Hi, I’m Casey Dayan, the singer and guitarist of Under The Rug, an indie rock band that sold 10,000 CDs— $100,000 revenue—in a month from a campaign built on the idea that people are missing human connection in their lives. Ask me anything.

How many people do you think you'll fool with this insultingly transparent marketing ploy?

All my favourite bands do brand overhauls based on market feedback from test campaigns.

He's just mad he has sausages for dinner all the time. I would be too.

I actually lol'd when I scrolled up and read his username

I actually lol'd when I heard your music.

JK there's no way I'd ever listen to your pretentious twattle.

oh, you haven't even given it a chance? maybe give it a shot first. Try "Thanks for Asking." I'll legitimately uber eats you a pizza I can't afford if you don't like it.

I really don't need to market ourselves this way. We have ads for that. I figured I'd share what we learned; that's all.

Thank goodness, we would not have been able to make the subtle changes we needed in our life without your advertising

Oh, no, I'm not suggesting life changes. I'm suggesting changes in your music-based marketing campaigns.

Even if it is, there’s a ton of great information provided in this AMA. That’s not always the case and it’s helpful to other aspiring musicians.

How much of this is truly viable for “aspiring musicians?”

As someone who works in marketing and also has a band, the things these people are doing require a fucking lot of money. Their ad spend alone, according to OP, was up to $2,400 a day, which doesn’t even factor in any of the physical elements they needed to produce, the email marketing software/service, some kind of CRM, and so on and so forth.

These people are either marketers in their day jobs and are taking advantage of the tools and expertise from that to (very expensively) promote their band, or they’re being bankrolled by some company/label/marketing agency that is using them as a test case for organic growth in the music industry.

None of which is feasible or helpful to “aspiring musicians,” unless they’ve got insane connections, lots of money, no fear of debt, and the knowledge of how to even plan and execute such an absolutely massive marketing campaign.

Actually, our ad spend started as $30/day with the hopes of selling $30/day. Our ur ROAS was above 1:1 so we increased it over a month long period 20% every 48 hrs until it became unprofitable.

As a musician and marketer, I hope you hear me and ask me more questions so that I can prove that your assumptions are untrue. Want to talk on the phone about it? It would be really cool for me to show you that this CAN help aspiring musicians, and I think it would do even more to help musicians if they saw that, after talking, you came around.

I'm being 100% serious. I really don't mean to offend you or patronize you in any way, but it might even be helpful for you too. I obviously am happy about how this campaign went, and I really do have a lifelong bone to pick with this idea that you have to be rich or lucky or a genius to have an original band.

I want to help. Really.

This post feels so disingenuous. Commodifying vulnerability in such a coldly strategic manner.

We’re not commodifying vulnerability, we’re being vulnerable and giving our time and resources away in order to connect with people and give them a place to be vulnerable back.

Look: I came here with the intention of sharing my knowledge, helping educate other musicians, and steer them towards having some heart in their marketing practices instead of doing it in a cold, transactional way.

What was your contribution?

This is an experience that musicians have ALL the time. It’s tough to understand. But we’re in the business of sharing ourselves, our art, our fears, our music, our vision, our love.

But we also have to eat, too; it’s okay to ask for support! We haven’t hurt anyone. I spend so many hours every day talking with folks, comforting them, writing them letters, sharing my own love and stories.

I feel like I’m making SO much more of a positive effect these days than I ever did when I just wrote songs for myself in the privacy of my house. I have a reason to care about this thing. I have fans I love, whose names I know, who I want to make happy and protect.

Omg yess let's call!!

Maybe we could make it a live stream where people can join and ask questions? Then I can share visual stuff too

Do you ever plan to make good music?

Yes, it’s on my plan google doc right after “win lottery” and “eat less trash food”

One of those is doable though.

but it's so good.

Huh? No, I meant winning the lottery. There's a decent chance to win $10 if you spend $20.

$25* gotta factor in the impulse bag of Doritos and orange hostess cupcake

$35* can't forget the Ben & Jerry's.

We could be real life friends

lol seriously. WTF is that one song “Eating Carrots with my Friends”?! Is this supposed to be from a rabbits POV. Do you and your friends just really like carrots?

Ha!! Sean and I had a tough year. My mom died, I lost a relationship that was important to me, Sean was dealing with his dad's death and a breakup of his own. We were in one of our pratice rooms at night, drunk. He started playing that and I happened to be recording. I sat on brendan's drum kit and played the drums with my hands.

I like putting those little artifacts in an album. They feel really real.

Do you ever plan to grow up?

Sorry that guy was mean to you. On that note…you have some new friends over in UTR town and you don’t have to endure this sort of thing. In fact…if you want I’ll pay for the shipping to send you one of our CDs and a thank you not from the band (:

Why was your campaign which resulted in $100,000 revenue just below profitable?

Ah—I've been waiting for this one.

We have to start here: we're three idiots. We're like the three stooges.

There were so many costs associated with that campaign that we had NO idea we needed to account for. The short of it is that, by the time we were unprofitable, the ad had scaled to $2,400/day ad spend. It ran, maybe, five days too long. Our unprofitability was a combination of increasing ad spend without realizing: envelope costs, employee costs, interest on loans to be able to run at that scale, ink, paper, etc. Just oust our tech stack now—zapier, our ESP, etc—at this scale costs $700 a month.

In the end, after the campaign postmortem, all we had to do was shut it off five days earlier and we would've come out the other side happy as clams.

