Here’s the first part of Insomniac Magazine’s interview with Brian Mazzaferri- frontman for I Fight Dragons. This distinct band’s niche is Nintendocore, music that uses sounds reminiscent of Nintendo’s original NES 8-bit game system. During our talk, Brian explains how his band broke into the spotlight and eventually landed a deal with Atlantic distributed label Photo Finish, the record company that signed 3OH!3. The nature of I Fight Dragon’s music allows the band to differentiate itself by playing gigs and appealing to audiences that will probably gloss over other indie rock bands. Their unique approach creates opportunities for headlining spots at Nerdapalooza and Geek Kon, conventions for those who are proud to be categorized as nerds. This band’s story can provide valuable insight and lessons for artists of any genre seeking to break into the music industry.
(Story and interview by Israel Vasquetelle.)
Tell me about the interesting way you sold music to your fans.
Brian: Our first tour we kind of found ourselves out on the road opening up and we needed a way to fund it because we’re an opening act and so we’re selling merch, but we weren’t making a lot of money. There were six of us at the time on the road so we have a lot of costs. The idea was that we sell these USB drives. We had these custom USB drives printed up in the shape of business cards kind of that flipped out to be a USB drive so you can keep it in your wallet. They had I Fight Dragons logo on them, but more than that, they were lifetime membership so the people on them basically got free digital copies of I Fight Dragons music for life and free access to I Fight Dragons shows for life. We sold them for $100 a piece and we thought we’ll hopefully sell them by the end of the tour or maybe have some more to go, but they all went within 48 hours. It ended up really helping us on the tour to keep things going. It ended up being really cool too. Those 100 lifetime members have been an awesome resource that as we have released music and they’ve come to see shows all over the nation. Actually, 10 of them were international so they haven’t gotten to come to any shows yet, but maybe someday.
How did you sell those USB drives. Was it mainly online? Was it at live shows?
It was 100% online. It was something I’d come up with and actually, they were all sold through our email list which was kind of something we started with the band and especially in the very beginning. The idea was if people sign up for the email list then they get a free digital copy of our first EP which was 5 songs. People signed up and then as we kept going on, we would release covers, or free tracks or remixes to the email list for free and it was kind of a cool way for people to get more I Fight Dragons music and so it ended up growing pretty fast and that was basically the only place that we put out the news that they were on sale and then pretty quick they were all gone.
So that mailing list, did you build that from collecting names at shows?
Yeah, it was a combination. Especially in 2009, we played a ton of Chicago shows and people would sign up at the shows, but more than that, it was just online. It was a service that we used called Constant Contact which was a really simple mailing list service and they’ve got a really easy sign up form and for the first year that we were a band we didn’t have a website. We did have a website, it was IFightDragons.com, but it was just a one page sign up form for the email list saying if you sign up for the email list you get the free EP. So then it was a form and when people signed up, in the automatic welcome email there was a link to download the EP. And that’s the biggest way that it grew was just through awesome, supportive blogs and podcasts at first sort of liking music and sharing it. It was the biggest way that more new people found out about the email list and if people liked what they heard they told other people and that was the biggest driving factor at first for sure. And then Chicago shows too. We played at least once a month around Chicago and just try to go as crazy as possible and put on the best live show that we could.
That was an interesting story; a fairly unknown, very niche band making $10,000 off of interesting merchandise in a matter of 48 hours. That’s newsworthy in the music industry. What happened after that?
It was definitely our first actual real attempt to monetize the mailing list at all. Up until then it was very much just giving people music and then after that too. We’ve continued to as much as possible to give free music, and bonus tracks, and exclusive things. That definitely helped us fund the tour, but something like that I thought it was a really cool idea. It’s a great trick, but you can only do it once. The thing I like about the lifetime member thing was that we sold something that was theoretically limitless because it’s free shows for life and digital music. In one sense, obviously it’s easy for us to give people digital music, but it’s tougher when you start talking about free admission shows. It’s not things that are costless to give to people. So it was a really cool experience and one that taught a lot and brought us closer, and pretty soon after was the time when we first started talking to Atlantic and Photo Finish, who is currently our record label. We were talking to them during that tour and then after that was when we first started talking about signing with them and then making the full album and everything.
I would say the emphasis sort of shifted. By the beginning of 2010, for the past year we’ve mostly been working more in a label kind of mindset; working just all of the efforts going into the album we’re working on currently. It’s been kind of a crazy year with 50-60 songs I have written for the album and I’m not a super prolific writer so for me that’s a ton of songs because I tend to take a lot of time and work really hard on every song. It’s been a pretty interesting first switch too because being on a label, that sort of thing doesn’t work as well. There’s no provisions for that kind of off-base product like a lifetime membership. There is room for off-base marketing approaches. It’s just tougher to find them and to make them work because obviously there’s a lot more red tape and legal stuff whenever you’re dealing with a larger business entity.
For instance, right now we sort of launched in the past month this thing we’re called the Advanced Guard, which is our version of a community social network street team type thing. I think in the past month we’ve had more than a thousand fans sign up and it’s sort of an internal social network and quest system where fans put up posters and hand out free download cards for the band and get points and then get free stuff or ranks. It’s something that on its face has been done in a lot of ways, but I think the other fun thing about trying that is that it’s something that’s not like a street promotions vehicle that you hire. This is something made of fans and also the band goes on there a lot so we’re talking with them on there. There’s been a lot of ways that we’re trying to find cool marketing stuff within the new context. Honestly, the other challenge is that, especially for the past year, it’s been so much about writing and then the past couple months recording the album that it’s something that now as we’re starting to put our eyes on getting out there again as much as possible, it’s fun to start to bringing these ideas.
Read part two of Israel Vasquetelle’s talk about breaking into the music industry with the recording act’s front man here.
