Favoritism-An Action Plan
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Be the favorite band. Be good enough. Don’t just make someone’s night, make their adolescence and life. Swing for the bleachers. Sell out the shirts. Sell out the hoodies. Without it, why go on? Why be a band at all if you’re not doing so with the dream of becoming someone’s be-all-end-all, their sonic bottom line?
Not all bands deserve to be favorite bands. Admit this, it is undeniably true. There are some bands you may not like, but you can understand why they’re someone’s favorite. Then, there are some where it’s just not meant to be, ever, for anyone. Those who say otherwise are playing a game of all-inclusive overly-positive naiveté. Opinion is subjective and everyone is entitled to theirs, but you know in your heart that there are those bands out there whose music is just too derivative, too uninteresting, to ever be anyone’s favorite, or that of anyone worthwhile. Sure, some people may rock their gear and talk constantly about their sound, but you know, deep down, that that person doesn’t know shit, that they settled on a band whose field is loaded with artists far superior to them. That idiot likes the imagery, or the obscurity of having a “favorite” band who no one else knows or has heard of which, in their mind, makes them a superior metalhead in some idiotic elitist way. They cannot hum the riffs. They cannot tell you about the first time they heard that band, about what the music makes them feel. They are often the people who “grow out of” metal. Don’t pander to them. Listen closely, follow these steps, and be the favorite. Persevere, don’t despair.
Play well. Play your music as hard and fast or slow as soft as you’ve always wanted to. Do not compromise. Slave away at it. Become thrall to it. Play the music you hear in your dreams, the metal that exists in your mind somewhere where the best parts of all of your favorite bands come together into a series of notes only you can create. If technicality and precision is important to you, become a machine. If you find yourself excited by sloppiness and atmosphere, let yourself fly off the handle. Don’t concentrate on playing what sells, or being the kind of musician that sells whatever number of albums. Play what you want, the way you want it. If your sound evolves, let it. Those who hold you as Favorite will understand, and shift with it; even if they don’t, they will forgive you for it. The failure is when you play to please an idea of success. That is when you’re no longer the favorite, when you try to be everyone’s favorite.
Put out music. Play shows and record every one; post the live tracks on your website. Release CDs, downloads, cassettes. Press twelve-inches, seven-inches, any size of vinyl you can possibly afford. Slap some killer artwork on it and get it into the hands of your followers. Tape-trade like a motherfucker; follow the leads of Slagel, Ulrich, and Kristiansen. Put out your album and soon thereafter rerelease it in a specialized digipack with a patch and button for whoever is on your mailing list, in your fan club, writing you a letter telling you how much they love your shit. Put out some of it for free, some for purchase. The more they have your music, the more they’ll listen to it. The more they listen to it, the more they’ll love it. You will lose money. You may or may not earn it back. At a certain point, it doesn’t matter, but chances are, if you’re someone’s favorite band, they’ll give you money. Putting the music out there makes you the favorite band.
Develop an aesthetic. Couple your distinctive sound with a distinctive visual look that combine into a single artistic vision. Music always comes first, yes, but the best bands, the unquestionably deserved Favorites, do both. Motörhead does both. Celtic Frost does both. Have a few artists you will always go to for work, or whose work you will always reference when commissioning album and shirt artwork. Make the music and the art intertwine until they are inseparable; try to find the latter that best represents the former and fuse them together with faith and will. If another band has an aesthetic you’ve always admired, take on the aspects of it that seem powerful while giving them your own personal twist. Forget what a metal band is supposed to look like, what metal imagery is supposed to be. If your aesthetic is to have no aesthetic, strip that shit down to its bare bones. Focus on color blocks and silhouettes. But do something. Don’t allow your record to be boring or without artistic merit once the last track ends. When someone sees a band shirt with art similar to yours, make sure they reference your work. Be the aesthetic base on which others are compared.
Get the word out. Make a thousand fucking flyers. Be infectious. Make the kind of music that, if you heard it in a dark club one night, you would want to come out and see it again. Make yourself known to the world by being a band who thinks the world should know. If only ten people come, and only five of them return, that’s five on your side. Don’t focus on mainstream appeal. Fuck being liked, be loved. Be the favorite. Keep putting yourself out there, making a splash, a stink. It will hurt. You will play to sparing, bewildered audiences. The Internet haters will break your heart and make you wish you had the means to level a city. Doesn’t matter. Fuck ‘em. It’s only a part of your story, of what makes you worthy of someone calling you their favorite.
Remember your favorites. Remember what they did right, how they spoke to you, what made them better than the others. Remember that first time they made you feel less alone, that blinding moment when you decided they’d made the top of your list, the song or album that put the guitar or drumsticks or microphone in your hand, that made you realize you had to take part in it, this, what they do and what you are. Remember the others, too, the bands that you may have even enjoyed but that just didn’t deserve to be your favorite band, and remember why they fell short. But don’t dwell on them too long. Throw their records on every so often, but chase them with your favorites. That’s the goal—that someday, your band will one day be someone’s alpha and omega, that your lyrics will be mouthed in bedroom mirrors and your riffs diligently plucked out on cherry Christmas-gift instruments in bedrooms across the world. Be the favorite. Otherwise, why bother?
Remember your favorites? Put them in the comments section below. With them, include the ones that shouldn’t be anyone’s favorite. You know which bands we’re talking about.
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