But we learned a lot along the way and are excited for the future! We have an enormous email list and buyers all over the world.

There is no failed business, just expensive lessons! There's a song somewhere in there...

I love hearing this. I wish we were slightly less in debt, but I like hearing it all the same! (:

Good news is, it'll be a great tax write-off. Doesn't help your debt now, but may may help out next year.

Do you want to be our biz consultant? aha. You've got the sauce.

You're not on Allmusic!

I'd love to read a bio of all of you. Where are you from? Who's on what instrument?

I've never heard of you before seeing this post. I'm sampling some stuff on the tube of u's. Do you have any particular song that's pretty rockin'? What I'm hearing is awesome, but there's a lot of more mellow tracks.

When are you coming to San Antonio?

Ah—so many little places to register for three dudes in a mobile home. BUT, there are tons of interviews and press bios out there in the internet ether. Here is a great writeup from ATWOOD Magazine on our last album, Dear Adeline: https://atwoodmagazine.com/utda-under-the-rug-dear-adeline-album-review-music-feature/

We're all in Austin TX, so we're nearby! You should come to our record release in February.

I sing and play guitar and mandolin. Brendan, with the big moustache, plays keys and drums, and sean plays guitar and sings as well. And then we have a rotating cast of misfits who back us when we play live.

I definitely recommend listening to Dear Adeline in order. "I Was Wrong" is a slower burn but really goes somewhere. If you like heavier stuff, Go To Sleep has an enormous ending! Fans love "Feathers in the Sun," and my favorite song will always be Three-Legged Dog, which we recorded right after my mom passed away in a remote cabin. It's always our encore song (might be repeating myself from another comment)

Anyways, thanks for giving us a listen! The next album has some big names on it and I'm really excited for everyone to hear it. It's absolutely our best record yet.

...Under The Rug, an indie rock band that sold 10,000 CDs— $100,000 revenue—in a month from a campaign built on the idea that people are missing human connection in their lives.

What are your plans to avoid the trappings of “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”?

I wrote about that in our letter. I'm not sure. It actually freaks me out. We have people email us their life stories every single day. Traumas, deaths, fears about this and that, and I want to talk to every single one of them. But there are enough these days where I just can't or I'd be doing it every day, all the time.

I hope I can just do my best. That's my real answer.

I'd be happy with that.

Find a therapist, having that many people pour the weight off their shoulders on to you will fuck you up. Keep doing your best.

This is legitimately something I would love to do. Now...if only musicians got health care...

I’m so confused. So we should make animated gifs? As an indy band I have no idea what the message is here.

The messaging is that these people are either backed by a marketing team or are themselves a group of marketers that also happen to have a band.

No one can do what’s been outlined here without either having insane institutional support, a lot of cash on-hand, or absolutely no fear of crippling debt (along with good enough credit to get a loan to go with that lack of fear).

Not to mention that running a multi-media campaign of this scale for as long as they’ve done it is beyond a full time job if it’s just 1-3 people doing all the work (like OP wants to make it seem). I don’t see how this is really helpful or feasible to anyone that isn’t already in a pretty good place.

I mean, they started the campaign with 3k in their email list. That’s very much not nothing, and it’s only a small piece of weirdness that is this post.

This seems more like a guide for a regionally successful act with a pretty sizeable (if localized) fanbase to try and break through to some sort of national audience/national success. Not a guide for those who are truly just starting out or trying to grow from scratch.

Hi, we're not marketers. We live in a little mobile home in South Austin. I studied literature in college. I'm actually a bit of a dummy, but music is everything to me so I work really hard.

We also don't have much money. Any at all at the moment. But that's been the case for as long as I can remember. Actually, I found a job that made me $50k year and saved almost every penny and put it into our first audio interface, some mics, and a commercial lease on a warehouse in LA where we did audio engineering on the side for about 6 years until we made the plunge doing this full time.

I'm not sure why there's so much venom in your comment. It doesn't seem to be a blatant troll comment, but an actual objection to whether or not this campaign is real. I'm going to go off the assumption that we are actually equally intense about helping musicians, and that's why you're responding this way to me—in which case, I'm happy to try to untangle this with you. In fact, I want to, because in this particular instance, what I'm saying is true, and if anyone here believes you, that it's impossible, they might be that much more likely to pursue other crummy avenues (like a 360 with some crummy giant).

This is really just the three of us managing these campaigns. We really did start with zero email subscribers and learned how to market ourselves through online videos and failed attempts. I don't mind sharing more proof of earlier campaigns. In fact, if you scroll FAR back on our Facebook (2016-17) you'll find some iterations of campaigns like this one that are...abysmally embarrassing.

There's one of me in front of a terrible $20 green sheet we used as a green screen with our album art behind it with harsh lighting in the lobby of the recording studio we were failing at running.

That first album sold around 40 units, and most were family and friends. We had an embarrasingly-small email list. We did a record release and had people sign a piece of paper with their email and tried to hand-input them into mailchimp and couldn't, for the life of us, figure out how.

The next one went a little smoother. We had a video called "If I Were Bigger I'd Kick Your Ass," which was one of our first videos to get some attention. It was probably #1 out of #200 we tried. We're a bit slow on the uptake, but we're stubborn and work a lot.

By album #2 (it was actually an EP), we had maybe 300 people on the email list. By Dear Adeline, we had maybe 1500? I can't remember now, but I can dig it up. That was last year.

