day and age now. And if you are up front and honest about, ‘This is how I’m going to finance my next record: You’re going to finance it.’ And this is what I give back in return for financing it.
The fact is, I can’t give everything away for free, because I wouldn’t be able to continue to make music if I gave everything away. It’s got to be self-financing. I could make everything for free, but I’d run out of money at some point. So it’s got to be self-financing, anything we do if we don’t have a record company, however you make that happen. I think a lot of those things you mention, like being a member is not a bad one. There are other things like, ‘Come and sing backing vocals’ because now anyone can sing backing vocals, we just Auto-Tune them so it’s fine. So you can be creative and fun with it. And the people could actually get something out of it as opposed to feeling like, ‘I just spent that for this?’ We are discussing it and we’re trying to work out which ones to embrace.
I think the fronting money for recording is a good one — artists like Jill Sobule had a lot of success with that. And I think fans really feel like…: That’s their record.
Yeah! They participated in that.: And we’ll list everyone and send it out with a big sheet of everyone’s names who were part of the album. Or if you get to a higher level of donation you come and do the backing vocals. There are ways to be creative with it which I think fans embrace.
It brings into contrast, too, exactly where the music industry is really getting it wrong: It’s not that fans don’t want to support the artists. It’s more that the nature of ‘product’ has changed and they’re not being given a sort of way to participate.: They now have a choice of just buying what a lot of the time is the cookie cutter stuff the record companies deal with and is imaged and get no real direct contact with the artist — to being involved in something, a project by an artist, band, singer, whatever it may be. They’ll be more inclined to be involved in the thing that involves them back. The fact that they’re getting direct responses from me makes them feel more involved. Even concert promoters on Twitter say, ‘We’d love for you to come play in Malaysia,’ and I’m actually the one to say, ‘Contact CAA in England,’ or whichever agent is that area, and it’s just direct contact.
We have fans that come to shows — we had a whole bunch of them came last year to the Tears show in Vegas. They flew in from all over America and all met, because they knew each other from social media. They all planned it and decided where to go and they met up in Vegas. So after the show we did a private meet and greet and met them all and signed all their stuff. Without social media that wouldn’t have happened. And they felt more involved, and that kind of thing will get bigger.
I know you’re a big proponent of Creative Commons. Could you talk a bit about why you think this is something important that artists should know more about?: The only way I can ever explain it is that it’s a no-brainer. It’s so simple and easy and protects you in the ways you want to be protected — or not if you don’t care. Most of the time you would have to spend a lot in legal fees if you just have stuff copyrighted, and you have the job of chasing after people who may be misusing that copyright. I’ve had so many occasions when schools have e-mailed management who’ve e-mailed me because they want to use something in a school play but because it’s copyrighted they can’t. And I can’t get an answer from Universal and I have to say well, ‘I can’t give you permission because you’ve got to go to Universal and then you’ve got to talk to so-and-so else.’ And this is stuff that’s owned by me. This is a simple way of up front telling people how it’s OK to use this.
And in my case it’s you can use it in any way shape or form, as long as I’m credited and you’re not making money off of it. You have to ask my permission if you’re going to make money and we have to agree on that. But if you just want to use it to show someone or use it in a school play or amateur film or whatever it may be, then knock yourself out. It’s more exposure for me. Just credit me for it so people know who it is. It’s just a way of doing all that at pretty much no cost, whereas before a solo artist would need a lawyer to follow up on all of it. Creative Commons is saving artists a ton of legal fees by making it simple, and I’ve always wanted contracts to be more simple. My bugbear with lawyers has always been, they’ve invented their own language so we have to employ them. It really doesn’t have to be that way; I feel simple English works.
I think there’s a bit of perception that Creative Commons is really only relevant or useful to independent artists. Do you think mainstream artists should pay more attention, or do you know of any mainstream artists that are embracing it?: I don’t know of any major label acts, but surely that would have to also be the label that embraces it. Therein lies the problem — you don’t own the copyright, the label owns the copyright. So it would have to be the labels that would embrace it, and seeing that labels are run primarily by ex-lawyers, it’s not gonna happen. What do you mean do things in a simple fashion? And put all my friends out of work? Not gonna happen.
We talked a little bit before about how major labels are missing the point regarding the human behavior surrounding music which is sharing. Do you know of any tools or can you think of any new music sites that you mentioned being excited about in the past few years that are embracing more of that model? I’m thinking of Spotify or things like blip.fm.: I do blip.fm. But there’s so many around, it usually ends up being word of mouth for me. My days are usually spent writing and trying to keep up with all that is tough. But blip.fm I find easy to use and great. But there’s not one in particular that’s come up. I think you kind of spend a bit of time on each and seeing how much you learn from it. But my primary source of finding new things is people telling me or seeing it mentioned by people I actually follow or know. That’s normally when I’ll go check it out.
Do you have any other advice, if you could be the angel — or maybe the devil — on the shoulder of the music industry about how they can salvage their image?: I don’t think they ever will, to be honest. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Not the music industry as we know it, anyway. I presume when we say ‘music industry’ we’re talking about record companies — they’re just going to become bricks and mortar. It’s going to be catalog and film placement and things like that. I don’t see them as a creative force anymore. And the sad thing about that is that you do meet some creative people at record companies that do get it, especially in new media. Yet, are they ever allowed to run with it? No. Never. They don’t get to do what it is they really want to do, because the people at the top have no creativity whatsoever.
So they don’t get it. ‘We’re not giving away shit for free, that’s wrong! What do you mean someone’s playing that video we spent $100,000 doing, for nothing? No! Tell them to take it down, cease and desist, now!’ So they don’t get it. They don’t get that that video being shared that day by god knows how many kids sending it to each other is going to lead to X thousand downloads of the song. It’s beyond me.
To be honest, what’s happening because of social media and because of the Internet is that we’re becoming more creative. We’re all becoming more creative because it’s easier to create. It’s easier to create movies and almost everything. Record companies? They haven’t changed since I was 18. They’ve never been creative. They weren’t creative then, they aren’t creative now. They’re not a creative force, they’re just a force that just buys and sells. I think music as an art form is a far more creative force now, and can be self-sufficient, whereas back then I don’t think it could. Because of the Internet it can be. Because everything is doable now. For me to make a record back then, I couldn’t. Couldn’t have made a video either. You can do all that now. I don’t really hold out hope for record companies. They will morph into something else, and artists will use them less and less. As long as they keep sending me checks I’m OK.
It used to be you had to have a label and a lawyer and so on, and now there are tools on the Internet to do pretty much everything. You can actually do things yourself. All these tools enable us to be far more self-sufficient.
[img credits: Justine Ungaro]
- Follow Curt on Twitter
- Official website
- Stream and download the “All is Love” single
- Curt and Zoe’s gig will be at the Largo in Los Angeles on March 23 at 8 p.m.
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