So You’ve Managed To Record an Album. Now What?

To be honest, there is no one answer to this question. If only we could all be like Leon Bridges. If you don’t know his story, he was grinding all the open mics and any gig anyone would offer him from 2010-2014 or so. He mostly kept to the Fort Worth side of DFW, until one day a guy from Austin from a band call White Denim shows up and they basically put all the pieces together for each others’ long sought after success. Jinkins ended up offering to record Leon’s original tunes for no money down. When they got done, it seems like he was immediately signed to Columbia records for 1 Million in cash. The last time I talked to Leon, as a peer to the local open mics and bar scene, we were at The Chat Room Pub and he told me and a few others sitting flabbergasted and in disbelief, after taxes he had about $600,000 in the bank.

There are more details to the hard work of Leon. Even in his situation, a situation I’m sure any artist would love to be in, it wasn’t easy and without hard work and continuous effort on the part of Bridges. I first saw him perform in 2012 at a venue called the Where House during a weekly open mic with the most hilarious host. There was an act there one night written down on the sign-up-sheet as Piston Riot, but the handwriting was pretty bad and when Tommy, the host, got up on stage to introduce the next act, reading from the clipboard he read out, “The next act is, ah…well, Pussy…..Pussy Fart. Pussy Fart to the stage.” And you hear someone from the crowd yell out angrily, in a squelching self-tyranny, “It’s Piston Riot, you ass hole!”

You see the single member of the band Piston Riot hustling to the stage, long brown hair, black leather jacket, and shitty electric guitar, looking like it was bought from a Sears catalogue by some distant grandfather. Tommy repeated again, “Pussy Fart…..Pussy Fart to the stage,” and the crowd erupted in a roar of laughter, whistles, screams and applause. You could hear him try to argue Tommy with a, “Hey man. Why you gotta be like that?” attitude, but Tommy just brushed him with a nonchalant comment as he was leaving the stage looking at the clipboard again as if to confirm, “You should learn how to write. It looks like my 3 year old niece signed up for you slot.”

This weekly event featured free booze, and some of the acts were down right horrible; most of them eccentric. Songs like Here Come the Bi-polar Bears, and Tommy’s rendition of a song about sex in the morning were typical of these drunken nights. It cost $10 to get into the venue. After that, booze was free until the place ran out. It could be a madhouse regardless of the amount of people there, however the free booze guaranteed one thing most open mics only dream of; a crowd. The crowd is likely what brought true talent like Leon in the place.

It was during these drunken nights of debauchery I saw him perform as Lost Child, which regularly featured another musician or singer. He was very talented and even then, an act everyone stopped acting out to pay attention to. In those days he was singing with another woman and each song seemed like a spiritual experience. Amidst all the craziness of The Where House, here was this soft and delicate, beautiful male voice begging, with its essence, the room quiet and pay attention. It was something special. There would be at least 50 people there nearly every Thursday Night and it was a regular cast of characters. Everyone was experimenting with their style of dress and even their personalities. Being unique, or a different version of who you really were was part of that place. On the other nights, The Where House hosted bigger and more organized parties and shows. They had planners and designers and threw real ball-like festivities creating a space and event like something from The Great Gatsby, if Salvador Dali had painted it and Oliver Twist and friends starred in it. In all my years of travel I had yet to see something so close to The Temporary Autonomous Zone.

I miss that place, and it doesn’t surprise me someone like Leon was able to thrive out of a situation like that. The alchemy in the air of those nights, and that time in the scene over all, was so catalytic to everyone’s growth as an artist. Leon tried different things, experimented with songs, lyrics, bandmates, style and all facades of approaching music until he got it right. And boy did he ever get it right. It was his cosmic embrace of an old school style that lead him to have high waisted paints in common with a denim covered cowboy from that band I mentioned at the beginning, White Denim. From the look and sound of it, the only thing these two had in common was their high waisted denim jeans and they had arrived at that point from seemingly two polar opposite directions. The other thing they had in common was music, and a dream that was bigger than both of them.

Austin Jinkins had a lot of the connections and knowledge Leon lacked. After their girlfriends brought them together, due to Leon persistently singing for free at the close of a Tuesday night show at Magnolia Motor Lounge, Austin got to hear some of Leon’s original stuff. It just so happened Austin was moving to Fort Worth to open a new studio. After they had recorded a couple of the singles, they put them up on SoundCloud. Within a couple days Gorilla vs. Bear picked up the singles and released Coming Home and Better Man on their popular blog. It was mere days later and both the songs were up close to a million plays. It was 2014. Everything changed after that. The guys weren’t even finished with the whole album and they already had a proven product. If you don’t know the rest of the story, well, around Christmas that year, Leon signed a 1 Million Dollar contract with Columbia Records.

