JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum TAXI--Billboard chart success (or lack thereof)

Magne

About seven years ago myself and friends/co-writers were doing our thing,
Now even though I have written different kinds of songs, and did session work etc...
And had been recording and producing my own stuff for about 15 years at that point.
I still come from a BAND background. So does most of my friends. I mean way back,
I started my first band when I was nine years old.

So as soon as we started working we could already play and play pretty darn well.
We could record and produce ourselves and only needed to hire a few singers to fit certain songs.

As songwriters shopping songs we realized that 80% of what we did sounded like we were the artist or band it was band orientated. And since bands and artist singer/songwriters don't do ANYONES music but there own we were pinned into a corner.

So I started thinking back then, we are too old to be signed with a band.. We can't compete with the top 10 because it is 90% Hip Hop/Rap 5% POP Country and 5% Rock Bands. Even if we could easily humiliate more than half of them in any studio or any room with any musical instruments in it. It means nothing to the public or the business. We are OUT

So I switched my focus onto my recording & producing skills a little bit more.
I always go round & round with the various things I can do anyway.. but now we would have recordings that could stand up on there own. And our place was FILM, TV etc... That was our goal starting around 2003. So we joined TAXI and a few other things.

By 2005 we landed 4 of our songs into one movie... AS IS
We were building a strong diverse catalog and the thing was not write a 100 songs it was write one or two really cool ones... play them really well, produce them well,record them well, master them and pitch em were we could.
In 2005 we had a song ALMOST land with a band signed to a major major label.
They were reluctant because BANDS don't do outside material.. but our connection was very strong and would have sealed the deal... God rest his soul.

But the idea is this.. i wrote this song we put it through all those steps I just mentioned. It was a DEMO and the one that this producer/manager & band heard. We were far better from top to bottom than the signed band was that was considering it. But more imporatntly they were YOUNG.
Our version landed in the movie anyway....

So by working this way we covered ALL BASES!
This angle would be good to cover on the demo thread about basic demo's,rough demo's etc...

Sounds like your moving into this same direction,very cool very smart. Still tough but hey what isn't?