Some of the most successful bands start out in the most humble of ways. The Manic Street Preachers held after school rehearsals in Blackwood. Coldplay met at university. Razorlight formed through a chance advert in a music magazine and The Arctic Monkeys discussed musical direction on a playground in the outskirts of Sheffield.

Yet making it in the music industry requires talent, dedication and being in the right place at the right time. That said, you can’t make it big in music unless somebody discovers you first… If anyone knows anything about making a band successful, it’s music moguls Dave Eringa, producer for The Manic Street Preachers and Razorlight Manager, Roger Morton, who are both involved in the Intel Studio Talent Competition, the first no-holds barred unsigned talent competition.

Having worked with some of the most successful bands in music history including The Manic Street Preachers, Idlewild, Razorlight, 3 Colours Red and the Libertines, Dave and Roger know what it really takes to get noticed and will are joining us for an exclusive webchat to answer all your questions live in the studio. They will also be offering artists of all genres the chance to win a money-can’t-buy record deal through the new Intel unsigned talent competition and give them advice on how to make it in the cutthroat music business.

So if you think you’ve got a unique sound or believe your lyrics could one day change the world, log-on and submit your questions to our special guests. You never know, it could be your first step to experiencing the gruelling tour schedules and rock and roll lifestyle for real!

Music moguls Dave Eringa and Roger Morton join us live online at 2pm to discuss making it big in music.

H: Milo, host
D: Dave Eringa, producer for Manic Street Preachers
R: Roger Morton, Manager Razorlight

 

H: Hello and welcome to the Entertainment Show, I’m Milo McCabe.  Now  some of the most successful bands start out in the most humble of ways. The Manic Street Preachers for example, they held after school rehearsals in Blackwood. Coldplay met at university and Razorlight formed through a chance advert in a music magazine. The Arctic Monkeys discussed musical directions on a playground in the outskirts of Sheffield. Yet making it in the music industry requires talent, dedication and being in the right place at the right time. That said, you can’t make it big in music unless someone discovers you first… and if anyone knows anything about making a band successful, it’s music moguls Dave Eringa, producer for The Manic Street Preachers and Razorlight Manager, Roger Morton, guys welcome to the show, how are you doing?

D: Thank you very much

R: Good

H: Now Roger I’m going to ask you a question – doubtless you’ve never, ever been asked before.  How do bands get noticed these days?

R: Well I think it’s a combination of things really, I mean there’s the traditional techniques that have been around a long time, and the music industry has changed quite a bit now as well, so you have to combine all things.  It’s really not one thing.  You know you have to get out and tour, you have to do all that side of it, you have to build up an audience, and all that’s pretty straightforward accepted stuff, but now you’ve got the internet as well and so you have to use that.  There’s lots of different things you can do with that, it’s a creative tool so you know the MySpace side of it and also the YouTube side of it as well, getting a kind of visual thing over can be good and can be a lot of fun.

H: And how’s that mass media thing changed things for bands?  The internet, MySpace –

R: I think the thing is that it’s done is that it means in the early stages of a band you can get further down the line quicker. You can be – kind of like a real band because people can come to you, the music’s out there and so you’re not like sitting in your bedroom going how do I get in touch with people? In the early stages it’s good, it’s like getting to the starting line and people start coming to you, if it is good, but there’s – it doesn’t get you all the way down the line, you know that’s as far as it will get you

H: And then of course the bands start firing out thousands and thousands of emails to absolutely everybody which we then have to delete and deal with as appropriate.  Now that’s all well and good, but what’s to be said for actually getting really tight and being sort of a live touring band and then when you’re discovered you’re already tight live – do you think that makes a big difference?

D: Well everything, yes I mean you’ve got, if you don’t look good you’ve at least got to look cool, do you know what I mean?
 
H: Have to look cool?