From my point of view, it was Bob Dylan all over again. In every biography I’ve ever read it talked about a kid swooping in and stealing the best record deal in history out from under all the other working artists. At this time I was barely gigging. I had quit my job and was giving music my best shot, but I was just another working musician, and one with a lot less time in the scene compared to Leon. And there were countless others who had been grinding the Dallas and Fort Worth scenes since the 1990s during the days of acts like The Toadies, Pantera, and Flickerstick. These three bands hung out in the bars and were, and still are scenesters. Even the record deals of these three bands pale in comparison to Leon Bridges million dollar deal. In Chronicles Vol. I Dylan describes it as if all eyes were on him. He worked hard for it and deserved the deal. In my opinion, Leon is the same way. He had not only the songs, not only the look, not only the voice, not only the personality and work ethic, not only good manners and meekness, but he had that cosmic edge Dylan describes. That trench of momentum toward a goal that only persistence and focus alone will carve and seems to hurry greatness upon its destiny.

From there Leon went on to appear on all the late night TV programs with his band full of Fort Worth notables. He even appeared on SNL and Sesame Street. If you followed him in any fashion you’d see his posts of his face plastered over Times Square, or if you shop anywhere at all in the United States you’d hear him on the speakers and see him on the magazine covers in the stands at the checkout lines. It was, and still is mind you, incredible.

And this is what everyone hopes will happen with their records. The producers, the backers, the engineers, the players, the writers and even the bar owners to places you’ve played, we all want and hope for one thing. A hit. And as much as it is important to believe what happened to Leon can happen to you, it is highly unlikely.

Just since Leon signed with Columbia, Cody Jinks, Maren Morris, Koe Wetzle, and Giovanni and The Hired Guns have all reached similar heights. They all have different business models. Cody is 100% independent and can’t get his face on a billboard in Times Square as he’s not working with the right players. He did just land his face on YouTube billboard in Nashville, which is an amazing achievement for someone not working with any of the big labels. Maren, after years of being unnoticed in the Fort Worth and Dallas scenes, moved to Nashville and became a songwriter for a few years before finally garnering enough support to make it national. I don’t know the details of her deal, but she looks to be doing great. Point being, there is no one road to your success, and the good news is, an independent artist can make it.

What Cody did, that most won’t do, is grinded out playing for years in the small towns and podunk honky tonks that are virtually devoid of quality music. He earned the respect and admiration of all his fans and so they devotedly spread his music like gospel and well…his success speaks for itself. What younger artists like Koe and Giovanni show is that there is a market of younger consumers out there who are willing to buy merch and attend shows, who are willing to listen and care about the music and lyrics while at the same time looking for a really fuckin good time. There’s hope for a songwriter and an independent artist, but that’s about it. Hope.

The downside is there are no longer A&R people looking for new talent to develop. There are no longer large advances being paid out to artist to fund the production of their albums. Even in Leon’s case, the label didn’t pay for the recordings, Austin and Josh Block fronted the cost of their newly formed studio. Talk about a great first artists for Niles City. Furthermore in Leon’s case, he had already established a reach of at least a million fans with the results of his release to Sound Cloud. The market was there, the consumer was primed and ready. Now all the label had to do was deliver the product and collect the money. There was little risk in signing Leon Bridges to a million dollar contract because he had already done everything, and with his new team of Josh and Austin, he could now also provide anything the label would need. There are countless hours of expertise Josh and Austin brought with them that aided what Leon had already created. Again, even in this situation, there was very little work for the label to do in regard to the creation of the music and brand.

