Lessons I Learned from Releasing an Album

The landscape of music releasing is constantly changing. Nowadays it seems that releasing music involves a strategic electronic media approach on Spotify and Apple music with some limited vinyl pressings at local record stores.

It was just over a decade ago when my band was releasing an album, but the focus was on CD’s and MP3’s, not high quality stream services. Launching my first album was like carefully folding a paper plane, then giving all you could to throw it but only to see it gently rest back on the ground. That plane needed to be thrown from a much higher place - where it might have caught a wind current or two.

My experience in releasing my first album had similar challenges that artists face today. After nearly three years of performing both live and spending time in the studio, my first bandmate, Bird, and I finally reached our goal. We were ready to release our album, KouseFly, Down by a Billion for the world to enjoy. By the winter of 2010, Bird had spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours meticulously recording and editing each song. It was amazing how professional the album ended up.

Now it was my turn, as the band’s self-proclaimed marketer, to start building the album’s promotion and help prepare to get the album available. I put my graphic design experience to work, and helped navigate the way to getting the album published properly after getting the music files mastered.

Bird, James, and I wanted to give the project the send-off it deserved. We were, and still are, very proud of the album. The initial thought was to get the album into the right hands, and let our hard work in producing the album speak for itself. We wrote up a press release and cover letters requesting album reviews. After the stockpile of discs arrived, we sent off the discs to several college radio stations and weekly newspapers around Oregon and the nation.

It was almost like baiting a hook for a prized fish that rarely was caught. I had some experience before self-publishing a book, but music was an entirely new beast. Bird and I were both hoping to get some play, and some college kid would be tuning in, listening to the next greatest thing.

Unfortunately, for us, there was no lucky strike. I had been out of college for almost nine years, and quite a lot of things have changed since then in terms of releasing your albums. Music had officially entered into the digital age, where most people bought mp3’s or streamed their new music on iTunes. Getting on the indie radio stations was very competitive. Record stores were going out of business. Successful musicians at this point, with such a surge of music getting released online, were musicians who weren’t just sending a disk to a college and indie radio stations. They were touring near the college and metropolitans around the country.

It was a sobering realization, and we accepted the reality that the work of cutting an album was only half of the story. It became clear that the best way to support a proper album release was to tour around the nation in a van, and get grassroots press and air play around towns exactly how KouseFly was in our one town. Bird, James, and I — all dad rockers with very young kids — were not ready to do that sort of thing.

As months passed through the summer (with not that many online sales), we began to accept the reality that the album we are so proud of would not get its time in the sun that it rightfully deserved any time soon.

We were lucky to get a nice review from The Source Weekly in Bend. Though, it didn’t really bring in sales, just a lot of “congrats.”

Instead of continuing on with writing new music and gearing up to produce another album, Bird and I decided to play one last festival before starting to work on our own separate projects. My wife and I were expecting a new child, and Bird was planning on getting married.

The Bend Roots festival is an annual festival featuring the local talent of the community, usually during the fall. It’s a very special event, bringing together bands and artists that are usually competing or collaborating with each other for shows in the Summer. Everyone comes together to celebrate homegrown music and community. Bird and I decided to make that our last KouseFly performance for a while, and then go on an indefinite hiatus. I wanted to continue developing in live music. I decided to continue regularly performing at open mics, and to support other acts by opening up for them with an opening set. I was a very long way from being a solo performer, and the time seemed to be right to begin that path.

Bend Roots was ultimately where we put KouseFly to rest.