D: You have to have a look, you know something that ties you together, even if it is like a nerdy thing or whatever.  So you know, now more than ever you’ve just got to do so much more for yourself than you used to, and the old fashioned you know record company discovering you in the back room of a pub playing to just a dog, and then saying this is genius and developing you over five albums, sadly that just doesn’t happen any more.  If you – you’ve almost got to forget about the record companies for a while, build a following, build a live following, get great and then when they come to you that’s fine

H: Ok well remember if you are watching right now, you’re in a band yourself, you’re interested in asking these guys any questions we’re live, you can do that, I’m going to get the questions on my screen and I can ask them direct, so do send us an email right now.  Because I’ve always thought it’s very important to get the band as a unit tight on the road, songs then develop, I guess on the road and change over time as well

D: Totally, you get an idea for what works and what doesn’t, what communicates with people, what’s immediate.  You know, like it’s a cliché but every gig’s worth 20 rehearsals you know

H: As a producer is there a kind of band that you prefer working with, or are you just open?

D: I prefer working with great bands!

H: Great bands, just regardless of genre, whatever, just great bands

D: Well no I mean I come from a rock background, but it is always enjoyable to push the – you know I’ve done, I’ve pushed in pop directions and in other directions, you know and it’s always good to come out your comfort zone and do something different

H: And what makes a great band, in your opinion?

D: Great songs, great singer.  I mean really when it boils down to it a band that communicates, that make you feel at the end of the day

H: Just give you some sort of emotion?

D: Yes exactly, be it anger, be it – you know be it happiness, be it whatever that just effect you

H: Ok now Dave you’re a producer, Roger you’re manager - how important is management these days in terms of sort of merchandise and you know saleable quantities of a band?  How important is that?

R: Well it’s really important, I mean merchandise is debateable because that kind of effects people later on once their careers up and running.  And you know obviously I think the key thing with a band in the early stages is a lot to do with getting a team of people together and start getting a manager together, sorting out your merchandise – all those different elements of it have to be in place.  You could probably draw up a list of about 5 or 6 people who have to be around the band, and they all have to do their jobs well, so that’s a difficult thing, you have to I guess in the early stages I guess you have to cumulate people without over doing it and without making too many definite commitments so you get stuck with people for 10 years when you didn’t really want to, so you know, so it’s about judgement.  I think like – it’s a kind of – it is – being in a band now is a kind of multi tasking thing, you have to do all these other things as well and you kind of have to be quite good at all of them, it’s not just – rarely is it that you can just sit with a guitar and sing and that’s it

H: Alright well we have quite a specific music question here – very straightforward, very blunt. It’s from John, he even has a blunt name!  “Should I go to south by Southwest festival to promote my band?”  What is the South by Southwest festival?

R: It takes place in -

D:  It – sorry

R: It’s in Austin, Texas, it’s a music industry convention, takes place every year

D: Yes

R: Is it March?

D: Yes

R: I think it’s in March

D: It’s like a billion gigs in a week in Austin

H: So it’s just a massive showcase

D: Yes and I would say – no you shouldn’t!

H: Did you get that John?  Don’t do it!

D: Unless you have a massive buzz on you already because otherwise you will just get lost

R: And if you were going to go then you’d need to do a lot of preparation to get the best out of it because there’s so many bands there

H: What would those guys be looking for?  The industry guys in South by Southwest or a festival like that, if there’s a new band out here going to a sort of

R: Initially what they’ll be looking for is a bunch of other industry people standing in the room to see –

D: Those things are all about buzz, buzz bands

R: To see if their opinion is going to be confirmed by 10 other people, so if there’s four other record labels and three publishers and a bunch of management companies all standing in the room, then they all feel confident, so –

H: So you’re saying that A&R people would be possibly more interested in the opinions of other A&R people than the actual band that they’re looking at?

R: It happens a lot yes

D: They’re herd animals. They’re herd animals A&R people, definitely

H: Well why are we here?  Tell us about the Intel competition?

