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Refine Your Image

The main advantage of being an indie musician is that you have a lot of freedom as an artist. You are unlikely to have a manager telling you what to do or how to create your music. It’s this feeling of liberty that allows many up-and-coming indie musicians to develop a brand for themselves.

As difficult as this may sound to hear, you are more than the lyrics you write and the instruments that you play. To really become an established artist, you need to create a unique brand or polarizing image for yourself. You must develop a sort of charming — charismatic authority.

First Impressions Matter 

If you are just getting started as an indie artist, it’s unlikely that people will first hear your music on the radio or Pandora. Rather, you will probably be seen playing at a live gig or sharing your talents via a YouTube video or Instagram post. Now, these are very visual platforms. People are going to start judging you before you can even open your mouth.

So, what do you want people to know about you?

It is through your ‘brand’ that people will see what kind of artist you are. This will be apparent in the way you dress and through the profiles you create online and build out over time. So, by constructing a cohesive image, you’ll be able to win people over from the very beginning.

Relate to Your Audience

Interest in a specific kind of music is more than just a hobby; it is an identity that people cling dearly to. This is something that’s prevalent, regardless of the genre of music you’re into. Of course, it isn’t just the lyrics that people identify with, they tend to connect to the artist’s persona as well. For instance, Bob Dylan fans tend to be more politically inclined, while AC/DC enthusiasts are more on the wild side.

Thus, by portraying some type of persona, your fans will have something they can hold onto and perhaps emulate. Now, this might sound a bit like posturing, but it isn’t. Trust me. There is nothing preventing you from portraying your own version of yourself. You simply need to do it in such a way that your current or future fans can relate to. Reveal a facet of yourself that feels authentic and genuine.

Attract Sponsors 

Let’s be honest, even as an indie musician, one of your top objectives is to make money — and at the very least, support yourself with your music. Well, guess what, sponsors are actually interested in indie musicians with a certain type of branding — and an engaged following.

This is true even for some really big corporations.

Why? Well, as mentioned before, fans tie themselves rather closely to their preferred artists. So, if they can get behind your brand and what you stand for, then you will appear more favorable to sponsors. As you can imagine, this will result in greater opportunities for you, and bring in more money as well.

Conclusion

Finally, branding is important — even if you pride yourself on being an unattached indie musician…this is in fact, a brand in and of itself. So, when promoting yourself, put forth some effort to project an image that you are comfortable with, and feel will win over your audience.

About the Author:

Natalie Landecker grew up around music and guitars her whole life, so that’s what she naturally gravitated towards as an adult. She now runs a website for likeminded people, hoping to research and discuss all aspects of music together with her following.

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” — Sagan

I want to speak to the master conspirator who forced me to choose between The National and Bon Iver. How close are the stages I wondered? I knew the sets were usually 15 minutes apart, and maybe I’d be able to catch the finale if I made a run for it, but then I wouldn’t be close to the stage. The best sonic experience is a few feet in front of the sound engineers, right? There were so many strategic decisions to make and so many people. Artists flew in just hours before for a quick sound check, waited around, performed, and then took the first plane out to their next show.

Two years ago, I stopped my thumb on my phone screen, dragged down a few centimeters and took a second look at the National’s Instagram post about a weekend of music at Funkhaus in Berlin. A university friend had recently moved there, so I instinctively messaged her asking for a place to crash. She complied. We arrived at Funkhaus thirty minutes before the doors even opened, not really knowing what to expect.

Excited and a bit unsettled, we took our wristbands and received the schedule on a sheet of paper. It was incredibly ambiguous, nothing more than times and hall numbers.

I didn’t know it yet, but this weekend would forever change the way I perceived music.

Erlend Øye‎ played his ukulele outside in between shows to a crowd of twenty people or so. He then passed his ukulele around and asked if anyone else had a song they wanted to share. We didn’t know if an event like this would ever happen again.

Luckily it did, twenty-three months later. This time around Vincent Moon captivated our minds throughout the week, sharing with us the moment songs were conceived, and how harmonies unfolded in emails to ticket holders. Audio clips of rehearsals were also sent with raw insights into pitch changes, chord additions, wrong vocal entrances — the audience was experiencing the music right alongside the artists. It was an incredible peak behind the curtain.

Throughout the weekend, groups of a few hundred people would rush into small recording studios and pile around heaps of guitars, trumpets, saxophones, violins, amps, microphones, and a grand piano. Even when artists would wade through the crowd, it was difficult to know who you were watching unless you were a dedicated fan. Kyle Resnick may be on the trumpet, Ben Lanz on the trombone, and Zach Condon holding down the vocals — you never really knew — but then there would be a departure from Beirut with a vocal accompaniment from Laura Jansen, percussion by Tatu Rönkkö, David Chalmin chiming in on his guitar, and the orchestral collective — stargaze — adding undertones of classical music that would morph the sonic vibrations into a celestial body of harmonic bliss.

We made friends with a neurosurgeon while sunbathing in between sets. “Who did you see?” we kept asking other people we met, until we eventually realized we didn’t even know the answer ourselves.

Walking out of those studios trying to conceptualize what we had just experienced, made us realize just how lucky we were to be in a room with such special artists who typically tour solo. It heightened the experience, especially having no prior expectations.

I started to wonder if the security and barriers between fans and artists at typical festivals was what actually caused irrational hyper-fandom. Everyone here seemed to respect the artists who were unimaginably accessible and vulnerable.

“I’m going to perform a song for the first time that I wrote this week. That’s really scary if you don’t know.” Feist said to the attentive audience who didn’t dare to take out their phones and interrupt such an intimate moment. Except me, for I had to steal just a few seconds to remind myself that I was in music heaven.

The last set we saw was an artist who told a story about Feist who hosted a workshop on songwriting. “You’ve already written this song five years ago; you just have to remember it” she said. Before he began playing this song, another artist said he would join him on piano. They shook hands, meeting for the first time and composed something brand new right before our eyes.

PEOPLE was born out of Michelberger’s Funkhaus event in Berlin back in 2016 and has evolved from there. It was co-founded by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and the National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner. Keep up with the festival on Instagram.