Tommy Boy Founder Tom Silverman – HuffPost 5.9.12
Mike Ragogna: Tom, what advice might you have for new artists?
Tom Silverman: My advice to new artists is that you have to make yourself happy. We do a thing at the New Music Seminar called the Reflection Award that we give to the top artist on the verge of breaking. Thousands of artists get nominated by different music industry experts, and we get them down to the top 100 artists most ready to break, and then the top three come and perform at the seminar, and the number one artist is picked and wins about $250,000 with promotional benefits and prizes and things like that. What they’ve all learned is that they have to do it themselves. They win the Reflection Award, and it’s like a gold record, except it’s a mirror. It’s a mirror in the shape of a record, and when you look at it, you see yourself. The purpose of that is that we tell artists that you are the ones you’ve been waiting for. Don’t wait for a record company to break (you) because it’s not going to work that way.
In the old days, the music business had scouts everywhere, and they were signing a lot of artists. Now, the only artists that are getting signed are ones that have a head of steam that are going 30 or 40 miles an hour, maybe even faster, and creating their own buzz, selling out bigger venues, selling music on their own, and have a huge number of YouTube views or have something going on that shows that they have an audience that they’re starting from and they’re not starting from scratch. Very few artists get signed and then are successful unless they build a big audience, so the whole game is to build your audience. The artists that are successful at building their audience are the ones that are going to be successful. The artists that are sitting around and waiting and they make a record and want to send demos around to people are going to be very unlikely to have a possibility. I always say a lottery ticket is a much lower risk investment than making a record and thinking you’re going to get signed by sending it to a record company. You have to have a plan to build yourself as an artist and build your fan base. If you’re not planning to build your fan base, then you’re not really going to be taken seriously.
MR: So Tom, how does the future look as far as the music business?
TS: The future is bright for the music business! It’s seen the darkest days and it’s coming to a point now where it’s starting to kick in. We’re getting closer to the one click, where when you hear music, you’re only one click away from owning it or accessing it, and the systems flow of revenue from the people who are utilizing music to the people who are creating the music are finally becoming fully formed. So there’s a great opportunity for the music business to start growing with the expansion of cell phones and smart phones and the advent of connected automobiles is going to even further drive that and accelerate the movement. I believe that we are going to see a new way of looking at the music business and the expansion of that. Last year, the music industry saw the most music transactions in history. That’s a big sign. A lot of those transactions were single transactions as opposed to album transactions. So the numbers weren’t as great as they have been historically, but it just shows the number of people that are engaged with music is continuing to grow. More people are going to shows and festivals; more people are listening to music in more ways than ever before. Music is more accessible and more engaged, and you hear people talking about music everywhere, so I think there’s a much greater awareness and involvement and engagement in music than ever before. Now all that remains is that we find a way to monetize that so the right amount of money can flow back to artists, and that’s what’s getting ready to happen. So the next ten years will be the beginning of skyrocketing growth in revenue for music.