We were not already in a good place when we started these campaigns. And, yes, this was an insane amount of work. In fact, it's so much work, that it's actually unhealthy. Really. I'm trying to be actually honest and transparent with you. I wish you could talk to some of the people who we've worked with. I've become somewhat of a difficult person to be around lately, I think. This is all I talk about. It's all I do. It's important to me for reasons that go way beyond work.

But all that said, this is actually a use case of NOT needing to have monetary support. NOT having to be a marketer first. NOT having some undisclosed leg up. I'm being honest. Will you give me a chance to be? I'll answer any follow-up questions (or scoffs) you have.

One more thing...this AMA isn't meant to tell someone how to sell 100k worth of CDs with no following. Of course not. But the tweak that took us from 3000 email subs to 10k in a short amount of time, in my opinion after putting everything into this, is finding and communicating an important (to you) reason for making music. One that you really really believe in.

You ever see that episode of Louie where the young comedian approaches him after a mostly-empty comedy cellar show? The kid bombs. He asks Louie how he can improve and Louie says something to the effect of: Kid, don't do it. It's so much work. You make no money. Everyone will try to tear you down. You'd have to be an insane person. You'd have to dedicate your whole life to it and fail and fail for 20 years, and you STILL might not ever get there.

The kid says, "Well I'm GOING to do it anyway so can you give me some real advice?"

Louie goes: "I don't know. Do a funny voice."

Then, at the end of the episode, Louie is sitting on the couch, watching TV and Conan or something comes on, and BAM. It's that kid. And he's doing a funny voice, but the same material from the episode intro.

That kid still had to write a set and be able to network and be able to think about the world and turn it into comedy. But sometimes a small tweak can reframe what you're doing and completely redefine it, open it up, relax limitations that were holding you back.

I think that by allowing ourselves to care about this particular aspect of our music-making, we got somewhere we never thought we would.

Not the person you're responding to but I was also perplexed by your original post. You talk about human connection as a marketable product that you had a "strategy" and "mission" for. It sounds jarring.

I definitely understand how the language can sound contradicting, but I think most things worth fighting for require a mission, or strategy.

The real truth, in my opinion, is that a lot of large biz today has way more capital and resources than any of us ever will. And the only way to compete with them (and not let everything turn into a dystopian nightmare) is to leverage the tools they use back at them.

It’s not the tools that are causing the problems…it’s the folks in power who are using them, whose mission statements are more like: Make as much money as possible.

Musicians need to market themselves. So many of our peers follow the lead of big labels in this capacity. They try to look cool, or have clout, or, if all else fails, be so technically gifted that they can shred their way to the top.

But music does so much more than shred, or look cool. And I think people will reward the musicians who are willing to do the grueling work of learning to market themselves while keeping up with being a good writer and player if they are also willing to write music/create an environment that makes this world a little better/more forgiving/kinder too.

It sounds to me like it’s really simple. It’s about engagement. It’s the ONLY thing. If you don’t engage people on social, on the email list, and live, it’s going to be wasted labor. You don’t even have to respond to every comment or email response!

Rooting for ya

Thank you for saying this (: I really appreciate hearing it!

[removed]

I actually miss human connection and wrote a lot of those songs as if I was writing to someone who felt like I did. I'm not sure why it was sharkey to give away a bunch of CDs or share my time here, but I'm sorry you don't like the music. I wish I could make music everyone likes. I mean that, but you won't believe me. Ha.

I think the message is if you spend 10x more time on marketing than actually making music you might be able to convince a small number of people to accept a semi-free CD

Money makes money

Just to clarify, we’re a full time indie band that lives in a mobile home. We’re so broke, in fact, Paypal withheld some of the money for a while and we couldn’t afford to print shipping labels. We had to take out a loan for rent.

Exactly, which is what makes y’all that much more impressive. Quite a few more handcuffs and extra steps for people who weren’t born into it. Love the stuff!

Thank you so much for saying so 💛💛💛

The message here is that our entire world changed when we thought about why we were making music, and what we wanted it to do.

We decided we wanted to connect to people and have them connect to each other, and tried to allow that into our songwriting and marketing as themes, motifs, fonts, lyrics, messages, artwork, etc. It allowed our marketing to do much more. People started meeting each other in our fan groups and advocating for what we were doing.

They started sharing their own stories.

The takeaway for me was something along the lines of: wow—it IS true that if you are doing everything else right, from marketing to daily practice, and things still aren't working...you CAN actually do some soul searching and revitalize your reason for making music. It's a wishy-washy-sounding tweak that is actually very actionable. It also doesn't have to be evil or manipulative or vapid, either. You can CHOOSE to be something helpful to the people who listen to you, and they will reward you for it.

In the interest of being as helpful as possible, too, as far as basic marketing goes, in one of my answers, I actually wrote out a step-by-step mock campaign that you could try on your own. I don't mind answering more granular questions if you have them, though, too.

I really did mean to be helpful and you're welcome to use me in that capacity. What the guy who commented below said, that this is only something people with big teams can do, or people with a lot of money, that is an incredibly false and defeatist read of what I am doing here.

Please don't listen to him.

We had to fight tooth and nail. I studied literature in college. I had no marketing training. I bought online courses, tried campaigns on my own, with my own small amounts of money. I failed. One worked a little. I used that money for my next campaign. I roped the bandmates in. They resisted at first. People rolled their eyes at me. People said you have to find a label.

SO many people will tell you that you can't, and I think it is HYPER important for you to see why they are saying that.

Ever thought about creating an OnlyFans account and performing songs to gain fans in a different way?

