“Get More Fans” Is a Dumb Idea

I get about a dozen emails every week from the capitalist machine that makes money off of artists. Playlist “curators,” Facebook ad specialists, and so on, all pushing the idea that I could get more fans!!!! if only I wasn’t such a schmuck.

And I’ve seen countless posts talking about refining your brand to get more fans, and so on. I’ve tried a bunch of that stuff, too — I don’t want to pretend that I’m above it or immune to the marketing.

It’s true: By spending a few hundreds bucks and carefully controlling your image, you can get more listens on Spotify and make $3 extra per year (assuming Spotify doesn’t decide to just deny you payment for no reason).

That can be fun and gratifying, and it’s not a totally pointless exercise. I’ve got friends who’ve built online followings really successfully and intentionally, including a few who make decent money from streams. I know folks who have turned the whole “create a brand” thing into awesome, funny extensions of what they’re doing artistically. They’ve made the system work in their favor.

But I think that a lot of the marketing towards musicians obfuscates the reality of who goes to see local music shows. Because at the end of the day, if you play live shows, you probably want more people to come see them — and you’d rather have bigger in-person audiences than just about anything else.

And if that’s your goal, “getting more fans” is a bad approach.

Young musicians, know this: You will not have fans for a long time, if you ever have them.

I’m defining “fans” as people that show up just to hear your music. They don’t know you, and you don’t know them.

There’s an inherent superficiality to this type of relationship. I think that the superficiality is a draw for a lot of performers, particularly younger folks.

But if you are able to build an audience at all, your audience will be made up of friends. And this is not intended as a heartwarming post about how important friends are; I’m saying that you will probably know the names of all of the people at your shows.

Most of them will be fellow songwriters and instrumentalists, bar regulars, and so on. People who might have gone out anyway, but the fact that you were playing pushed them over the edge.

“But my music is really good,” you say. “I deserve fans!”

(I know you didn’t actually say that, but pretend for a second for the sake of narrative continuity.)

The thing is, you don’t really want fans. You just want people to listen to your music, show up to your shows, and occasionally buy your stuff to support your work. Your friends and fellow musicians will do all of that, and you get to reciprocate.

I played at the Stagger Inn on Saturday, a fantastic pub in Edwardsville, Illinois.

It was a dinner gig, which generally means that people are loud and you play a lot of cover songs.

There was a fantastic, gracious couple at one table who’d heard me play somewhere, and made the drive to Edwardsville because they loved the music. In my strict definition, they were “fans,” since we hadn’t connected before they heard me playing.

So, miraculously, I’d drawn a couple of people to a show who only wanted to hear my music (I tried to convert them to friends right away, though).

But every other table was stacked with musicians and regulars.

These are people I see almost every week, who know the kind of jokes I make and make them back at me. And they’re artistic heavyweights: People who’ve written incredible songs that I wish I’d written. People who play guitar and sing more proficiently than me, who have unique styles that I admire.

They were everywhere, and it was a full crowd.

They were dead silent for the first set; we turned a dinner hour at a pub into a listening room. They laughed at jokes, requested songs, and did all the other stuff that you want a crowd to do.

As the night went on, I forced a bunch of them to come up and play at least one song.

In doing so, we took a good night and made it great. Everyone locked into the atmosphere and performed wonderfully.

My great friend and frequent collaborator Troy Brenningmeyer played the show with me, and he stayed on stage to play with all of them (dead sober, by the way), which elevated everyone even further.

We turned what was supposed to be a 3-hour show into 4+ hours. There had been some confusion as to whether we were playing from 5-8 or 6-9; we ended up playing from 5 to about 10.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went to Samm’s down the street, where Matt Meyer was playing. Matt has a wonderful soul, great, life-affirming songs, and a brilliant voice that seems to get better every time I hear it.

We listened to a fantastic set. Then, he did the same thing I’d done earlier — he handed his guitar around to a few of us, and sat back and listened while we played.

I will remember that night for as long as I live. That is not hyperbole, it was fantastic. I will always prefer to play these types of shows where I can pass my guitar around and become part of the audience for a while.

If you’re struggling to get people to go to your shows, make yourself more open to people.

Hit open mics. Take gigs that you think will be weird, then talk to people when you get there. Be grateful that you get to play music. Be on the lookout for cynicism and stomp it out when you find it (or just go home if you’re having a really bad night).

You don’t have to share stage time, but you do need to practice that gratefulness. Gratefulness is a skill that can be developed. Believe me, I’m a cynical son of a bitch by nature. If I can do it, you can, too.

The best way to attract an audience is to be present, and to be a booster for other musicians. Go to their shows, listen to what they’re saying with their music and how they’re saying it. Marvel at how they’ve found avenues and alleys that you’d never think to go down. Be earnest about it.

Appreciate what’s different about them and never, ever, ever see think of them as competition. Competition doesn’t exist in music. We’re artists, not racehorses.