D: Well it’s a competition looking for new talent to maybe help John out and not have to send him all the way to Austin, Texas

H: Right here you go John

D: Where you can upload your music to the intel.co.uk/studio website

H: Well done

D: Yes!  And it will be heard by a panel of industry people and also by anyone can go to that site and just listen.  There’s already nearly 1000 bands on there

H: Right

D: It’s completely pan genre, from Glitch Electronica through to Death Metal, Indie, singer-songwriters, pop, hip hop, dubstep, whatever – whatever, it’s all there.  It’s all heard.  The public vote, and the judges vote as well, and there’s two winners each month and they get to play a live gig at the Proud Galleries in Camden and so the public winner and the judges winner play a gig up against each other if you like, and there’s a winner each month and they all go through to a final in November and the winner gets a record deal

H: And you talked about a band sort of giving you an emotional response – how long do you give a track in that respect?  How long until you go – no I’m not feeling it?

R: Probably not long. I think you do get the idea about a piece of music pretty quickly, maybe – you can get a third of the way through and you get the idea bout it

D: I would veer away from the minute-and-a-half intro, let’s put it like that

H: Veer away.  So just make it – get the point –

D: No matter how good you think that riff is, no matter how good you think that riff is

R: Put the hook at the beginning,

D: Get the vocal coming in

R: Make sure there’s a hook, put it near the beginning, then put it in again, then put it in again

D: And turn the vocal up

H: And turn the vocal up.  So this is actual advice that you would give people, new bands either entering the Intel competition or just generally trying to push their demos on record companies

D: Yes absolutely, absolutely – it’s all – you know like the people that listen to demos a lot, certainly A&R people in labels are notoriously difficult to impress shall we say, and you really just need to get in there with the good stuff

H: Unless their mates are all really impressed and then you’re right in

D: Unless the mates are all impressed in which case they’re there right to the end trying to work out why it’s good!

H: What about age because I find, I mean I’ve got friends in bands who sort of have actually been offered just publishing deals from record companies on the basis of the fact that their music is good and it’s been appreciated but they can’t see them as a marketable quantity because they’re sort of in their 30s, mid 30s.  How important is that in this competition.  Is it open for anyone –

R: I don’t see why songwriters wouldn’t get anything out of it as well, so much of it is about the song, you don’t have to be like 17 for it to qualify, if there’s someone whose got amazing songs then that in itself is a merit

D: Already there’s a huge, huge age range from young, young kids

H: Right

D: Right up to people in their –

H: Careful with your wording!

D: No no exactly, I mean there is a huge range, well you can imagine, nearly 1000 demos already, we’re only 3 months into the competition

H: So is it – is it just – I mean on the website is it just a music demo that people are going to see or are people uploading videos?

D: No people are – yes you can – bands are uploading more than one song now, that’s a new thing that’s come on

H: Right

D: You know there’s a little biog and you can have a link to the website, so it’s actually a really good way of attracting people.  Intel sort it, you can just go through, trawl through or they sort it by genre, so you can just, when you upload your track you can say this is Indie Rock or

R: It’s just like a big library online now is what it is

D: Yes

R: It’s just an nice thing, it’s good fun anyway

H: Ok alright.  Well what are you guys into at the moment, what are you personally sort of looking for at the moment, within this competition and outside this competition in general?

D: Well within this competition I’m looking to be surprised, looking to see you know –

H: What’s going to surprise you? You don’t know do you?

D: Well for instance one of the bands playing this month are called Miracle and the Soul Interpreter, and –

H: What, say that again?
 
D: Miracle and the Soul Interpreter

H: Yes

D: And it was just genuinely different, it was almost like a sort of soul version of the Eels of something, really, really – I really liked it, right from the off I voted for it every month and now finally they’ve got through.  It’s totally not in my comfort zone as a producer at all, but I just think it’s just genuinely different

H: Well it’s very brave of you to go outside of your comfort zone

D: Oh well thank you very much!

H: What about you Roger, what are you sort of into at the moment?

R: Well in general what am I into?

H: Yes. Yes, within the competition what are you looking for?