If they complain, just state that you thought it was a site for fans to reach musicians.

Oh we absolutely have a band OnlyFans. We go by a different name, but I can't talk about that here.

Is it called Carpet Burn?

lol I want to open for ourselves with wigs and call ourselves The Carpet Burns now. Thank you for the bucket list item

A little drop D in the B may you over $100,000. Just saying

I wish I could upvote this twice

Is it more accurate to say you had 10,000 requests for CDs and people donated $100k via "pay what you want?"

What was the breakout of who paid what, really how many of those 10,000 were free CDs...

Errr, it's kind of more like we gave away 10,000 CDs minus shipping and handling, and then sold that total gross number with PWYW plus upsell and order bump.

All of the CDs were free, although we "paid" ourselves $0.80/CD for "handling" to reimburse for the overhead of the CD manufacturing cost (which, with a handwritten note with every one of the 10k orders plus packing, mgmt, etc, etc, we were severely underpaid from an hourly perspective.

In the end, enough people bought and donated that we could have still given away that many CDs and made a profit. If we weren't stupid IDIOTS. Lol.

Next go-round...

Did I answer your question? If not, feel free to ask again in a different way and I'll try again!

is this promo for a band or for a social media marketing co.?

Neither, this is just me trying to help give some information to other musicians and help educate about what we do. I know it's hard to believe from a stranger over the internet, but it's actually a really hard industry to be in, and a lot of people try to tell you not to do it, give their crummy advice and opinions, rip on you, call you shit...all for trying to make music, which is, imo one of the most important and most harmless things in the world.

Part of me likes to be the guy who can help, too. So there might be some ego in it. But I really am just trying to demistify and help a little. Because I can now. And that's cool.

Your email list went from 3k. How did you get to 3k? Mines at just over 100.

Hi Nick! The first hundred is the hardest. When we first started out, we learned that Facebook evaluated an email subscriber as $10/subscriber. This was astronomical to us in the short term, but over 5 years, 1000 subs was only $2000 per year, and that was ONLY if we were using ads. That's $160/month.

Of course, there are other ways to get email subs. Offering a free CD is a great way. You cover your margins with shipping + handling, and then if the campaign is a 1:1 ratio of sales and returns, you can build your email list for free.

I highly recommend checking out Indepreneur's trainings. They have been, more or less, the MOST helpful thing for me in learning how to apply marketing to this wonky world of music making.

Another great thing to do is treat your emails like your art, and make your emails worth reading. If you can make something interesting enough to recommend to others, you can get advocates who are willing to help you get more email subs for free. It feeds back on itself in a way that lowers your cost per sub ENORMOUSLY.

My ultimate rec, though, is: just keep doing it. Keep writing emails. Keep running ads. Keep writing music. Keep learning HOW. Invest in learning. Get crazy about it. Be willing to work harder than everyone else.

And these are all physical CDs that you sold? Any shirts? I didn’t think there was a market for CDs anymore

I have a suspicion this is someone I know, but just in case it isn't: physical CDs are a way for people to support an artist with a low-commitment purchase. They're cheap to manufacture, and they're a physical artifact from the artist (especially if you sign them).

We've sold a few thousand dollars in the last couple weeks, organically, in our store (other items like shirts, hats, vinyl, etc).

CDs may not be the dominant listening medium, but they are still little squares of art, and they absolutely sell.

CDs may not be the dominant listening medium, but they are still little squares of art

As far as I know, most CD players only accept round CD’s.

That round CD goes in a square plastic case with cover art, Its not complicated as far as I know.

Bahaha. Thank you 😊

I’ll buy a CD to have all the things ethereal you describe, but an LP really does it for me. What would it take to press an LP?

Edit: I visited your store and see vinyl available. Excellent.

Wow, thank you for giving us a chance. My intention here wasn't to sell records, but I really really appreciate that and I hope you enjoy it. Reply to one of our welcome emails so I know it's you?

So you used an album as a loss leader?

It wasn't intended to be that, but it ended up being that. in a comment below, I explain that if we cut our ad spend off five days earlier, we would have made a decent amount of money towards the next launch.

Instead we're eating ramen again. Ha! So close...

Not really “sold” at all. And the ethos here is transparency and human connection? I’ll be damned. Got me with marketing bait right in the middle of my Reddit scroll. How’s that for connection!

Rather than music, OP manage to sell ads and free gift marketing. The FB ad giants won. But fake it ‘til you make it, right? Hi, I am posing. I spent 100k to make 100k. Oh yeah, I am a musician, too. I got CDs. Wanna freebie? Email plz.

I tell you: I listened to songs across the albums. The artistry and production quality wasn’t convincing enough for me to “fall into” your musical vision— that other world you attempt to harken. And I’m no stranger to Texas. I bet your bar shows are jamming though. A round of drinks for the boys; so authentic.

Not sure who the joke is on here. We connected, alright. Not unlike passing out flyers on the street and asking for donations. 100,000 promotional brochures sold! Donations had! Profit: zero. Flyers falling to the wind and the trash bin. Congrats on your clipboard email list. That’s something in this day and age.

It’s not your fault. Art is hard. Downloading/streaming/Spotify killed Music, right?

To be sure, may you prosper! Better luck on decade 2. Please put creative energy, effort, and monies into the music of your future art: the craft and the production. Don’t quit your day time marketing job though.

I don't have a daytime marketing job. I do this full time with my two bandmates in a little mobile home in south Austin. We're definitely not Facebook ad giants.

