NearFM Sessions
This week I had the pleasure to pick the brain of a radio presenter from Near FM session Alan Weldon. Needles to say, I was dying to find out the do's and don'ts of getting radio play from some one who actually works in the radio. The Near FM sessions are having their 5 year birthday this month, so the time was right for our chat:-)
J.P. First of all a big thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Could you tell us a little bit about your background in music business and in radio and how you got in to it in the first place?
Alan I've been involved in music since I was little. I started playing drums when I was eight and I was in and out of bands from maybe the age of 13-14, recording stuff our selves, you know. I never thought of it as being something I wanted to do in the future professionally, but it's kind of turned out that way. So yeah, as I said, in and out of bands 13-16, then I went to college to study sound design.
J.P. Where did you study?
Alan I studied Communication and Media production in Colaiste Dhulaigh in Dublin, then I went to London to study broadcast and sound design. While I was in college I was working with Near FM, volunteering with them. I wanted to do radio and I liked the idea of live radio, thought there is a buzz about it. So that's how I got in to Near FM. When I started there they had a show called Near FM session, just started, maybe six months old. So I got in almost right at the start and that's where I've been since then, among other things.
J.P. It's a great show.
Alan Yeah. You see, as I didn't create the show, I wasn't there from the beginning, I can say yeah, it is a great show and not feel big headed about it. Now it has changed since then, but it is a great idea and it has a really good format.
J.P. Is radio where you want to see your self in the future?
Alan At the moment I am doing lot of radio stuff with Near FM, sound engineering stuff. And I am also doing few films, that sort of thing, short films. For future I'd love to work with radio again, I like the buzz of it and I'd also like to work in post production sound design.
J.P. Lets talk about the show. I know you mentioned that you were not there in the beginning, but you know how it all started?
Alan Yeah, as I said I came in six months in to the show. Originally it was set up by four guys, Peter, James, Dave and John. Their idea was, they all had sort of different interests in music, some liked electronic, some liked rock music, they could do a show together. Then they looked at the scene and said, who's not being represented? And the idea of unsigned element and underground element came from. That was in Summer 2006 and in autumn 2006 they started the show, and it's gone on since then from strength to strength. It's great as every week new band comes in and they bring new listeners, and in turn other bands get heard through that. Also it has always carried its own weight as lot of the time we don't have to, in fact we very rarely go look for bands as we usually have acts constantly coming to us. I guess it shows when there are people coming to us, there is a market for it.
J.P. For sure. From our experience with JPKALLIO.COM it is very hard to get radio play in Ireland. There are so called underground or unsigned shows in the bigger radio stations, but when you contact them, it's rarely they give you a chance, unless they know you.
Alan There is a lot of community radio shows that deal with underground, there is a show on Dublin city FM that is very good, there is one on Phoenix FM and Trevor Halpin does stuff on West Dublin access radio as well. These people do it for the love of the music, which is good.
J.P. It is and I think it does show.
Alan It really does because they are willing to go that extra mile. Now I am not saying the commercial radio doesn't, but I am guessing, you know there has to be a reason...
J.P. Of course, commercial radio is there to make money. How do you select the acts for your show? Is there any criteria?
Alan As I said we are luck in that lot of our promotion is through word of mouth, so if we have one band in that likes what we do they tend to either tell their friends in other bands about us, or other bands hear them advertising, so that gets them motivated and they get in contact with us. Now what we get is, they send us a CD or Email us with links to Sound cloud, YouTube etc. That we listen to. As a community radio station we are there to provide service to acts in the community, so most of the time it's not like we are looking for the best or most talented musicians out there, although we have had some very talented acts in, we are not always looking for the most talented acts. We are looking for people who show interest in the community and in music.
J.P. Actually by taking that risk you sometimes come across something really special. There might be a band that is not great yet, but are on their way to something better.
Alan There are lot of acts that came to us and since have progressed and got signed and stuff. And we support them and we're behind them, but once they get to that level they are above what we do. Once they are signed some one else will look after them and we wont be able to look after them anymore. We are there to stand for the little guys.
J.P. Yeah, I'm sure it would be great buzz for the show to have some big act in there, but they would be taking the place of a small band that need the exposure much more.
Alan Sometimes we get CD's from big acts and it's nice that they think of us, but we can't really play them as that's not what we're there to do. But yeah, it's always nice to get free CD's.
J.P. So what way would you prefer bands get in contact with you?
Alan Well the easiest way would be Emailing us. Send us a link to your music. There is four of us involved, and we will listen to it. And if it is somebody who's doing an alright decent job, we certainly give them an airplay. Because it is only an hour a week, we are little bit limited and sometimes we do get bands that are not quite ready and we'll just tell them to come back to us in few months. Also if there is something that stands out, for example you need to have certain amount of songs, or we don't really want bands that only play cover songs, that's not what we do. So yeah, really the way to get in contact is the email, or drop us a line on Facebook and we will get back to you.
