From scene kid to ad man: My journey into the business of brands. (Part 1/3)
So you love music.
And, you have been messing around with a handful of songs in your room.
You’ve finally found the guts to show your friends, and they want to start a band with you.
You start practicing, making your parents crazy. Music is life.
Then you get serious. You want to bring this art to the world, and you know you have to record your sessions.
So you find a studio. You cut a demo. You cut two. Next thing you know you’re building your own studio in your room at home. (Your parents now nearly hate you.)
You have a band with your best friends, and you’re ready to bring your music to the masses… in your home town.
“We need a name,” you and your mates say collectively.
*Here’s where the record scratch sound effect goes off in your head.*
This is the moment.
The moment where a simple passion becomes something else. Something more. Little did I know that I was building the blocks of my future. Little did I know that I was about to enter a world full of jargon, assumptions, assholes, geniuses, experts and a few more assholes.
Welcome to advertising.
It all started with a name. “What do we call ourselves?”
I honestly wasn’t ready for what was to come. Days, weeks, thinking, ideating, arguing and … Googling?
See back then we (my mates and I) understood we had to be original. We knew no one else could have this name. After all, originality was the name of the game. Fresh music, fresh ideas. If you sounded nearly like anyone else — it just wasn’t good enough.
So, we searched. We had this tool that could tell us everything about everything. And, we also understood that if you weren’t online, “you weren’t real.”
This experience happened at least six more times. Because after you develop “a brand” before you develop a business, something happens to the psyche where you want to continue building things. (Advertisers Anonymous?)
So we did.
We built a studio. Then, a second studio. Then a label. Then a booking agency. Then a representation company. On and on, we built. We “failed” in the process. But we built.
What I didn’t know then was how foundational this practice was for a 16- to 19-year-old kid. But, what I did know then, is that to talk to millions, you first have to connect with one.
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Please follow this new three-part, personal journey on how music and my local music scene shaped my now.
Part 2. Brand Man: Branding before I knew the meaning of the word.
Part 3. Connections: Street Team Leaders, the OG web influencers.