I'm sorry you don't like our vision, though! This AMA isn't really intended as a way to market ourselves. Just on a matter of scale, this isn't really helpful for us in that way.

Again, I started this AMA to help other musicians understand what we did, and to help other listeners demystify the work that goes into being an artist (and I really do think that a lot of people misunderstand how important it is to have a vision that extends beyond just making sounds...you need to care enough about what your music DOES to follow it there).

I understand that you're on the other side of the computer screen, being grumpy. This reply isn't necessarily just for you.

Ha—on that note, I have a friend who told me not to do this—that this world is a little bit like fight club...if you know, you know. But I'm also infuriated by this myth that to be an artist means everything else than trying to learn how to get people to hear it. I was prepared to get some shit.

But here's something: I have put all of my life and money and time and friendships and thought and energy into this band. And I came here to help an imaginary band you might even end up liking. If your salty comment deters another musician from being helped by it, why?

Thanks for your reply and your courage! I wish you the best. Forgive me for any misunderstandings or harsh words. May you prosper!

Hey, thanks for coming around this way. I'm sorry if I said anything that was offensive too, or seemed defensive in any way! May you prosper as well (:

Who’s your musical inspirations? What’s your opinion on the modern day streaming environment?

God—so many! I'll answer my answer, but I'm sure the other guys would add others.

Recently, I've been listening to a lot of Andy Shauf, Punch Brothers, Patrick Watson, The Mountain Goats, and mewithoutYou, but I grew up listening to a lot of 90s grunge music like Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, etc., as well as a ton of 70s singer songwriters...James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Dylan, Cohen.

Of course, we've been doing music for a long time! So I've had punk phases—The Clash, PIL, anything from the Repo Man soundtrack—bluegrass phases, Americana Phases—dang it if Gillian Welch isn't one of the GOATs—metal phases—Meshuggah, Gojira—I could go on a long time.

As far as today's streaming environment...I was just talking about this with my good friend Jesse Gillenwalters (aka Basic Printer). We were kind of tired of hearing complaints from folks about it. To some extent, yes, it sucks...I have tons of cavities in my teeth that need filling and I can't afford them. In a lot of ways musicians are second rate citizens, aha.

BUT, it's also an incredible time where you can access an enormous global audience. All you need is a plan to give them something worth having. And in this fragmented, disjointed, sad world, I think real human connection is powerful (and worth having).

Technology will always drive and redefine art, but it's sort of the artists job to ride those changes in new ways that allow for new art. For example, we have a lot of heady tunes that I think would've been vetoed by cigar-chomping payola industry folk. Now, though, you can really own and run your own business if you can figure out how to market and automate some of the processes.

This was a pretty cool breakdown to read, thank you for your transparency. Congratulations on failing forward! I listened to a few of your songs and will go through more of them in the next few days. What has surprised you the most so far in this journey?

Of course! Thanks for being here and listening to my wordvomit. FWIW if you're an indie, I just spent a good bit typing out a basic roadmap to a first-campaign the way we do it below. I also HIGHLY recommend Indepreneur as a learning platform. One of their core team is a really good friend of mine whose music is...incredible. They're a good group of folks, and we've learned a lot from what they do.

I don't know about what's most surprised me...that's a hard question, but lately I've been surprised by how many people need something to be a part of. It's hard to articulate unless you see the scale of comments and messages and emails and DMs that we all of a sudden have firing at us...but people are really lonely. I think we're missing something on a very human level in our daily lives. It's tragic. I wish more people cared to do something about it. Or were less scared to dare? maybe? to try? I'm not sure, but my gut tells me there's a reason why a lot of musicians end up writing songs about loving everyone.

My dad used to say Taco Bell was all just "shapes." Same stuff, different shape. Taco, burrito, what-have-you. Here, the mush is rolled up in a cylinder, there, it's folded into an octogon.

Maybe all our suffering is the same, just in different shapes.

Hopefully my foot isn't in my mouth. Ha. You asked!

I FUCKING LOVE THAT ANALOGY!

You're absolutely right. I always say my "hard" life stuff and someone else's can look wildly different, but they are both hard.

We all want to feel a sense of belonging, I think. The last two years has been really hard on so many people. Being able to find someone to relate to makes you feel less like you're stranded on an island watching cruise ships full of happy people pass by and not notice you. Humans are funny and beautiful. Different shapes, same insides.

Thank you for your thoughtful answer. I wish you and your mates great success!

Ahh—cruise ships full of happy people passing by. That's most of the time, isn't it...

Of course! Thanks for jumping in here and sharing your time with me. I wish you all the same. And if you ever see us playing nearby, come and tell me you were the Taco Bell Shapes Guy on Reddit, aha! Small world moments are cool...

Hey Casey, I'm one on the (many) people you reached with ads online. I ended up not going for the free CD and preorder Dear Adeline on vinyl instead because I'm a pretentious jerk that loves big ol' ungainly music disks, I guess? Anyway, I've got to ask: was there intent behind advertising the Dear Adeline campaign with songs that aren't on the album? I forget which track I originally saw you guys playing in an Instagram ad, but it was definitely enough for me to hop over to a streaming platform and check out the album. I really liked it, so I still bought it, but it did strike me as a bit strange that the song from the ad want on there, y'know?

Hi! So crazy, a lot of fans have reached out and said they saw this. I love how the vinyl came out, and I really appreciate you taking a chance and getting it. The first four songs are my favorites.