So, if you’re sitting on some completed tracks, and are wondering why no one is throwing money at you, it’s because the chances of you going viral without the help of a record label’s influence outweigh the risks and costs of marketing and artist development. You’re basically on your own. Today, a record label doesn’t have to do anything except wait for exceptional talent, like Leon Bridges, Austin Jinkins and Josh Block, to literally pull them selves up by their bootstraps. It’s so easy to run a scan of any new single reaching a million plays. If that’s happening, the market has spoken. What the labels do still provide is their years of connections and control over the market. In some senses YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify are acting as the A&R talent scouts. An artist uploads their music, and the logarithmic functions sort and find the most viewed content and pin it to the top. Spotify’s role in finding talent has become so important, they employ countless curators who sift through the millions of submissions a year. With your Spotify numbers, provided they are organic and not purchased, an artist can make some money, but mainly they can use this to attract what is left of the big label and obtain an advance. That advance is still charged against future royalties, but these days it seems to be a form of payment for all the work already done, just written in a contract with outdated concepts and language.

The bad thing about an advance is it is recoupable, or has to be paid back. The good news is that the advance is paid back with royalties, and after a determined amount of time, if the advance is not recouped by the label, it is written off. So, in the end, an advance doesn’t have to be paid back, and this further supports my theory of advances being a new form of payment. Advances are the kind of risk record labels used to take. And they failed miserably on many of them, but with the payout when of hitting the mark so high, these risks were worth it. Now days, it’s not that the risk of financially backing an artist are any greater or less worth it, it’s just that they are no longer needed, and so the record label would rather allow and support Spotify in underpaying for content in exchange for them weeding out talent, and in turn pocket the money they used to use in the risky business of artist development. Not to mention the astronomical cost of recording and tape machines that is now 100 percent absorbed by the artist and has faded out of existence almost altogether, respectively. The benefit here is the record label signs almost exclusively what’s known as ‘360 deals’ and they sign those deals with an artist who has an established consumer base. That means they own everything, and basically own you, throughout the known universe and into perpetuity. That means forever and always anywhere and everywhere. And with sunset clauses, these rights to your work can extend well beyond the life of the contract. This covers all monies gained from sales, playlists, shows, movies, sync deals, youtube; everything.

If, as an artist, you still live in a fantasy land where a label might scout you and bring you on for artist development, you’re putting yourself out there to be taken advantage of. So far, I have been contacted by these con artists and vetting, not for talent, reliability or projected sales, but for gullibility, ignorance and willingness to trust. If you have a financial backer of any kind, you are at risk of being conned out of all your money. This is of course even worse if you don’t have a backer. It seems to me that if you’re signing a deal today, as an artist, you already have some leverage. You have a hit, a million plays on Spotify, a YouTube presence. Basically, if you’re being offered a legitimate record deal it’s because you’ve already proven you have an audience. Talent is no longer the measuring stick on which labels base their decisions. Now, if you don’t have an audience, then you’re prolly gonna get fucked out of what little money you are already making and all of the money you might one day make.

So what to do then? It cost about $50/year to keep an album up on TuneCore or DistroKid. That’s not bad, but the Catch 22 is anything you release like this is now treated as non-existent by any potential ‘suitors’. The big labels, and especially the small con artists ones, want only content that has not been ever before released. This, of course, guarantees their rights to the material and assures no claim or breach of contract will ensue at any point down the line.

But does an online presence really create a fan base? I’d say this depends on what you’re going for. If I use myself as an example, my recordings have afforded me opportunity at local level live shows more so than any online presence . I’m still working toward a larger online following and stronger numbers on the streaming platforms, but currently I earn 99% of my income from live shows. Honestly, this is not much different from bigger acts all the way up the line to artists like Willie Nelson, although the portion of income generated from live shows would be significantly less than mine albeit still a much larger piece in respect to the whole. I put my first album out in 2016. What you may not readily know going into the process is everyone must be paid along the way. .In our current state of affairs, the people who must be paid along the way to making an album has been reduced and narrowed down to only the most significant and indispensable roles. These are skilled positions, as in any industry. People who know how to operate equipment, manage real estate, and keep proper financial records and taxes. You can’t make a record independently, or otherwise, without upfront payment for their services. If a plumber comes and fixes your toilet, you usually sign the bill and provide payment information before the work begins.

So the first thing you have to do is schedule studio time. If you have no idea what you’re doing, this step will get you going and is the only step I really took into consideration. I applied for a credit card with a $2000 limit and figured I would be fine with that to make the record and still have some room left. A typical studio with an engineer will cost you around $500-$1000/day. If the studio has little to no accolades, I wouldn’t pay more than $750/day, but this is all for you to determine. It’s the same process and picking a plumber or even a doctor who accepts your insurance. At the beginning it can be a crap shoot. Having to put down a deposit means its even more worth while to ask around and find out about how the engineer/studio owner works, what’s their personality like, do they have experience in music theory or have they ever even made an album before.

