Stratovarius Community

This really should be moved to the Musicians Forum.

Get a demo recorded, and play many, many, many, many live gigs in as wide a variety of locations as is possible. Promote the demo on their own, send it to magazines, raise interest in the band BEFORE you contact any record labels. Paradoxically, the way to get labels interested is by proving to them, in a sense, that you don't really need them. They want to sign someone who will make them money.

It is a long, difficult, discouraging road. The music buisiness is a living nightmare. My own band is small but we're doing reasonably well, many people on the forum here know of them and (hopefully) are spreading the knowledge onto other people and have some gigs scheduled here and there.

Above all, tell your cousin to be as realistic as possible, and above all, make sure he knows WHY he wants to record a demo.

Hope some of this helps.

NeonVomit has offered your cousin some very good and accurate advice. I couldn't tell you how many friends that I have that are positively monsterous players that you will simply never hear of. That's pretty sad. Nashville itself is the land of 10,000 scary guitar players, but most, if not all, are also unknowns. Ritchie Blackmore once remarked, "Thank goodness all of those guys stay in Nashville!"

Luck and timing (being in the right place at the right time) has a lot to do with success, and it always will. The general public can be very finicky when it comes to what they like to listen to. Warner Brothers even dropped Van Halen not too long ago!

While NV has offered advice on playing live (for which there is no substitute), I would also like to suggest that your cousin and his group focus with laser like intensity on songwriting as well. You can get inexpensive home recording gear that sounds reasonably well, and it's always amazing to see how a song can actually "evolve" and grow a life of its own during the writing and recording process.

The more pre-production that you do at home, the better off you'll be when you finally go to a real studio. There are plenty of "indie" type labels, such as Shrapnel, as well as Kotipelto's new label that you can send your kit to.

However, the music industry itself is full of pitfalls and disappointments. Jens Johansson outlined it all very well on his own website. It should be required reading for all up and coming musicians!

miditek wrote:
However, the music industry itself is full of pitfalls and disappointments. Jens Johansson outlined it all very well on his own website. It should be required reading for all up and coming musicians!

I made everyone in my band read that section, and I re-read it every so often to bring myself down to earth.

It's a difficult road we've chosen, make no mistake.