J.P. We can back that, as JPKALLIO.COM got a reply from you guys. In the past five years you have seen lot of bands come and go, what would be some of the mistakes bands do when they come to your show?
Alan Well, I'm not going to name any names. But when they come to us we tend to say for radio, unless it's 2fm don't bring in your full drum kit. I've seen bands coming in with massive drum kits, big amps and just trying to out do each others and all it is is just distortion. When it's that loud we loose control over it, you know, its all live in one room. So that would be one tip, if you doing radio, think about doing it acoustic. Or think about bringing in a CD of your stuff and do few acoustic songs and then play something from the CD. That way you get to represent both. Another thing would be, I don't think acoustic basses do really do justice. I've yet to hear an acoustic bass that I really like, so I would say bring an amp for the bass.
Interview wise, I've seen bands turn up late, which is across the field Spinal Tap kind of moment. I guess one mistake is, when you are young band that hasn't done much yet, they come on and have nothing to talk about and get flustered with their words. It's almost like learning to run before you walk. You have to get out there and play some gigs, put the time in before you got stuff to talk about. If you are on radio and have nothing to talk about, then people are going to hear just that.
For any band starting up it's a good idea to learn few songs acoustically. There is always those house parties, and then when you go to radio, you have something ready.
J.P. In the other hand, is there any bands that stood out in their professionalism and why?
Alan Again there are few bands. Sometimes there are bands that are just 12 or 13 and I have been highly surprised how organized they have been. It's the younger bands that are socially media aware as well, but even the way they carry them selves, turn up early, they are fully tuned, well rehearsed and they know exactly what they want to play. That's actually another thing in your last question, sometimes you get bands that decide on air what to play. Dead air is not a good thing... Sometimes you get 25-30 year olds that are not half as prepared as these 12-14 year olds. It's an interesting thing to see. Most bands turn up well prepared, we are lucky in that respect. There have been some really large set ups as well, it's really funny to see the small studio full. A band called Amazing few, they go from one piece to 12 piece. They have been in few times. And a nine piece reggae band.
J.P. The Near FM session works with independent artists. We all know there is a lot of talk about regulating Irish radio to play more Irish acts. What is your take on this and do you think this is something that can be done.
Alan I think it can be done and I think it should be done. Simple as. Because if we don't do it, no one will. I mean the scene in Ireland, if you go to somewhere like New York or London there is enough people to go to the gigs and listen to the radio, sometimes I feel we have almost too much in Ireland. Over saturation, and as a result I feel people maybe get tired of it or find other things to do. But for the likes of Irish radio, there are stations that play Irish music, but it's not enough. There should be more, and there should be percentages. Obviously it can't be fifty fifty, but maybe forty or thirty percent.
J.P. But how do you regulate it? The thing is that then the big names, like U2, Westlife etc. get the bulk of it anyway.
Alan It's a funny thing as you can't regulate it in that sense. You can't tell radio station to play this band, you can't. And at the end of the day it comes down to money again. You can say play this much Irish music, but you can't say play this band, but not that band. But even if it's these well known artists, at least it's Irish music that is getting out there. But I think as people we need to get behind Irish music as well. The scene needs to grow a bit. People are in to English indie bands, where there are lots of Irish indie bands, great indie bands that because they don't get the radio play, people don't hear about them. People are less likely to go search for it these days, if its not put in front of them. But conversely as well these days with YouTube and everything it means you are able to get the music out there. You are not necessarily waiting for the DJ, you are not waiting necessarily on television or network companies to send your stuff out as you are releasing it, it's on YouTube, you sell the copies at your gigs. And suddenly you are a working musician. I think consistency is important as well, if people hear low quality songs, they are less likely to click on it again.
J.P. From seeing bands come through the radio station, do you think up and coming band should still try to get signed, or should they work on making their own Records?
Alan That is a hard one to call because there are bands who's soul purpose in life is to get signed. I mean 99% of bands you would be better not going that way. You'll have more fun, you actually get more done. It's kind of a trade off because it's going to be really hard work to try to get signed, but you are going to have to sell off lot of creativity. It's all about image if you are going to get signed. Where as if you were to do it your self, and you can do it your self. You will make some money back if you're good. And I think you just have more fun if you do it your self. But it does com down to person as well, you need to be self motivated, in both situations. I do think it comes down to luck as well, as there are bands that do get signed, and other that are great and try to get signed for years. And I do wonder if ten years from now they say “I wish we just did our own thing”
J.P. Do you think bands have unrealistic expectations what being signed actually means?
