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Social media has changed the music industry. Bands now actively promote themselves on MySpace, interact with fans through dynamic websites and blogs, and use the power of the collective to sell out gigs.
Sweet Billy Pilgrim is a three-piece band from the UK that is one of those bands that is plugged into new media. Tim Elsenburg, the band’s frontman, very kindly took some time to speak with me via email to answer some questions about how Sweet Billy Pilgrim is navigating the waters. We discuss the mythology of the MySpace page, finding your audience and the business model of the new music economy.
You’ve got a new album, Twice Born Men, coming out on March 16th. First of all, tell me a little bit about this project.
We recently signed to David Sylvian's Samadhisound label, and we tend to find ourselves hunching under the umbrella of 'folktronica' alongside UK artists like Adem, Tunng and Psapp. I think we'd need a slightly bigger umbrella (one of those golfing ones?) to account for the influence of atmospheric, progressive pop bands like The Blue Nile and Elbow, but essentially we take acoustic noises and atmospheric electronic ones, and try to mix them all up in as emotive and honest a way as we can.
Twice Born Men is our second record, and it's a sort of concept album, in the loosest sense. It starts at the end of the heart's little journey and then works its way back to the beginning, which is actually the end anyway, so it's kind of like that Elton John song in the Lion King... only longer, and with less lions. There are some tigers though, oddly enough.
Sweet Billy Pilgrim as well as the individual members have MySpace pages. Tell me about the strengths of MySpace from a music marketing perspective.
I'm in two minds about MySpace these days. It seems to me that many of the musicians there have swallowed those (possibly) mythical stories of record companies signing bands on the strength of them having hundreds of thousands of friends, and so they just spend an hour every evening adding people in an effort to look popular. That has the knock-on effect of rendering everyone's Friend Request pages completely ungovernable, so that no one actually has the time or inclination to listen to any of the music anymore.
Without the music element, there is no advantage to MySpace; there are other networking sites with infinitely more elegant interfaces, so basically it's just there as a quick, crude, easily reached reference for people like me who read a review and want to navigate quickly to somewhere they can hear what they've been reading about before they buy it. You can hear a song or two, a quick scan of the biog, and then you're gone.
It surprises me, with the current state of things in the music 'industry', that the musicians are still often the conservative ones when it comes to their aspirations. So many young bands still gaze down in awe at the imagined dotted line that'll lead to the O2 Arena and loads of girls / boys with alcopop-breath. It's not really going to happen anymore, with a few exceptions here and there, and it won't matter how many MySpace chums you have. What we have instead is the chance to put music out there, not as a means to an end, but actually as the end.
How's anyone going to make money out of that? We haven't quite got to that question yet, because first we have to find and connect to our audience. I still think it's a very exciting time to be making music, because for the first time we can make that connection. We can provide real context from which people can listen to what we do; background, influences, even personality perhaps, and all via SN.
In addition to MySpace, Sweet Billy Pilgrim is very connected; you’re on Twitter, Flickr and Facebook. How did you decide which social networks you would use to connect to fans?
Just wandered about like lost children until we saw people congregating, and then - like the sheep we are - joined in ! There was no plan. We looked at what other people use, and really the only thing we had to bear vaguely in mind was that we're over 30, and therefore a 'heritage' act in the eyes of the industry (that's a real term, apparently). No point in us hanging around on Bebo or CafeMom, because it'd be inappropriate and a waste of time.
How have social networks changed the relationship between a band and its fans?
Well, there is a relationship now, apart from the one a band and an audience establish at a show, which obviously differs in being a more shared experience. When I discover new music, I'm very keen to absorb as much information as possible about an artist. I like finding out about the records they like, and what guitars they use (I don't get out much). Following a band via social networks is a chance to learn all that, and have the chance to interact with the artist too. I can never understand it when an artist opens a Twitter or MySpace profile and then leaves it to a PR person or manager to update when there's new product or a show to hawk.
I understand that some artists like to be a bit mysterious and intriguing, but we're kind of the opposite of that. We've done some fairly serious electronica festivals, all involving bearded men staring intensely at laptops, and when we amble on and chat to the audience inbetween songs there's almost a collective sigh of relief: We've invited them in.
I think that the social networking side of things should really just be an extension of that. They've invited us into their lives by coming to a show, or buying our record, so it would be a shame not to return the compliment. I get lots of good records recommended to me too, so I'd miss out on all that.
Has the online interaction with fans helped to shape any musical direction/the creative process?
No. Not really. I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to the songs. On one occasion though, it has directly influenced my choice of shirt onstage. Apparently someone has also created a dance especially for one of our songs, which makes me a bit nervous.
NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker recently lamented that the entertainment industry has exchanged “analog dollars for digital dimes”. The traditional concept of the album-as-artifact is quickly changing in today’s market of (often) free digital media downloads. Can you talk to me a bit about Sweet Billy Pilgrim’s business model in the new music economy?
I guess we're kind of lucky, in that our appeal - demographically speaking - would probably be to the last group of people perhaps interested in buying physical CD product. Samadhisound pride themselves on beautiful artwork, which certainly helps us to be noticed by the collectors. We do give away quite a bit of music though. I'm not precious about it. The last album went into stores with little or no PR, except for the support of the mp3 blogging community.
I'm not under any illusions that there's a living to be made from my songs, which - in a way - is quite freeing. If people don't want to pay for music, then they won't. All you can hope - naively perhaps - is that they might come to a show or buy a T-shirt, or even buy the next record if they love what they hear.
The important thing becomes getting the songs out there. Onto people's iPods... their Last.fm profiles... their phones... Then there's hope at least! The democratizing effect of the internet and affordable recording equipment means that there's load of great music out there - probably more than ever - but also that there's even more rubbish, so it becomes a matter of trying to stand out a bit.
Word of mouth seems to be the key there, so answering messages, passing on information, sharing free music with the bloggers; just joining in as creative and non-cynical a way as possible does seem to inspire a bit of brand loyalty, to use a horrible phrase. People might talk about us because they like the music, but it's never just been about music, so the details start to matter a whole lot more. Plus, almost everyone I've encountered is really lovely.
What will 2009 hold for Sweet Billy Pilgrim?
I'm going to restart my mp3 blog. I've discovered so many great new bands in the last few years, and I need somewhere to yarn about them. I've just finished a collaboration with Adem for a BBC Radio 3 commission, so that'll be aired in March or April. Then there are a couple of remixes to do and various shows and festivals coming up in the UK.
Related Resources
Official Sweet Billy Pilgrim Website
Sweet Billy Pilgrim on MySpace
Tim Elsenburg on MySpace
Twitter - Sweet Billy Pilgrim
Flickr - Sweet Billy Pilgrim
Facebook - Sweet Billy Pilgrim
Last.fm - Sweet Billy Pilgrim
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... () (URL) - 03.04.09