Getting Into The Music Industry- 'The Indie Way'

We have previously blogged about the BBC TV show 'Later Live With Jools Holland' as a popular way for bands in the Indie genre (and Indie based sub genres) to gain more recognition and increase their fan base. Jools Holland personally seeks new and up-and-coming bands to promote on his show.

However, not all bands trying to get into the music industry have this opportunity. The Indie genre is often related to bands travelling around their area, performing local gigs in pubs, clubs and at open mic nights, which spread the word about what they are doing to form an initial fan base.

The artists can also go down the classic route of trying to gain a record deal, by sending their CD's or EP's to record labels to be listened to, in hope that they will arrange meetings or recording with them.

These days, television is one of the best ways for a little known artist to become a household name virtually overnight. Talent shows in the UK such as ITV's 'The X Factor' and 'Britain's Got Talent' are some of the highest rated TV shows in the country. Typically, Indie artists steer clear of shows like this, as they focus often on Pop and R&B genre artists, as opposed to skilled musicians and songwriters. However, in recent years, this gap in the TV market has been filled with Channel 4's 'Orange Act Unsigned' which scours the country for singer/songwriters and musicians trying to 'make it big' in the music industry, but have had little success previously. Another TV show is Sky1's 'Must Be The Music' fronted by classical pianist turned signer Jamie Cullum, alongside Sharleen Spiteri and Dizzee Rascal, which allows musicians, singers, songwriters and bands of any genre to audition.

The biggest success story of this type of show is Tommy Reilly, who won 'Orange Act Unsigned'. After beating two Indie genre bands, 'Hip Parade' and 'Scarlet Harlots' he automatically received a record deal with 'Universal Music' which resulted in his release of 2 albums since then, and gained a number 14 chart hit in the UK with 'Gimme a Call'.

Through promotional work and gigs, artists could also be approached to feature in music magazines, for the Indie genre artists the main magazine in the UK which they would hope to be asked to feature in is NME, this year, The Drums had a full feature and front page in the magazine which gained them huge recognition in the UK and increased their fan base enormously.

A way for artists who have already been signed to an independent record label, who have recordings inplace to gain more recognition, would be to release their music on iTunes, before their great successes 'Mumford & Sons' and 'The Drums' have been featured on iTunes' 'Free Single Of The Week' feature, which allows customers to download the track for free onto their iPod or iPhone. This can do great things for the artists, as often customers will download the 'Free Single Of The Week' even if they have not heard the song, or heard of the artist previously, they could then form an interest in the artist, having listened to the free song, and go on to download or purchase more material, increasing the fan base and popularity of the artist.

Although it is difficult for artists to gain a record deal in that Tommy Reilly did (as only one act is chosen from thousands of auditionees to be signed) it is becoming increasingly more popular for Indie genre artists to do so. However, remaining true to the routes of the Indie genre, the most popular way is by building a local fan base, performing lots of small (often acoustic) gigs, which can result in being signed to an independent record label, which could  be completely independent, or be a subsidiary for a large record label such as Universal Music, which would probably be the route our artist would choose to go down in order to get signed.