Alan Oh yeah, The idea of record company advance, I don't think many bands realize that you need to pay that back. They think record company give us money and then we sell million records. If you spend it you have o pay it. And I don't think bands realize that it is going to put lot of pressure on you as well when you are signed and suddenly you are like, how we not get dropped. I think it can cause lot of inner conflict as well. Now that's not to say getting signed is not a good thing as well. Different people have different aspirations and different working methods.
J.P. Now as you work in the radio, would you have any tips for bands who are trying to get radio play and how should they go about it?
Alan They should make contacts with DJ's, believe it or not. Email or phone call. Being clear and concise is always a good idea. So make sure your press release is clear, no more than one page and has contact details for you. Lot of bands send their MP3s and files, that has its benefits, but also its drawbacks. My advice would be send MP3s but send physical copies as well. When it comes to DJ's, they will choose stuff that is around them. Lot of bands are not pressing CD's anymore, but you got to remember when your band is one small file in a long list of files that all look very similar, or if your band is a CD in a group of CD's, you do have chance to stand out more. So I would say, where possible, do a physical CD. You could get in to the ins and outs of actual song writing. People tell you if you want to get your song on the radio it needs to be three mins long, intro 30 secs etc. It's one way of doing it, but would not be the way i would do it. From the creative point of view, I would not like it being that organized. I don't think it works for every genre either. In terms of getting radio play, make sure your music is up to quality. Don't send in any low quality recordings. Don't send stuff that you recorded at home, unless its for demo purposes, as in stuff that might be recorded on camcorder. If it is low quality, the chances are it will not get played. It's good to follow up any mailing with phone call. Just to make sure they got your CD. Don't ring them up saying “why haven't you played my CD”, ring them up “did you get our CD, did you get a chance to listen to it?” If you make it clear and concise for the DJ, there are bigger chance they will play it. If you hide you tracks in YouTube or Myspace where you can't down load them, just stream, he will not play them, because he can't. If you are clear and concise and make it easy for the DJ to find your music and play it, there is more of a chance they will play it.
J.P. Do you think bands should start small with smaller stations, instead contacting 2fm straight away?
Alan My feeling from person being in the bands I would say contact them all but don't expect to hear from them just yet. But they see the name once, second time... I think Repetition is the way to go. They might delete the email the first time, but three or four times down the line and if they have seen the name some where else as well, they will start paying a tension.
J.P. JPKALLIO.COM has had quite lot of success with internet radio. How do you see the future of radio and the Internet radios part in it?
Alan Internet radio is really good. To be honest with you even FM radio is podcasted now days. And the reason it is podcasted, is that people want to have the choice to listen to it on their own time. Internet radio is a great tool for all bands. There is no reason there shouldn't be more radio stations, there should always be choice. I guess the great thing about internet radio is that it is international. It comes down to theory of long tales, not to get too technical but with big enough stretch of people, sort of catchment area, like with internet radio, you will reach enough people with interest in your music.
J.P. Lets talk about your birthday celebrations. So whats coming up?
Alan What's coming up is that Near FM sessions will be five years old and we are having a birthday gig in the Grand Social on Friday the 18th of November. We have really talented punch of bands from a variety of genres. The Rambleers are dirt blues rock. We got eight piece reggae band Indica, they are fresh from the Picnic this year. They came in to the session and they blew me a way. We have Johnny and the Beep Beeps who are alternative rock. We have The Statics who are 60's revival band really talented band, I know I use the word talented a lot, but they are. We got singer songwriter/ folk artist Longtails. He is a strange artist because sometimes he is just Guitar and laptop, sometimes he has a full band behind him, so I don't actually know what he is going to do on the night. All great acts and they all have songs up on YouTube or Bandcamp. They all agreed to play for us. It's a fiver in, we are not looking to make money, we just want to cover the cost of the venue, as with everything we do in the Near FM Sessions. We don't get payed, we all volunteer. We're not in it for the profit, we just want to get the word out for bands. Doors 7.45pm, live bands until about midnight and then we have DJ's from Near FM taking over until about half two. It should be a good night. The Grand social is a lovely venue.
J.P. Sounds great. So any plans for the future?
Alan We are always looking at things to move forward. We are looking in to adding a visual elements to the show it self. I can't say too much about it at the minute, but we are talking about stuff for both community television and videocast. I think it would be good for the bands if there was some visual imagery.
J.P. That would change the whole show for the bands.
Alan Well yeah, and that's why we need to look at it carefully as we have nice relaxed atmosphere and we don't want to loose that. We also recently started podcasting the show and that is going really well, so we are going to make an archive section on our website of the bands that we really enjoyed having on the show. I'm giving away all our secrets now... Mainly we are focused on getting bands in and doing what we do and trying to get the music out there.
J.P. Once again big thank you for taking the time to talk to us
Check out Near FM Sessions at:
http://www.facebook.com/thenearfmsessions
http://www.near.ie
That's all for this week. Let us know your thoughts. Back for more next week.
J.P.