I typically enjoy learning the hard way and didn’t do any of this. Lucky for me, I’m a very fortunate soul and chose my first studio based on the people who approached me. And now that I’m thinking about it, my first recordings were done in 2014 with my buddy Thomas at his apartment, free of charge. I burned those CDs and glued actual photos of my on the front of jewel cases and sold them at my shows and gave them to people as demos or even referred to them as albums. They were two-mic-recordings with just me, my guitar and harmonica blasting away in a squeaky chair from the center of a top floor shotgun apartment. It was awesome. I used those recording to get me some of my first gigs and all my initial interest. My friend Thomas was looking out for me. I was new to the scene and he knew any type of recording would set me miles ahead of the competition.

The same holds true today, and I’d recommend this as a starting point. With the funds you save from the gigs you get from your first home recordings can go toward the type of album I made at Eagle Audio in 2016. Jerry Hudson and I drank at the same bar, The Chat Room Pub. In that time, many musicians and studio types, photographers, videographers and artistic people hung out at the Chat Room. So when Jerry asked if I wanted to record, I was hesitant because I had no money, and what little money I did have I was spending frivolously on drugs and alcohol. He said it was $50/hour and, I couldn’t refuse. I sacrifice a night of drinking for a few hours of studio time. I had such a good experience and the quality of the recordings was so much better, being that we were using top-of-the-line-gear in a real studio with sound treated walls and a even a tape machine. There was a huge board with millions of buttons, a control room, a few isolations booths, gear to be used, a grand piano, beautiful wood paneling and an engineer who almost insisted you smoked cigarettes at all times. Jeff Ward would be, by default, my first producer.

Although Jerry got me to the studio, he stayed out of anything to do with the recording process. Jeff was a great guy and very hands-on in a hands-offish kind of way. Very unobtrusive and as he didn’t divulge any information you didn’t ask, he could easily do what he wanted and I was none-the-wiser. It’s a hard thing to hear your voice for the first times when you record, but for me, I had no grasp on any music theory or concept and I was mostly singing like Bob Dylan meets Woody Guthrie meets Johnny Cash, so tonality and pitch, honestly, didn’t matter all that much. I didn’t need much auto-tune because there wasn’t must to tune, just a barreling bull of a voice screaming into the microphone in a speaking cadence.

When I did sing on that first album, I held out the notes too long and went off pitch. It’s very obvious now, but still holds a little bit of flare and inflection making it somewhat passible, from the engineers point of view. But that’s the thing. Back then, I was either overwhelmed by the newness of it all that I couldn’t hear all the things I can now, or I simply just wasn’t able to process what I was hearing then. I had little to no comparison to base any perspective on.

All in all, I spent around $3500 on the album and that included $700 of mastering. They did me a solid. I love those guys. I paid most of the players with cheap weed I was having mailed in from my trimming job I’d just returned from; an ounce here, a half ounce there, and managed to pull together a very impressive cast of players. A literal who’s who of the Fort Worth music scene, and especially anyone who had just played on Leon’s record. I think back on it now and wonder, although I shouldn’t, about what those amazing musicians must have been thinking coming from a paid session with a soon-to-be world famous super star, to a session with a drunken, pot smokin, pill head (that’s me) who couldn’t hold a pitch if his life depended on it. I’ll say, everyone was so gracious during the whole thing, and I’m forever grateful for that.

The album gained me much needed boost on in the so called rankings of a local scene. I went from gigging for $50/night on the west side at places like Randi’s 2 to 2, the Horny Toad and Maxine’s to landing some solo acoustic gigs paying on average $200/night. I had a packed show at Lola’s Saloon for my album release. Far from being sold out, it was a respectable 75 people or so who came to watch me scream into the mic. I couldn’t hear a thing and when you can’t here, you can’t sing. And since, as I’ve already said, I wasn’t even singing anyway, I can only imagine how terrible it probably was. I gave it my all though, and just like some of my performances at open mics and the few other shows we played, the sheer power and determination I displayed still makes me proud of myself despite all the short comings I can see in retrospect.

