Trent Reznor gives advice to new artists and generally talks sense

Trent Reznor

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has given his thoughts on how young artists and musicians should approach getting started in the music industry, and his main advice is: Give your music away for free.

In a post on the forums on NIN.com, Reznor gave his thoughts on what to do as a new/unknown artist, and they make for a pretty interesting read:

“Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters…

Collect people’s email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special – make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters… whatever.”

Later on in the post, Reznor says:

“The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact – it sucks as the musician BUT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So… have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database)”.

The whole piece can be accessed here. Reznor is of course no stranger to experimenting with the distribution of his music – 2008′s The Slip was given away for free on his website, while earlier this year Reznor posted around 400GB of footage of his band’s recent tour and asked the fans to do something with it.

So, is Reznor pretty much on the ball here? Is this the way new bands should start to work, in the post-CD era? Let us know.

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