Arts Curation: Championing Independent Music for Over 2 Decades
The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Part II of II
In Part II Daniel talks about the hustle. Festival showcases can only help artists so much. Artists also need to know what their goals are and how to help themselves. Daniel also talks about his work as a manager and drops the best advice ever, it’s at the very end of the conversation.
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Marc Brown: So this is the 22nd year of Pop Montreal. So much has changed. I’m interested to know what you think the role of a festival is now versus when you first started.
Daniel Seligman: I think they’re amazing opportunities, but you need to take advantage of the opportunity to showcase. So you can’t just show up and play your show, you have to sign up for panels and try to connect with industry people that are in attendance. You can also connect with all the other artists and build a network. Everyone wants the golden ticket, but the reality is that it’s a lot of work and you have to resonate and work on building your fanbase. You have to hustle.
Marc: Do you think that’s always been the same? Has the Internet changed that?
Daniel: Well, you need fans who want to see you perform and give you their money if you want to be successful. Every artist needs to find their trajectory and so there has to be an extreme amount of ego involved. You need to believe in what you’re doing as an art form and then also have the fans to back it up. You need to use the tools at your disposal. So 25 years ago, you could get a record deal, maybe with an indie label, and people loved that label, they trusted them and would buy any album they put out. Of course, you still had to do the work, play shows and do interviews and all of that, a stronger community. Today there has to be an extreme amount of persistence, you can’t just focus on your art, you need to get people to listen to the music and figure out how to put yourself out there.
Marc: Was it about access before and now it’s about authenticity? Anyone can be on social media but it’s not going to work if it’s not legit. Whereas before it seemed like it was a lot harder to get people’s attention.
Daniel: I think there were fewer channels before, but now there are tons of gatekeepers.
Marc: Do you think?
Daniel: Everyone has an Instagram account, but that means that there are millions of accounts and no real community. That’s why back in the day, message boards were so cool because they were so niche and people could connect. I do think that being sincere and authentic is one of the strategies that artists should be focused on.
Marc: It’s much easier to release music than it was 20 years ago, so I was thinking that there are fewer gatekeepers but what you’re saying makes sense.
Daniel: Yeah, it’s easier to get it out there but it’s much more difficult to get people to listen to it.
Marc: Yeah I can see that, information doesn’t flow through the same way. I’d never thought of it that way.
Daniel: You have to build your network and figure out what your goals are. Like if you spend tons of dollars on Spotify and you get 100,000 streams, you have to decide if it was worth it.
Marc: Tough choices…
Daniel: If you only have 3,000 followers, it’s hard to create a mystique. You also see some artists who have huge amounts of streams but don’t play shows and even if they did, people probably wouldn’t show up.
Marc: Totally. It’s true that some people just don’t want to do anything except put out music. That would never have happened 25 years ago.
Daniel: That is a one-in-a-million type of scenario, where you can make that choice.
Marc: I also read about artists who are doing amazingly on TikTok but those numbers aren’t translating over.
Daniel: Yeah, people looking at TikToks that have a trending sound, but then move on within 1 or 2 seconds.
Marc: Moving over to the artist management portion of your career, you manage a lot of artists right?
Daniel: I have a company that manages many artists, but I don’t do that much of it myself. I work with 2 artists specifically which is about all I can handle with Pop. As an artist manager, I want to work with artists that I 100% love and believe in. A few artists will be able to make a career out of only creating music that they love, but most artists will have to be versatile and hustle for opportunities if they want to make it.
Marc: So when you think about artists, how do people not only get streams but build some sort of context around who they are?
Daniel: You have to believe in what you’re doing and develop your career in connection with your audience. Whether that’s making records traditionally, starting a Patreon, or going on tour – you have to find out who and where your audience is and how to connect with them. You also need to have a strategy when it comes to showcases – you have to make the effort to understand what’s happening and who the key players are. I’ve had that happen a few times where I’m doing a one-on-one chat with an artist and when they show up to talk to me they have no idea who I am, they haven’t done any research. You can’t be lazy.
Marc: Does that happen a lot, people not doing their research?
Daniel: For the most part, yeah.
Marc: Where do you think that comes from? Is it a new problem?
Daniel: Naw, I don’t think so. I don’t want to be that guy who complains about everything, but you do need to play the game a bit, You also, on a human level, need to show people you’re interested in them and what they do, you care.
Marc: A lot of new artists don’t understand the hustle that goes along with being a musician. That’s a part of music that I don’t think is taught to young musicians. They know the ins and outs of the industry but not the human connection aspect of it
Daniel: Definitely. You need to do the research. If you have an opportunity to be an intern or meet with a label, you need to get your hands dirty- see what works and what doesn’t work.
Marc: Do you think people can learn the hustle? Or is it something you’re born with?
Daniel: You’re probably born with it to some extent. If you’re passionate though, you should be able to find the hustle because it’s what you love to do. Most people in the music industry are passionate, so if you’re not then it’ll be hard to get to the hustle. My main piece of advice: Find what you’re passionate about and the hustle will follow.
No one said it would be easy but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth it.
Marc: Ha! I love that – let’s end it there. It was so nice to meet you, thank you for dropping in!
Daniel: This was fun.
