Connecting with fans key as artists adapt to new digital reality
THE life of the “struggling artist” has become far more diverse in the digital age.
Having built a career through the final golden period of record labels, musicians could easily retreat into a lament on what has been lost.
With the labels’ piles of cash having long dried up, Charles Jenkins, Rob Snarski and Neil Murray have been forced to confront a new maxim: adapt or perish.
Snarski, of Blackeyed Sus- ans fame, was forced to crowdfund to finish recording his debut solo album, Wounded Bird, after a label reneged on a deal. “It was bitter and sweet,” he told the audience at Geelong’s Word for Word Festival on Saturday.
The sheer act of directly engaging with his fans provided unexpected results.
In return for the public donations, Snarksi agreed to record his own version of a fan’s chosen song.
Those bare-bones versions, all recorded at home and often captured on his iPhone, then became the basis for a second album, Low Fidelity.
“It forces you to find more creative ways to make art and sell art.”
Jenkins, of solo and Icecream Hands fame, has even been commissioned by a bride to write a song for her wedding.
Amid increased competition for gigs at licensed venues, the trio have also embraced the increasingly popular private gig.
Held largely in loungerooms for up to 40 guests, the acoustic gigs embrace the intimate and the personal.
“I prefer them to playing on a stage,” Snarski said, pointing out many are organised directly via his website.
Jenkins had also just taken part in three in the past week.
Neil Murray, formerly of the Warumpi Band, said: “It has really put the onus back on live performance.”
The My Island Home and Blackfella Whitefella creator said he doesn’t even stock his CDs in stores anymore, selling them only at gigs.
While Murray is thankful he has remained off the dole, Snarski maintains two parttime jobs and Jenkins now teaches songwriting and runs mentoring programs.
It pays to be flexible in the modern era.