One of the most important things that you can have as a band is a good set of assets. This doesn’t necessarily need to be a fancy EPK, nor does it need to be especially well put together. You just need to have them nicely organized, in one place and easy for people to work with. An EPK is frequently meant to combine all of these things but it’s not the be all end all. What I wanted to break down though was simply what assets you need to have in order to impress someone. I sometimes get a little bit unorthodox with what I think is essential, but that’s because I’m coming from a label guys’ headspace. I’m going to outline this stuff in a way that I want to see it if you were trying to sign to one of the labels that I work with (Ripple Music and Prophecy Productions if you were curious) and how you can go about creating it.
First and foremost, and this should be obvious, your band needs to have a bio. Actually, scratch that, your band needs to have three bios. You want one bio that is a traditional three paragraph bio. This can go on your website and EPK. Then you need a one paragraph version. This fits better for your Facebook about and other such pages. Finally, you want to wrap it up with a one or two sentence slug. Having three separate bios for a variety of situations is like having a Swiss Army Knife. They don’t all need to be perfect, nor do they need to go over every minor achievement. What they need to be is to communicate what your band is all about and what your goals are as artists. Once you have that you will be positioning yourself for long term success. It’s as simple as that.
To go with that bio though you need some photos, both live photos and promo photos. I recommend that you get at least four vertical and four horizontal photos of each. Make sure that they are all in at least 300 DPI so that you can ensure they are able to be used for print etc. If you set up with that in mind you are going to have your ass covered for all scenarios. You want to have the mix between horizontal and vertical so that different publications can easily integrate them and also feel like they have some sort of special content. If you have a decent variety of content on your page then more people are going to be able to tap into what you are offering up. You want to have a ton of live photos too so that people can mentally position you as a live band. If you don’t post live photos people just assume you are faking it. Your goal needs to be to make it as easy as possible for press to cover you.
Then you get to the video – this is probably the single most expensive part of this and it’s also the one that is definitely not obligatory. That being said, I feel like if you have a good looking live video that shows you have good stage presence and shows a show where there’s a ton of your fans out front then you are going to always get more traction. It is one hundred percent a tool that agents look at. When pitching don’t you want people to have the best foot forward video you present to them rather than the crappy cell phone video they might find on YouTube? Yeah, I thought so. It’s not hard to get a good live video, it shouldn’t cost you more than a few hundred bucks, but it can open up opportunities that you might have never expected. A music video is obviously also good, but in some ways, because it’s less organic it might be viewed as less valuable – crazy but true. That’s how I and other guys like me think.
Finally, and this is kind of the weird one you don’t normally read about, is unique selling points. Whenever I pitch a band to labels, and the pitches I like to get, include a set of unique selling points about the band. I even do this when I know the A&R guy. Why? Because even if they are championing the band you want them to have a clear list of points they can show their boss in order to say, ‘Here’s 5 things that makes this band different, interesting and inherently signable.’ Not only that but having bullet points is TREMENDOUSLY useful for figuring out what you want to emphasize about your own band. I see a lot of people with a sort of vague idea of what makes their band special. You want to be able to map it out clearly and easily so that people can have it and run it up the ladder. Again, you are trying to get the attention of very busy people, your job is thus to make it as easy as possible for them to want to help you out. Simple as that.
In brief – while this might not be a complete list of assets that you need to have to impress someone important in the industry this is a good starting point. If someone sent me all four of these things nicely formatted and clearly put together I would definitely dig through. Obviously, the music has to be good and there has to be some momentum, but so often bands have that but don’t know how to present it. This is just meant to be a way to help you figure out how you want to present yourself to those in power who need something easy to sort through so they can immediately know what’s up. I know it sounds fairly simple, but this is really all there is to it. So figure it out and go from there. The rest is up to you.
MATT BACON
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Matt Bacon is a consultant, A&R man, and journalist specializing in the world of heavy metal. Having worked with everyone from Glam Rock icon Phil Collen of Def Leppard, to post Black Metal titans Alcest, by way of legendary thrashers Exhorder as well as labels including Prophecy Productions and Ripple Music, he has dedicated his life to helping young bands develop. Having started his own blog at the age of 14 he views his career in artist development as ‘a hobby that got out of hand’. In 2015 he formed Dropout Media in order to better support the artists he loves. We sit here now, years later with countless tours booked, records released and deals signed, and loving every minute of it.
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