THINKING BIG ATTRACTS BIG RESULTS

If someone walked up to you today and asked you, "so how's the music thing going?" How would you answer? Your answer to this question will have a huge impact on the impression of your band this person walks away with. I think most people would probably just respond with something like, "pretty good," or "okay I guess." Or even worse, they may start rhyming off all the things that have been going wrong lately and how it's so hard to get ahead in the music industry.

If you want to attract opportunities for success then you've got to readjust your attitude and your own personal perception of what you're doing. Always keep things positive and always speak about your band and your music with complete confidence and passion. People will respond to this in a much more positive way and if you and everyone on your team is exuding this kind of enthusiasm, it will be contagious and others will react accordingly. It always starts with you. You decide how the rest of the world is going to perceive your band and your music.

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Waaaaayyyyy back in 1993 (if you can remember that far back) my original band PAIN experienced some ups and downs and when we would be in a bit of a slump, the negativity would creep in and we would start complaining about the industry, the people in it, other bands and so on. This wasn't doing anything for us in terms of getting out of our rut and moving forward, but I guess in some perverse way it made us feel better to bitch and moan about it.

After dealing with the hard times in this manner for about a year or so, we came to the realization that it was rather counter productive and decided to adopt a different attitude. We looked around at bands that were successful and noticed how they conducted themselves differently from ourselves. One huge thing we noticed was the positivity that would come across when they did interiews. You won't find too many interviews where the artist(s) says something like, "yeah, we're not really happy with our album because we were butting heads with our producer in the studio and this tour that we're currently on is just one headache after another. We keep getting the short end of the stick from the headliner and we're pissed at our label because they didn't give us enough in the budget for a bigger van."

Usually bands are very positive and upbeat about the opportunites they've been given. They express gratitude to the team of people at their record company and to the producers and engineers who helped record their album and so on. This is the attitude that will attract more of the good stuff. Like the law of attraction states: like attracts like.

A HAPPY ENDING

Once we fully adopted this attitude, within a year we attracted a manager who helped us secure our first record deal in Japan. Our drummer left shortly after this and the three of us who remained started and new band called EMERALD RAIN and within two years we had record/licensing deals in Japan, U.K., Italy and Canada. We also started our own publishing company and signed two sub-publishing deals, one in Japan and one in Italy.

ANOTHER SUCCESS STORY

I did an album for a band called FARENHEIT (who you now know as HAIL THE VILLAIN) a few years back. I had been working with the singer, Bryan, prior to that on his solo album and I noticed something very different about him compared to most other artists. He was a big thinker, he believed in himself and his abilities and he had a clear vision of what he wanted to do and the ambition to do it. His enthusiasm and passion for the project got me right on the same page with him and I was just as excited as he was about the music we were working on. His clarity and determination attracted three other like-minded individuals and this was the beginning of FARENHEIT.

It was a pleasure to work with them because everyone was very clear about what we were trying to accomplish and everyone had a positive attitude throughout the process. Whenever they talked about what was going on to anyone on the outside, they gave off an aura of success. They were working on something that was great. Something that mattered.

It was this attitude and positive energy that got them involved with producer Darryl Romphf to begin working on the debut HAIL THE VILLAIN album entitled POPULATION: DECLINING which is now available through Warner Canada and Roadrunner in the U.S.

http://www.hailthevillain.com/

THE END

People are attracted to success and everyone wants to be a part of something great whether they're your manager or a die-hard fan who comes to all of your shows. Make sure when you're out networking that you're doing all you can to create a successful and professional image. Remember though that this has to start with the band first. If you can infuse your band to the core with the idea that everything you do is important and that there's always great opportunities surrounding you, you'll have a much greater shot at turning that into your reality.