R:  Well I guess there is a thing that happens where the longer you – the more time you spend looking at bands then the more you come to some sort of basic thing about it where it’s great singers and great songs, I mean that’s a sort of cliché but it’s kind of true.  Great voices are amazing, if you’ve got a great voice then the rest of it you can improve and you can work on it and you can get up to a level.  If you haven’t got a great voice then you’re pretty stuck, there’s not much you can do about that, you know you can’t bring –

D: Unless you’ve got a great song – Bob Dylan

R: Yes well then arguably he has a great voice

D: Yes, I’ll give –

R: I don’t mean by that technically a great voice, I mean just a –

H: Emotively?

R: Yes it’s something that –

D: Great communicator

R: Something that stopped the silence in the room and people go what’s that, you know it’s pretty much as simple as that

H: Like a kind of X-Factor without wanting to give that too much publicity.  Now remember you can email questions in any time you like, I’ve got one now, I’m going to go to it right away, it’s from Jenny – “DO” (in capitals) “you have to be signed to a record label to make it as a band?” Part two of the question – “what about the band that bought their own deal on Dragon’s Den?”  Dave – They’re called Ham Fatter

D: Ham Fatter - I mean it’s – I think – well it’s a kind of double edged thing.  I mean like on the one hand I actually, a band I was working with made that suggestion a few months ago, why didn’t someone go on Dragon’s Den and get finance, people are getting, people are getting outside finance to make records all the time, in fact the last two records I’ve made have been with non-record company finance.  However –

H: How do you get non-record company finance?

D: Ham Fatter?

H: Ham Fatter, well we’re saying it over and over again, we’re not going to forget the name!

D: No that’s true

H: I guess it has that going for it

D: That’s true but that doesn’t make it a good name.  That’s a pretty, a pretty weird name to straddle yourself with, but maybe there’s a reason, I don’t know

H: We haven’t seen it –

D: I missed it, sadly I missed it.  I would have liked to have seen it and I think it was a very good idea

H: Yes there could be a very obvious physical link, I have to get that on You Tube. I’ve got another question, Roger – “Battle of the bands are one thing, but what do you think about TV talent shows like the X Factor, do you think they are good for music?”

R: No, not really no.  I think they tend to concentrate on the particular area of music and there’s a sort of concept that comes with them about the kind of music they’re looking for, the kind of performers, and it’s not healthy because it sort of, it becomes quite conservative I think in the choices that are made through those sort of TV shows, and a TV show is a different thing from music so it concentrates on a specific sort of genre, specific forms of music, and that’s not right because a lot of the best music is stuff that just wouldn’t initially be acceptable on a TV show anyway.  One of the good things about this competition thing is that just any old person can put up music and they can be absolutely crazy, and they can still upload their tracks, and often the absolutely crazy people’s – people – are the ones who go on to be important and –

D: I would go further and say that X Factor engenders a certain type of musac – I mean it’s clearly a terrible thing for music, to just constantly concentrate on – to demystify the process to that extent.  Do we really want to see our pop stars having singing lessons?  Do we want that when T Rex arrived in 1970 or whatever, he looked like he was beamed in from Mars, that’s what a pop star should be like, not –

R: Surprising - a lot of us – it’s like fast food music and the bad thing from the way the industry works is it is short term it’s effective and that means the money that there is in the industry gets concentrated on those kind of people.  I know in the States this is a big thing, obviously America the industry is struggling at the moment, but they do know they can sell music through those kind of TV competitions and so that’s what they invest in, and all the other people who are out there who would probably go on to have longer careers and be more interesting, they get – they lose out because of that

H: Now you say the industry is struggling, obviously that’s because of internet downloads and I’ve got a question from Robin at Clash magazine here, he is saying “giving the influence of the internet on releasing new material, what must the industry do now to reflect changing patterns in their audience?”

D: Well that’s the big question

H: It is a big question, he’s asking it, he wants an answer!

D: Well there’s – there’s an argument for saying that they’ve got to make the product sexy again

H: How do they do that?