What little hype I had gained from doing the album and having a release show quickly dwindled, but the working gigs kept coming in. I’ve worked 4-5 nights a week since I put out my first album Songs Worth Singing. I sent it to an agency in Dallas, and had 8-12 band shows a month along with the same number of solo performances. It was amazing. I got great responses from the crowds and management. The tips flowed like never before and were literal flood compared to the mere trickle I had received up to that point busking. My whole life changed. I had money. I had debt, but I had money, and I had gigs. It made me one of them. One of the real musicians. And I got better. With money you can hire good and knowledgeable players and just by sharing experiences together, you garner information and experience from them.

Although in some ways I’m embarrassed of that first album, I’m also very proud of it. The amount I spent compared to the benefits and knowledge I’ve gained and the experiences I’ve had because of my first full length studio album are a drop in the bucket. However it wasn’t sustainable, and after about 50 shows with a band no one liked the arrangements anymore, or that is to say, we all preferred what we were doing on stage. The cast of players had completely changed, and although I started playing live with a 6 or 7 piece band, attempting to reproduce the arrangements on the recordings, I quickly realized it would be impossible to make money that way. The players wanted $100 a piece for each show, which is relatively cheap given their experience levels, but a lot of factors go into that number. Most gigs paid out at around $500 for a band, so it didn’t take me but a year to have whittled the band down to a three piece without drums. I could pay my players $150 each and take home $200.

With the trio happy, we set about to record another album and even brought over some of the songs I’d did on the first recording and did them again. This time, we’d do everything live and by ourselves. I coined a term for us precision playing that we’d developed at our live shows, which was basically my way of saying let the speakers and the gain structure do the work. Play soft, like we are in a library and let the digital components do the rest. We set up at Tommy’s house and with his laptop, a focus rite interface, and our live fear we went to record. For my vocals we used an SM Beta 58. To make that work, we had to play quiet. In early 2017 we made the album No Fear in one day, mixed and mastered it that evening and I put it out through TuneCore the next day. It’s still my favorite album to date. It sounds like what we sounded like, and for me it shows what a couple hundred live shows can do for growth. The guitar player Tone Sommer really, Tommy’s soft-touching-slap of the upright, and my quiet and somewhat controlled vocals make this album a great recording. Although it cost me nothing to make, I still cover the yearly fee on TuneCore out of my own pocket. The thing this album did for me was earn me the 2018 award for Best C&W act in Fort Worth Weekly’s yearly ceremony as well as a nomination for best album.

Shortly after that I recorded another album of songs at a home studio in Dallas for $30/hr. We did those to a click track and after I laid down my guitar parts and scratch vocals I didn’t return until it was time to do the final vocal parts. This would seem like a great way to make an album, but I wasn’t included in any of the instrumental decisions and when I made some comments, the engineer threatened to delete the entire project. I put it out in 2017 as Liver Dye and I’m still proud of it, although it received no recognition from anyone worth mentioning. I did a digital distribution deal with a local provided for 5 years with it, and due to the sudden success of some comparable artists with similar deals, my album was all but forgotten by them and never even released in its entirety. I spent a total of maybe $1500 on that recording and eventually got out of the distribution deal and self released it in 2020.

These humbling recognitions cemented my place amongst the working musicians in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and although some referred to me as a Johnny Cash wanna-be or even as a hack, I was working and making money and not regretting leaving my job in education. The problem for me is I very much liked to stay up all night drinking and philosophizing about the universe or chasing women instead of rehearsing a band, writing songs, going to the studio or doing any of the things a successful person does. I spent most of my new found wealth on longer nights on the town with bigger bottles and fatter baggies with faster friends and looser women. Instead of investing in a good PA, a new vehicle or a nicer apartment or place to live or even a better guitar, I ended up renting an apartment for $300 off Magnolia Ave that wasn’t fit for a beggar’s servant. It was commonly referred to as the trash pile among those who had lived there or knew of it’s filth. The neighbor literally lived in piles of trash and every time we’d go into buy cocaine, I’d almost throw up. I genuinely worried about him but what could I do, I lived with standing water in my closet leaking from my shower and spent my evenings at the bar across the street returning each night to knock his door to inquire for his goods.

What a mess. I can only imagine what would have happened to me if I had $600,000 in my bank from a record deal. I couldn’t handle a couple hundred bucks cash on a nightly basis. I did manage to squeeze out another album with Eagle Audio and Jeff Ward, but with the most minimal production I could afford. I did all the tracks live with guitar and vocals and we overdubbed a piano part on each of the tracks before mastering it and released it with TuneCore in late 2018. This album went virtually unnoticed as well and is my least favorite of my projects. We are all blessed to be where we are. If anything had materialized from my first recording in 2016, I’d of blown it all probably ruined my career with cocaine and alcohol fueled outburst just as funny and off putting as Dewey Cox in his punk phase. I pissed off my band members and even no-showed gigs due substance abuse. After getting into a bar fight in August 2018, I finally came to my senses and left the DFW area and cancelled the rest of my gigs for the year.

