The Dear Hunter: Recognizing The Importance Of Adding Value, Connecting With Fans

from the nicely-done dept

Joe Fleming points us to a clip of an appearance by the successful indie rock band, The Dear Hunter (a project of Casey Crescenzo) on Attack of the Show. It's worth watching the whole thing, but if you skip ahead to around the 7 minute mark, Kevin Pereira asks Casey about the future of the music business, and Crescenzo points out a key point that some of us have been saying for years: the future isn't in selling music, but in adding value, and making things worth buying:

Pereira: You seem to be doing something right. So what is so wrong or broken with the music industry right now?

Crescenzo: I would say the main thing is that no one's ever going to buy music just for the sake of buying music anymore. There's no reason to just buy....

Periera: I was unaware you could still buy music. That's awesome. So do you go to a store? How does this work?

Crescenzo: ... I don't know. Craigslist. No, I think it's a matter of people realizing that you're never going to sell... it's never going to be the thing where you have a ton of bands selling a million records. And, instead of concentrating just on sales or on selling something, you have to make something worthwhile.

What a concept! Make something worthwhile. The interview goes on and they talk about the fact that Crescenzo traveled across the country to get to the interview by car and had emailed a fan list telling them about this and offering to play house concerts (for free) at various stops along the way. Of course, as we've discussed, house concerts are becoming more and more popular. They're a great way for artists, who are comfortable doing them (and, no, we're not saying they're for everyone), to really connect with fans. And while Crescenzo decided not to charge, we've been hearing about more and more artists making pretty good money doing house concerts for reasonable fees.

I know some critics have brushed aside the house concert phenomenon as only making sense for artists, who can't do otherwise (a statement that's clearly untrue for many who have embraced house concerts), here's a case of a very well known, very successful act realizing how useful house concerts can be as well.

Filed Under: casey crescenzo, dear hunter, selling music, value