D: You know when CDs came out that was a sexy product, you were like whoa it’s a sleek, digital war, but you know nowadays, nowadays there’s so much more competing, you know with video games and with so many things competing for young people’s money, there’s – we’ve got to find a way of making people value music.  We’re two generations in to people thinking music’s free, and that’s the big, big problem, and if I had the answer I’d be a rich, rich man

R: I think that also there are still, the way a lot of the industry operates is still based on the idea that you have to have mega artists, and mega artists are the ones who make the money and they pay for all the other stuff and so all the other stuff kind of struggles along and gets neglected a bit, and there’s a lot of talk about how that model, the way it works, doesn’t fit any more and what it needs to do is to – you need to find a way of investing in the less successful people who are only going to sell 50,000 albums, but they need, still need a structure around them which allows them to survive and so the whole industry can still make money out of them, when you’re not going to have artists selling 5 million CDs any more

D: Although I do think, I mean I did think recently, especially with the Cold Play album selling 500,000 in two weeks, Amy Winehouse sold 1.5 million in this industry that’s supposed to be on its knees, you know part of the malaise – yes of course the internet, and people stealing the music and the fact, the death of the album which is so depressing where people just buy one track and all of this stuff, of course there’s all that but at the same time maybe it’s just that there’s not that many great bands around at the moment

H:  Do you think that’s the difference?

D: I do, like Cold Play put what people want in front of them and 500,000 people bought it in two weeks. Amy Winehouse put what people wanted in front of them and 1.5 million people in the UK alone bought it

H: When you say what people wanted –

D: Well it’s just songs they connected with, so you know something that they, you know what – you know – like rather than – you know sometimes I just think there’s a lot of bands around at the moment that are a bit crap!

H: Fair enough.  Well one thing about music as opposed to say other sort of forms of comedy acting, a lot of the time it’s said that you can be an excellent group, or excellent at your art, your music and not get discovered.  I mean is this competition one of those ways?  If there is a truly excellent band, the next Cold Play, whatever out there and they do get the songs up, involved in this competition, they have a good chance of actually getting out to a wider audience?

D: They have a very good chance because I mean, there’s – you know like I say there’s the two prongs, there’s the – you know people can vote for it and they will come through you know, you can get your friends and family to vote as much as you want and you know, and there’s a bunch of 5 industry judges that are going to hear it as well, and then there’s the gig, and the gig’s get filmed and then put up on the website and people vote again for a winner out of the two, so – there’s a lot of exposure available, but you know like I say, you know the advice would be to keep things immediate and you know there’s one guy – one guy uploaded him singing Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol on his acoustic guitar in his bedroom.  There’s not a lot of point in that

H: Has he got any votes?

D: I don’t know – I’d already clicked off of that one

R: Thing is it’s just a good platform for people anyway, even if they don’t win it, because there’s only actually two bands that play the gigs each week, each month and – but there are other people like I looked at people and thought they’re good and sort of paid attention to them and like saved their websites and all of that, and I’ll go back and look at them later on, so it’s not just about winning a competition, it’s just a good sort of publicity exercise I guess

D: One of the – the other judges are Mark Beaumont from the NME, Dave Forbert who runs the Kids Label who will put the album out in the end who discovered the Wombats last year.  And Karl Barratt, so there’s a lot – all the way across the industry there’s people that could help you listening, so like you say it doesn’t matter if you don’t necessarily win, you know to be one of the two bands each month you know interesting people are going to be hearing your band

H:  That’s the bottom line, if you enter this competition then high level industry figures are going to be –

D: High level –

H: Did you like that?

R: We’re forced to aren’t we?

H: Forced to, have to

D: We’re forced to.  Intel – Intel, you know arrive at the last Friday of every month and put a gun to your head and just – LISTEN.  LISTEN!

H: Stack of MP3s.  Remind us of the website one more time?

D: It’s intel.co.uk/studio

H: intel.co.uk/studio, for more information go there.  As I said you’ve heard everything today if you are a band, you’ve got your tracks out there, get yourself involved in the competition.  Dave Eringa, Roger Morton thank you very very much.  It’s been very informative and useful and enjoyable and I’m sure we’ll see you soon, so you know exactly what to do if you’re a band out there, I’ve been Milo McCabe, this has been the entertainment show, see you soon.  Thank you very much, goodbye

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