I got my head together and survived on hotel sound gigs around Houston for the next year. I wrote a few songs and played even fewer gigs. I decided I’d take a pilgrimage to discover is music and singing were really my purpose. I asked my cousin for another stand-by ticket to Madrid and scheduled my trip to trek the Camino de Santiago in April 2019. I’d bring a guitar with me and write the songs that would go on my next, and really my 2nd, true attempt at an album. When I’d got done walking those 500 miles and returned to Fort Worth, I was lucky enough to have my friend Sal to lend me her spare bedroom for a month or two, but I quickly went about making money and playing gigs with a renewed sense of purpose and success. I started monthly recording session with a new producer who was making some great stuff I respected. His rates are reasonable and with Taylor at AudioStyles, I’ve now recorded over 30 songs since our first session in August 2019, and most of those 30 happening in just the last 18months.

I released El Camino in July 2021 this year and although it has gone unnoticed, I have been able to up my social media and Spotify numbers in an exponential way. In total I probably spent a few thousand on that album. It was my most expensive project, but my best quality to this point. That gets back to building my own audience and what to do with the album. For me El Camino stands out so far, quality wise, from my other albums that it made the most sense to put it out immediately. This would give me new content that could compete in the national and global industry as well as demonstrate great leaps in growth on my part as an artist, singer, and songwriter. With all my work up to July 2021, now a total of 7 years as a working musician, I still may only draw, at max, those 75 people who came to my first release show, and in total I have a footprint of about 5000-10000 person reach with about a 1 percent engagement and an even lower sharing rate. My grass roots following is taking forever to make.

The bright side is I can see it working. And with investing more money back into the project, and overall treating the business side of things as a sales job, I’m thriving and making even more money from live shows. My recordings are used in electronic press kits, to hire musicians, to garner interest from producers, labels and investors. These recordings make corporate gigs and private parties accessible and help to create and distribute the identity of my brand. With more money to invest, I have more spins on the radio and Spotify. They are small numbers, but have paid for their investment while providing a bridge to make new and much needed relationships with station managers, playlist curators, and promoters.

Now that I have an album of substance out, I’m going to sit on the other 20 songs I have ready and continue to work and create songs and keep up with my monthly studio sessions and the development of a creative and trusting working relationship with the studio, producers and band members and other musicians. My plan is to go forward in an attempt to create one radio-ready single each month, and then focus on releasing one single every quarter. With a catalogue of ready to go singles, I will be able to focus all of my resources on one single at a time, paying for the promotion and playlist placement needed to get some attention. Most publicity campaigns entail paying for press as well. If you pay for ten articles and get one real one to come through, it is worth it. If you want to land your song on the radio charts, it cost money.

The amount of money to really make a difference is astronomical, and unfortunately for me and most people I know, it is impossible to devote that level of their funds to such an expense. It is a death sentence to sign with a label who charges you monthly retainer for their services. It is also a leech to suck you dry if you get involved with promoters that require another $10K hit each time you want to release a single. If you’re making a million a year off the release of a couple singles, then the high price tag makes sense, but if you’re starting out, that 10k could be the only shot you have, and lets face it, no one ever makes it on their first try. It’s part of the game. That initial ten thousand dollars is to show everyone you can afford to play. If you can, the players have no problem taking that first money and then kicking you on the ass as you leave the industry with your tail between your legs. Don’t get me wrong, there is always an exception to any rule.

So what I’m going to try to do is spend a couple thousand dollars on promo and publicity per single. This is going to cause me to have to save up and take breaks in the frequency I pay for studio time, but to release one single per quarter and use 2K to fund it is 8 thousand/year, or less than $200/mo.

I’m thinking that’s the only way to think about this stuff, and truly you’d benefit much more and in relation to the amount of money you can spend on your publicity and marketing. The main thing making this possible for me are my live shows, and any thing I might do that would destabilize any part of that finely tuned machine would be out of the question. Some artists aren’t happy doing what I do, but anybody with a boss envies my station in life, and I ain’t going back to having a boss.