The life of a band. It’s a fascinating evolution.
Some bands barely get out of the basement. Others make it big and stick around for decades.
They’re born. They grow and evolve. They learn and make mistakes, and they change.
In today’s music business, a band’s life, in many ways, is like a human life.
You have newborn bands, finding their way and choosing the right path. Once they reach post-adolescence, they’re in peak physical condition — on top of the world. As they continue to mature, they lose youth but gain wisdom. And in the latter years, if they’re lucky enough to still be making music, they’re elder statesmen — inspirations for the next generation.
We take a look at four bands in four phases, starting with the young and inexperienced.
PHASE 1: Starting out
Used to be, a band aimed for a major recording-label deal. Now smaller labels, or even techno-savvy musicians themselves, can produce and distribute songs. So is a big contract the way to go?
Brian Schwartz works with numerous baby bands from his Boulder office, but only one of them is waltzing with multiple major labels. The Northern Way sounds like a more soulful Maroon 5, with singer Steve Melton rocking the role of a very young (and blond) Adam Levine.
One listen to the Greeley band’s single “Crazy” and it’s clear: They’re onto something. And that’s why this is such an exciting time for the quartet, which will soon announce a headlining date at the Hi-Dive in late September.
“The labels that are interested in the Northern Way are major labels,” said Schwartz, the group’s manager and president of Bleemusic Inc. “They hear the songs, and they see the potential for those songs to become hits outside of Colorado. These potential hits — and I only say ‘potential’ because they’re not proven outside the market — are appealing to labels because they’re already on the radio here.
“The fact that these guys are on KTCL carries weight because of the success (the station has) had in breaking the Fray and Flobots and 3OH!3. And the Northern Way is more of a Hot AC or pop band than an alternative-rock band, so that also gives labels a warm and fuzzy feeling — that ‘Crazy’ can do that well at alternative. You have to imagine what it can do elsewhere.”
The Northern Way’s mass-market potential is very real. And that’s all the more reason for the band to practice patience. Schwartz is a music industry veteran, and he’s guiding these kids to a place where they can grow and flourish — a . . . major label?
“In the Northern Way’s case, they are a radio band, and their career will be driven by radio,” Schwartz said. “Major labels are still successful at driving those radio campaigns, so that’s the right place for them.”
PHASE 2: Riding the wave
Success has its rewards and challenges. But even at the top, it’s a lot of hard work and — in a landscape now full of nasty bloggers and say-anything fans — image control.
If it plays its cards right, the Northern Way could graduate to the next phase in a band’s career. The Black Eyed Peas are already there, riding the wave of their third hit album — a remarkable feat in the current industry climate. The hip-hop band’s third LP, “Elephunk,” broke wide open in 2003. After selling 2 million- plus copies of that, they moved more than 3 million CDs of their follow-up, “Monkey Business.”
Their latest, “The E.N.D.,” peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. And after six weeks on the chart, the Peas — who will headline Jazz Aspen Snowmass on Sept. 5 — aren’t going anywhere.
“When you’re at that level, when you have what I call ‘a global hit’ — a song heard around the world — your life is fully scheduled,” said Big Jon Platt, the Denver-reared impresario who is now the president of EMI Music Publishing’s West Coast office in Los Angeles.
“Everything runs on a schedule. It’s photo shoots and appearances and concerts. It’s meetings with the record label to develop strategies to push the project even further, and it’s touring. And that’s just the business part of it. Because of the success, your personal life changes, too.”
Sounds glamorous — and also painfully busy. Is it worth it?
“The goal of everyone I know in the entertainment business is to reach that moment,” said Platt, who is also a personal friend of Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am. “(The Peas) are there, and they do it their way. And they don’t really care that a hip-hop fan might say they’re selling out. They don’t care what a pop fan would say.
“They’re loved all over the world,” Platt said. “Will.i.am is one of the most talented men in the music business today. With a lot of artists and producers, I can sense when they’re peaking. And while people might have thought that the Peas had peaked, this album shows that they’re not close to peaking.”
PHASE 3: Diversifying the family business
When record sales peak, musicians seek new ways to keep the cash flowing in. The answer: touring the big venues where today’s music fans pay big bucks to hear them play.
Some would say country superstar Toby Keith peaked earlier this decade, when two consecutive records — “Unleashed” and “Shock’n Y’all” — topped the 5 million mark. Keith’s last two records have each been certified “gold” by the Recording Industry Association of America, meaning they’ve sold more than 500,000 copies.
But Keith, who plays Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater on Friday, is more comfortable than he’s ever been — releasing records on his own Show Dog Nashville label, selling out the largest venues in North America and controlling each facet of his career, including a lucrative sponsorship with Ford.
Sure, the CD numbers aren’t what they used to be. But the industry has changed.
“The first year I was on my own, we did more than a million with ‘White Trash With Money,’ ” Keith said via telephone recently. “It’s gone down every year since then, but the single downloads have gone up. The problem is, those are only 99 cents. You have to sell 10 of them to make 10 bucks, and you used to only have to sell one CD to make 10 bucks.
“Now that 5 million downloads is one- tenth of 5 million records, it forces you to look at all your investments. In my music career, touring is likely about 75 percent of the money — and Ford represents about 10 percent of the money. That doesn’t make for much CD sales. And I own my own label.”
PHASE 4: Making it last
Veteran acts keep the music playing by targeting the core fans and changing things up — just enough — to keep it interesting. Luckily, the contemporary live-music market for established acts seems unending.
Keith has witnessed great change in his career, which spans almost 20 years. But blues torchbearer Bonnie Raitt has been at it for twice that long. In 1969, Raitt dropped out of Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Mass., to gig out more in the Boston folk/R&B scene.
She released 10 records over the next 20 years, the 10th being the gold nugget “Nick of Time,” which broke her music to the masses. Her next record, 1991’s “Luck of the Draw,” would sell more than 7 million records on the strength of singles “Something to Talk About” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”
Raitt, a longtime critic’s darling and niche favorite, was a finally a bona fide star — more than 20 years into her career.
Raitt hasn’t stopped for long since. She’s had one gold record in the last decade, but her tours play to large audiences throughout the U.S. and Europe. In Denver, Raitt is a regular at festivals and at Red Rocks, where she can headline annually, if she so chooses. (She’ll co-headline the Morrison amphitheater with Taj Mahal on Aug. 30, and both artists will play the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival Sept. 18-20.) More than 40 years after first picking up a guitar, she’s living not such a bad life.
“It’s thrilling, and I’m honored to have lasted this long and still have a career,” Raitt said via telephone last week. “With John Lee Hooker and others, they were doing their best work at this age. We’re lucky to be in a music that sustains itself with us aging. As you start getting in your 30s or 40s in other genres, you’re being bounced out by the new thing. When you have the kind of music that Taj and I do, you have fans who want to follow you.”
It’s true that the blues are more about respecting your elders than popular music is. Instead of hoping they die before they get old, bluesmen and -women celebrate the passing years — the wrinkles and the vocal cracks, the gray hair and the ailments.
“One thing I learned from my dad (the late Broadway star John Raitt) and some of the older bluesman is that, when we put our heart and soul out there and keep stretching into it, (our fans will) stay with us,” said Raitt. “I hope I’m doing this for another 30 or 40 years, at least.”
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com
