Investment Rock

By Tripp Underwood

In the old days of the music business, there were essentially three ways for unsigned bands to make an album with an experienced producer in a top-grade studio:

1) Your dad is a renowned songwriter or music producer

(The Strokes)

2) You’re the offspring of an already famous musician

(Jakob Dylan or the lovely gals of Wilson Phillips)

3) Years of hard work and starvation (Against Me!)

But as the digital revolution introduces more changes in the music industry, these may no longer be the only options for aspiring rock stars. SellaBand and Slice the Pie are two websites looking to expand how music is produced, promoted and sold

by offering the music-listening public a financial stake in the success of the bands on them.

SellaBand is a music/networking site that allows music fans to hear new artists, and, if impressed enough, buy stock in performers to help fund the making of their album. “Shares” are sold for $10 a pop, and a group must sell 5,000 in order to receive SellaBand’s ultimate honor of a $50,000 recording budget and the guidance of a professional A&R person. Slice the Pie works on a similar notion, where fans hear music and decide who to invest in. But just like at SellaBand, there are several hoops to jump through and a group only becomes eligible to receive funding if they collect enough fans willing to invest in their music.

The concept behind these sites essentially allows anyone with a computer and a set of ears the chance to play record executive. The public can browse through bands’ profiles, listen to samples of their music and if they wish, fork over $10 and wait for 4,999 other fans to recognize their potential as well (although you are welcome to buy as many shares as you wish). The audience gives their support (and their cash) to the group in hopes of helping that performer take off. And just like real music producers, supporting a band via these websites isn’t a charity move — it’s an investment. Profits from both SellaBand and Slice the Pie albums are split between the artist, the website and everyone who has stake in the group.

This profit sharing aspect is a bit of marketing genius that is an inherent aspect of the SellaBand/Slice the Pie business model. Each group that sells enough shares to get their record made now has a fan base with a financial incentive to help them get

more popular. In some cases, that means a young band would have thousands of fans who could potentially get paid just by promoting a group they (in theory) already love. A rabid fan base that has the potential to turn a profit by expanding a band’s

audience could be a better marketing strategy than anything assembled by a traditional record company.

In the brief time since its launch, there have yet to be any SellaBand artists that have broken into mass commercial success, but there have been a handful of groups who have been awarded the $50K and have gone on to work with some amazing production talent like Tony Platt (Bob Marley, Iron Maiden and AC/DC). But as digital recording becomes better sounding and more cost effective, is spending $50,000 on a producer and fancy studio a wise investment? In this day and age, you could easily make a great sounding album for just a fraction of that cost, leaving more money for important development costs like advertising, marketing and tour support.

Also, despite its potential, relying on fans to promote a band instead of trained marketing and advertising professionals is a risky endeavor. While the support of a web-savvy fan base is crucial for success, it isn’t always enough to make it to the big

time. If so, every teenage garage band with the right amount of MySpace friends would be playing Madison Square Garden. This new model for promoting and selling unsigned bands is still in its infancy and its legitimacy cannot be fully assessed yet. But if this model is to succeed, companies like SellaBand or Slice

the Pie will have to develop an audience of music fans/investors who come to their sites willing to invest. Without people buying the band’s stock, SellaBand or Slice the Pie are little more than a glorified online battle of the bands.