To answer your question, we didn't really know what we were doing. We initially tried to just launch a small-scale campaign as a test, but it scaled so fast we didn't know what to do.

There are some nay-sayers below this comment, but, again, we've been doing this a long time. We've tried a zillion kinds of campaigns, and hardly anything even approached this. And I DO think this is because of the message behind it. I hope that doesn't get lost in the sauce.

Anyway!

We were really trying to test some new songs. I was hoping I could write a new set of songs that were comforting, or addressed being lonely. I thought it would be a neat idea to trust people to tell me which ones were worth recording, and give them one of our last-album's CDs in the process.

I figured, hell, maybe well get rid of all our back stock of a 800 units, or whatever it was. Then, BOOM. We had actually taken the songs we put up on ads, taking the ones that were starting to win out, interest-wise, and were driving from TX to CA to record the best 3-4 on an ep for a week.

While we were there, so many people reached out, bought, donated, supported, etc., that it energized us, and we ended up writing and recording a whole album while we were out there, which starts to come out in november (called Homesick for Another World).

The short of it is: we never really intended for this to be a campaign about Adeline. It was really a campaign about giving folks a really vulnerable letter, a way to support us a little, and a way into our little world. And the videos we had on hand were the songs that were inspiring us most at the time, which ended up getting tracked almost immediately in studio.

For whatever it's worth, the campaign seems to have worked: I'm invested, anyway! Thanks for the insight

I really dig the whole of Adeline, but I think Stuffed Monkey Farewell is my fav. I dunno, it just speaks to me for whatever reason. I'm definitely looking forward to Homesick for Another World. Do you think you'll do another vinyl release?

Thank you (: sorry if that part of our campaign was misleading, too. I'm kind of making all this up as I go! I'm glad you're here though.

Stuffed monkey is one of my favorites on the album, too. Some songs, I remember, like, goofily MEANING while singing them. I got really into tracking that song and was dancing around our little office-turned-control-room like a crazy person and grimacing, aha.

We're definitely doing vinyl for homesick, and we're trying to do it ASAP. It took more than a year from date of order to get vinyl for Adeline. The manufacturing world is SCREWED right now.

To be totally honest, I think Homesick is empirically the best thing we've ever done. Every album we release, I get embarrassed of the older ones. I'm getting a little less like that these days, and when I relisten to adeline, and even pale king, I find myself seeing things I like in them.

But I think homesick has a message that is really...complete. And I believe in it in a much more adult way than the previous records, whatever that means. I think it has some magic. Or I hope so at least! People might hate it!

Have you seen this TED talk? here it reminds me a lot of your mission, especially with wanting to make those connections with your fans.

here

This was actually one of the things that started to shift my thinking. This video was big for me. I went home for the holidays and tried to show it to my dad. He kinda rolled his eyes aha.

I bought one of the albums and have your letter! Love that you're doing this AMA but I don't have a solid enough question. How about.... You doing alright today?

I’m so glad you got one and I hope you love it. Check out the rugrats group on facebook. It’s really special. I’m not just saying that. All the people there are so sweet.

I’m doing okay! I’m really stressed lately. We’ve been working 10-12 hour days for months now with hardly a day off, but once the next record launch stuff is done, I intend to be a human again for at least a couple weeks. I want to go to the gym. Or, like, outside in the sun. Or, like, try some goofy yoga or something. Ha! I need it…

How are you??

Hey, just wanted to say something positive as a contrast to all the cynicism and negativity in this thread. I like your music and I think it's super cool that you guys gave away so many cds for free and succeeded with your strategy!

I don't really have any music related questions that haven't already been answered, so I'll just ask: What's your favorite food?

PS: You guys are all super cute.

*takes deep breath* Whooooowieee. I just wanted to help some other musicians! Thank you (:

It's actually really nice to have someone be nice on here for a minute. Not that nobody is being nice! I just think the controversial comment threads get pushed (for good reason!)

(also, it's okay—we've been at this for a long time and have heard much worse!)

My cajun family make some food that is SO good, I wish I could express it. I also like sushi a lot, but it's so spensi.

edit: Thank you for saying so (:

What do you think of the band I DONT KNOW HOW THEY FOUND ME BUT THEY DID? It seems like you stumbled on to the same idea.

I've never heard of them but I''ll check them out! link me??

Wanted to say I threw on some of those tracks and they were dope!

Sorry if it's already been asked but were merch sales helpful for generating revenue or kinda useless compared to CD sales?

Hey thank you so much for saying so!

Merch sales are now consistently SO much higher than they were before. They were tiny compared to the campaign, but everything between them.

Thank you for sharing your story!

I have my own band and we have really struggled over the years with marketing. I feel like everyone that hears us says that we should be bigger but I don’t really know what I’m doing wrong. Any tips from a marketing standpoint what was the catalyst for the jump in email subscribers and engagement?

Absolutely. I give this spiel a lot, but the music industry likes to perpetuate this idea that finding fans just ~happens~

it doesn't.

Having good music is important, of course, but the whole world—every tech company and app and toy and fidget spinner and new show and health drink—is competing and using marketing to find and retain customers and advocates.

Labels have been doing this (albeit poorly, and with a lot of wasted money) for as long as recorded music has been popular.

The marketing principles that work are the same ones folks have been using since the 1800s. The ole "funnel."

I could talk at length about these things—and don't mind doing that if you want to donate to the band or get us a pizza!—but the short of it is: you need a place where you collect all your customers and own the communication between them and you. Social media charges you to reach people, so getting an email list going is key.

