This band will be an interesting one to watch. There are clear pathways that new bands should look to take when searching out success and this group seem to be confidently striding in the right direction. Emerging artists and their managers regularly ask us here at The Recommender how they can get noticed and ultimately signed. Now we don’t pertain to be any official kind of artist consultancy, but from now on we might just point out this band as a good example in how to find traction.
Paint The Dark are a trio from London. 2013 has seen them tease themselves out of their rehearsals as they gear up to launch their debut material. We have been in touch with the band and they explained that they first started out together just prior to last summer. They’ve spent the last nine months writing and recording their debut album. Herein lies their first lesson; try to keep yourselves on the down-low, record stacks of quality material, edit and complete a decent production, all before you even tell anyone that your band exists. Then, once the songs are banked, plan your attack.
Lesson number two comes in the form of the pre-launch. Bands have the power of the Internet at their finger tips these days, allowing them to leak information in a controlled fashion to the taste-makers and ‘Sneezers‘, setting off a viral campaign in an enough-but-not-too-much methodology, in order to generate that all important online chatter. Paint The Dark already garnered coverage from the likes of Killing Moon, This Is Fake DIY and Real Horror Show Tunez. One particularly useful tool for this is to film a short 30 second, beautifully-striking teaser video and upload it to Youtube. As you can see below, just three weeks ago, Paint The Dark released exactly that, with half a minute of atmospheric music playing over an abstract clip. A random woman stands in a misty wood with no explanation, no helpful information, it purely serves to tease and introduce the band’s name.
This kind of tease excites, it gets noticed, particularly because it looks classy and done with a certain amount of quality. Most importantly it leaves you asking more questions, rather than finding answers, and this is the key. People now want to know more. This is where the third step begins. Set out a structured plan to leak out your music. Start with a killer lead tune, via Bandcamp or Soundcloud, soon after your teaser video, then set about leaking one tune at a time over a series of weeks. Never leave the audience for too long, or they’ll forget you and move on, and don’t do what IAmAmIWhoAmI did and tease for two years. Let these singular songs gestate among the blogs and online commentators, you don’t even need to release any information about your band at this stage, as plenty of critics will still put your tunes up regardless.
The mid-stage of this process of hunting useful traction, and ultimately securing a record deal, is now due. You should now start to come out of the dark by engaging the bloggers, traditional media, radio and other music websites. Start handing out information, with names and other details in order to be useful to those commentators, most of whom will prefer to actually write editorial and inform their readers/listeners. This is the stage Paint The Dark seem to be at right now.
The teaser video teased and the first song, Lariat, was a delightfully-produced mixture of sweeping melodies, creamy smooth vocals, deadly industrial basslines and a gear-change chorus. The information is now arriving too, with the trio made up of Neil on bass, Rich on drums and Ben who primarily sings. They expand the lineup when playing live to add a keyboard player and a guitarist, although these performances are more than likely to be a part of the latter all-important stages of traction. This is where they begin securing a wider public base of support, something that the record labels particularly adore, plus it gives those A&R men something to be impressed by. The lead single is available to stream online now, but is yet to have any official launch date. They informed us that it will be out in the coming months and will be used to aid the beginning of any live shows or tours.
Today we have been handed the exclusive stream of the second song to appear from them, called Vying For Sunlight. It continues their classy pop themes, with a giant scale, a slow building up of layers and a patient-but-rewarding demonstration of skill – particularly from the machine-gun scattering of drums at two minutes in. It confirms this band have two very deadly but useful elements to them, talent and control. With a perfectly planned out design, not only to their songs, but to their direction, this is a band that really do seem to have it all in place. That’s not say they are there yet, as there’s still many miles to tread upon their path to a record deal and commercial success, but seeing as 99% of bands don’t even know which route to take, it’s great to witness a band striding so confidently along the right choices. This is a band not just worth listening to, but worth learning from. (MB)
PAINT THE DARK – LARIAT
PAINT THE DARK – VYING FOR SUNLIGHT
