Art and Credit and Responses

A great song or painting or joke disguises the immense work that went into making it.

That’s the point.

Hard work is complex. Complexity is beautiful and beauty is simple.

It’s why great art often elicits simple responses. We play the song again, we look at the painting an extra thirty seconds, we laugh at the joke.

Great art isn’t about getting credit for the hard work. It’s about giving people an invitation permission to respond in a simple way to something that resonates deeply. Even if they don’t realize it.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Survival

It’s safe to say that if you’re reading this email you probably have what you need in order to survive. Your needs are met. Your wants are many.

Once our needs are met we have the incredible luxury of choice.

You don’t have to keep going with what you’re doing. You can switch.

You don’t have to give up on what you’re doing. You can keep going.

It’s not that choosing is easy or simple or clear or risk-free…but the fact that we’re not focused on survival is a gift worth remembering.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

A Little More Money (Talk)

Learning how to ask for more is a skill that comes in handy.

Don’t put your first run of t-shirts on a credit card.

Rent the van.

Buy the van when you can shoulder the (inevitable) repairs.

Rent the bus.

Get the promoter to charter the plane.

Pay your people.

Pay them a little bit more…and on time.

Have a plan for when a big pay day rolls around.

The difference between a $70 hotel room and a $100 is astounding. Just spend that extra $30.

When you start getting famous you’re going to want to bring friends out on the road just for fun. That’s great. But they’re costing you money and you’re only starting to get famous. You’re not super famous yet. There’s no track record that this cash flow is going to keep going.

If you can find good PR who is willing to work on commission, hire them and tell the rest of us.

If you can teach your fans to stream you will make money forever.

At the beginning you want to headline because it’s cool but you’re playing clubs and the headliner has the worst time slot. So you decide it’s better to be the opener. To be the opener for big acts. Then you realize that the money is in headlining. You have to have a plan that leads you to being a headliner.

If someone is griping about $50, just pay them and get on with the day.

If you're signing the checks, consider that a huge honor.

When you find people you truly love to work with, do your very best to not let money issues tear it apart.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Doing Band Money

Camaraderie is better than having a little more money.

Unity will help keep the cash flowing more than fighting for a few extra percentage points of a song.

When it’s lopsided and the singer or the primary songwriter shows up in a Porsche and the other guys are still driving Pontiacs, it’s going to fall apart. Porsche guy didn’t do anything wrong, the band just isn’t going to last.

As legend has it…

For U2, it’s an even split across the board. All four guys get the same.

For Coldplay, Chris gets 40% songwriting credit and the other guys each get 20% even if they didn’t write a single lyric or melody. And the band as a whole decided Chris should get a little bigger chunk because he’s usually the one writing the bulk of the tunes.

I’m sure there’s other ways to do it, but those two bands have stuck together for a long time so it couldn’t hurt to start somewhere around there.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

Work And Efficiency

We want to put in…

Less effort for the same result

Or

The same effort for a better result

Or even more so

Less effort for a better result

We want to be moving in a ‘better’ direction…or rather, toward efficiency.

We don’t want to have to keep putting in the same amount of effort for the exact same result.

But eventually we can’t squeeze out any more efficiency. Eventually we have to be willing to accept the work and maybe ask ourselves the more difficult question, ‘is this the work I want to be doing?’

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple

You're Up There

You’re not up there trying to get the audience to go from ‘this band is bad’ to ‘this band is good’.

You’re up there to get them to forget about the scale all together.

You’re not up there to prove you are good. You’re up there to connect.

Hum Love on Spotify and Apple