As soon as we started sending out weekly emails and trying to make our email list a place people WANTED to be, things started changing. I'd recommend subscribing to our list to see what I mean.

Another really good company that has incredible training videos is Indepreneur, who I can't recommend enough. They are doing exactly this^ ie, taking tried-and-true marketing principles and applying them to music.

Now, mileage may vary if you're doing all the things you need to be doing, and this is where this AMA comes in. As the foundation of all of the marketing juju and good music playing is ~why~ you're making music.

I think if you have a really good answer to that, a lot of other things fall into place.

I really mean it, but I know the granular technical stuff is probably what folks want to hear. So to give you something to start looking into:

-Email list to collect folks
-Top of funnel marketing video (3 min performance video that performs at at least $0.02 per Facebook ads platform "thruplay." It isn't unrealistic to bet on needing to try 10 to find one that performs well enough. Go for: phone audio and video, single shot, live, in a humble room. See our videos for reference. Helps to have lyrics burned into captions and have an interesting/thought provoking first line. One of our first winners started "If I were bigger I'd kick your ass."
-Give away next album free to 75% watchers of top of funnel videos. Segment and serve them an ad with a humble video of you telling them you're going to give them the album for free if they sign up for the free digital album launch event.
-design 5 day digital album launch event in the form of emails where you give BTS, ways to win merch, and the songs, lyrics, etc.
-Squeeze them to buy commemorative edition at end in a sales email with some scarcity follow-ups.

For us, the growth was pretty consistently by powers of 10. First launch, we sold $40, second, $400, third, $4000 (in preorders).

Of course, staying active and engaging them helps.

But to make ADVOCATES, the people who are going to go around and tell people about you or send you free backdrops for your photoshoots or make merch items for you to sell in your store or help with fulfillment, etc, etc, THOSE people come from having a real-life mission. And being willing to SAY it. You have to drink your own kool aid and want to actually help the world somehow. It sounds crazy. It's borderline cultish, but...it's true.

Answering the questions, "what is music for?" And "who am I to be doing this" is enormous. Go up a mountain and come back with a long beard. Have lots of close-to-you people die. Think the world is unfair. Get angry. Try to do something about it. And, most of all, keep fetishizing music as the most important thing in your life.

Anyways. If you want to talk more about this and get us a pizza, dm us on instagram. I had someone else do that. I still owe them a response (our DMs are crazy lately) but I DO get back to everyone. If I can help, I will. It's hard and it feels good to help, actually.

Can you walk us through your “stack”? You mention zapier, esp, ads, etc.

I'm going off the top of my head here but:

-Zapier
-Drip
-FB for biz
-QuickBooks
-ConnectTeam
-Slack
-Asana
-Shopify
-WooCommerce (yes, both)
-Elementor Pro
-All the socials
-a whole bunch of mishmashed wordpress, woo, and shopify add-ons

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but these are the main ones! Hope that helps!

No question but wanted to let yo know Ive got your stuff going on the ol spotify.

OK one question - chocolate or vanilla milkshake?

That's awesome! Give "Three Legged Dog" a go (: it's my favorite... and about trying to find a place to spread the ashes of someone close to me. We always play it as an encore.

Can I answer with a double situation? Chocolate AND vanilla?

I don't have any questions either. Just wanted to say that I checked out "Three Legged Dog" as well as some of your other stuff and genuinely enjoyed it!

This is extra cool to hear, cold, from reddit users for some reason. I think I expected even more hipster jokes than we got. Thanks for saying so. The new album starts launching in November. Wish I could come back here and see if you think it's moving in the right direction! aha

Love the vocals on that track, good recommendation

Seriously, thank you for spending your time giving it a listen.

People still buy CDs??

I answered this in a comment earlier, but yes. CDs are cheap to manufacture and if you include a booklet, they still have album art, thank yous, and can be signed. I think CDs are a wonderful commitment way to support an artist and get a physical momento from them. Physical items have more value than ever in music nowadays, imo, since streaming has taken that element away from so much of it.

I love collecting CDs! However, they’re branded as cheap and obsolete. What have you found attracted people to CD in a booming vinyl market/dying CD market? And what can be done to CD to make it a more attractive collectible?

I love this question! I think a lot of what I've learned is that the seller defines the value first. Signatures on bar napkins sell on ebay, why not a signed CD? I think by positioning it as a physical, low-cost artifact from the band, people are willing to buy them to have a memento from us.

We also ate the cost of including the booklet w/ art, even though the margins we were working with were already very tight.

But, to your point, vinyl (and even cassettes) are making a comeback. Maybe CDs are the low-commitment collectible items, like quartz watches. The country club folks might still scoff at them, but it's a low barrier to entry to collect SOMETHING from a band that you can actually hold in your hands.

Anyways, in 100 years, CDs will be worth a ton, just because people undervalue them now anyway, aha.

What's your favorite guitar?

Geez, one day I’d love to have myself a prewar Gibson L-7, or even a Martin R-18 if it’s right! But I love my ugly pink TMG strat, and could play it forever. Also love a newer Martin my dad gave me. It sounds great and it means a lot to me (:

How did you change your approach to songwriting? ie intro - verse - chorus - bridge - solo - verse 2 - chorus and so on

We didn't really change much, formally in this sense. I think different songs want different things and it's best to kind of...follow them and ask them what they want. I know that might sound like hot garbage to some folks here, but I think it's true.

