If you ain´t first, you´re last.

Why do everything just half? What’s the point of going to a just one day on a four-day conference? Why just write a perfect song and then record it on 8 track recorder with the wort possible sound? Or having not an ok song and then enter Abby Road and think they will fix the problem.

If you can’t afford the whole thing. Either don’t do it or put everything on the same level. I don’t know how many times I have gotten an artist approaching me with a recording for 10 000 dollars and I ask how much you will spend on PR? And they have spent all their budget on their recording.

Or artist that take all their money going on a showcase festival and can only stay there the night they play with no one else to pick up the contacts. And they spent all their money so they can’t even follow up any opportunity the festival actually gives them.

Too many don’t really get things done in full. They cut corners and think it will work. And, it’s actually doing the full job is the things that actually get you somewhere, the half-done job is just a waste of money.

Most are just waste money and time mainly because they don’t really want a career; they are in for the hobby fun. The problem for professionals is to try to separate these hobby people. And they are doing their best to disguise themselves, so it won’t be easy.  All the time I meet artists claiming they put in as fulltime and will go any lengths to get somewhere. I guess this is the first lie in so many cases.

To win a formula one race, you need to go full throttle. You can be a bit slow and just take it easy and then try to win the whole thing. Of course, you can’t go full throttle through the chicane then you crash. And you can’t go full speed and then stop and wait for a couple of moments to eat a burger. Most important you are NOT winning the race by yourself. Without the pitstop team and sponsors you really NOTHING.

Here a thing like this seems very obvious. In the music industry, it just seems lost. The most simple matter is hidden under that music is special and it’s about feelings and passion. No, it’s not. The formula one driver has a passion for driving and probably has done a hell of a lot of things to get to even race on that track. Stop pretending that we are special in any way. This is there act the same thing. If you are going to be at the top. You have want to be at the top. You really can’t do it halfway.

So, in the end I just quote Talladega Nights: If you ain´t first, you´re last.

Can we bring in the one that really wants something for a change? Not just the sing songwriter that feels that blue is not my color?

The hobby band vs the pro band

It's quite easy to say that you want to do something full time. I have written about it before that I have a passion for cooking. I just picked all cherries and black currants and done liquor and jelly the whole weekend. I love it it's really fun to test new recipes and stuff.

It's quite easy for me to say that I should be a professional chef. I should open a restaurant doing my own menu and all that stuff. But I have one advantage and I know how hard it is to be that chef. You have to be closed in the kitchen for years just to get that restaurant to fly. Overall it is at least ten years of investment in your life.

I'm an amateur chef I don't even know if I have the talent to make it as a professional chef. My friends like my food. Still says nothing how the general market would say. And also standing in the kitchen doing the food I want to do instead of getting orders for what kind of food I should cook is a huge difference.

Here is see many do the mistake when we ask if you want to be the hobby band or be the professional. It would be nice living out of your music. Go on tour and make a lot of money while the fans scream out your name.

The thing is that it's so much more than that. It's the same that you are locked in that kitchen but here you are locked in trying to do new songs all the time. Also the same you don't know if your talent is enough to be one of the biggest stars in the world. Still, when you get the question you still say that you want to do it.

I usually pout some extra questions in for it. Could you be away from your friends for two years? Can you just focus on music nothing else for two years? In overall, they all say yes.
If they say no it's already clear that you can't do it.The funny part even the ones that say not as the ones that say yes want to try. And here is the tricky part. We know that only one out of thousand bands has what it takes to even do a test run. We easily test them by putting some important at the same time as their holiday. If they fail to cancel the holiday they are not in the position to make it. Then we even get harder by putting the thing in all the time. Here if you have ten bands that made it out of the thousand. Nine out of ten will fail. Yes, it's very few that have what it takes and most failures come from that the artist wasn't ready for the amount of work that has to be done to make it to the top or be a hobby band. My calculation is that in my whole 30 years career I will only find around 10 acts that really have what it takes among these ten thousands of artists I meet. The question would I find them and nurture them in the right way?

PERSONAL:
I guess I have exposed that I like to cook food. I actually do quite many strange hobby things where I do some arts and crafts. For example, I do strange garden gnomes. I have developed different technics in doing things in concrete. Over the summer months, I usllay do over three hundred different kinds of garden statues. Usually with a strange twist.
This summer it has been garden gnomes with a certain theme. I have done the Punk Gnome, The Terrorist Gnome, the Weed Gnome and the Gangsta gnome. Here is a gnome with attitude.