I've learned so many things over the years, and could talk way too much about it. One thing I always say that nobody wants to hear is that I think it's really important to learn from your own song.

I'll go to write something about how much I hate X or Y, or so-and-so. And then I sort of remove myself from the dynamic and go, What's this guy's deal? Why does he hate that person so much?

Ah! It's because HE'S insecure about this or that.

Then the end of the song ends up explaining his anger or unhappiness in a way that address his (my own) character.

It breathes life into the song, challenges my own ego, etc. But I have to be willing to look at myself that way. That moment, though, of learning something about myself through the song DOES something to the song, and makes it real. I realized this when I wrote The Neighbor's Dog and If I Were Bigger.

In a sort of more general way, this AMA is kind of about learning this same thing w/ regards to our band's "mission." Realizing WHY I'm writing these songs has helped me reframe the band in a way that resonates more with people.

I was writing a lot of grim, pessimistic stuff and I thought "what if I had a child and they heard this? Wouldn't I want to give them a reason to love the world instead of hate it?"

Then our next album (a lot of which made up the videos for this marketing campaign) just kind of happened.

Anyways, you were probably asking for some actionable formal tips. One thing that I can say that's pretty easy to try, writing prompt wise, or...song...form...prompt....wise? Is try a first line that is ABSOLUTELY crazy to say that you kind of believe, and make a chorus out of it.

"I HATE your ugly stupid baby"

And then try to write a verse in a way that explains why this character hates this baby so much. Are they jealous of someone else's perfect life? Are they scared of their own commitments and disinterest in having a family?

Revisit the chorus again.

One more verse going a little deeper.

Then try to formulate what you've realized about yourself through writing the song into a bridge that brings you back into the chorus one last time.

Ha...I'm going to get shit for being formulaic or something, but...well...this answer is for you, not them.

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Did you visit our Spotify link?? I wish we could make a living selling records with 30 second songs!

Where are you finding those? Maybe the mods will let me link you to some specific songs (: if not, try searching us on your streaming platform of choice!

Sammy or Dave?

Dave. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IArxakPsPE0

How much would you charge to provide similar services for another band?

We've done it before, but to justify I'd have to charge hourly probably. Feel free to find us on Instagram and DM us. I can at least point you in a good direction.

How does this quantify as being authentic or indie? Fucking barf barf barf on any real emotion or thought. You are a leech.

Seriously.

"We wanted it to feel authentic to our audience, so we identified that many people feel lonely and used that as an entry into their lives to trick them into thinking we actually care and that they aren't just being manipulated by our marketing ploy."

Why are you assuming we don't care? This is just unscientific. You've never met me! I DO care, a lot.

Unscientific..? Your whole approach comes across as super lame, sir. I’m glad your numbers are going up, but the whole “lonely” thing is beyond cringe. Not sure why you thought that would be a good approach? You come across as a desperate creeper. The desperate aspect is the worst part of all. Nobody cares about your trials and tribulations as “random indie band”, so if the creepiness and desperation weren’t already off putting, the pretentiousness of this post will keep me from ever listening to your music, which may or may not be decent, I’ll never know. Because after reading your spiel (and hearing it in the voice of Ned Flanders), I’d rather jump off a building, have my eyelids get caught on a nail half way down, then land on a bicycle with no seat. I feel like this is your peak, enjoy it.

Im sorry dad

Dad issues, eh? Is that going to be the theme of your next CD?

Yeah we’re going to call it, Im sorry internet dad and it’ll be super desperate and stuff

Ah, damn. Sorry you don’t like it. What DO you like? What song did you listen to?

I’m talking about your whole perception. I don’t have to listen to the music. You’re gaming art.

huh. maybe give the tunes a listen first, but no worries if not. Sorry you didn't have a good time here!

“Make sure you give us website clicks and streaming revenue before you decide you don’t like how we’re a marketing team disguised as a band, please! Hate-produced metrics are still metrics!”

This campaign ran at breakeven 100k ad spend. Streaming pays 0.0003 / stream. A handful of streams isn't going to help anything. This just doesn't make any sense, practically.

What's your favourite potato based dish?

My freaky cajun family make this stuff called pomme de terre etouffee. It's magical. Please get it and have it if you haven't. Preferably somewhere near Lafayette (:

This seems very egotistical. is that your back account balance?

Why do you say that? I'm on here answering a bunch of marketing and music questions for free on a Sunday :( My personal bank account balance is really, really sad right now actually. Like scary sad. Like funny scary.

When are you coming to NYC?

Also: great story; thank you for sharing. I admire your commitment to your Art. I wish you to reach to your 1,000 true fans milestone soon.

We’re doing a midwest tour spring, and then the plan is to do East Coast. Thanks for joining and chiming in too. Soon, maybe! I've actually never been to NYC...

One time I met leland sklar at a thing, and when i asked him how he managed to get into playing on all the best tunes and having that crazy career he said:

“Keep goin till i get er right.”

Love that…

How do I start the day over without you being in it?

time machine and a knife?

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Sorry you don't like it, I'll keep going till I get it right! In the mean time, this is an AMA about selling CDs more than whether or not you like the sauce :)

Not sure why people are being fucking jerks to you about this. I've been playing in bands making original music since 2003, got to tour the US and Europe, and released a bunch of records, and what you have done is VERY fucking impressive.

That's okay! I expected as much aha. Thanks for jumping in and supporting. I really appreciate you saying this too^

link one of your bands?? I'd love to listen!