A BLACKENED DEATH METAL BAND HAS A COLLEGE RADIO BREAKTHROUGH
Find out how radio remains relevant for a younger generation
What happens when you cold-email a bunch of radio contacts about your blackened death metal band?
In the case of Úzkost, vocalist Josh Thieler explains how it led to a memorable house show (and so much more).
Click play, it’s a wild story.
Josh explains how the magic has continued over the years:
“My understanding is, so the college radio stations started playing us and then one of these kids have like, graduated college and then started their own web radio stations. And so then they're playing us on those, and then other people hear about it, and they're playing us on their stations. And then some like real legitimate, like the one local radio station here, the Big Rock one has played us multiple times on it, which makes no sense to me.”
The band has gone from 200 Spotify followers to 2,800 as result.
As most of us know, it’s not just about unit sales and DSP playlisting:
“The last show that we played here, a mom brought her 13 year old trans daughter, and it was her first show she had ever been to,” says Josh. “And she's like, I love you guys so much. And she's like, bought each shirt, bought every record that we had. And she's like, I want to play metal someday. And I'm just like, how did this happen?”
During our chat, Alex asked “what would you say would be an actionable tip from this experience that you would pass on to other people?”
“I'm learning that I know less than I did the day before. So try as much as you have energy for, don't discount the things, you know, Seth pushes emailing lists and stuff. Do that. It's easy to set up.”
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Josh also dishes the age old wisdom for any creative person - networking is vital, but in an honest, organic, kind way.
“Just talk to people in bands. Talk to fans on the internet when you can, when you have the energy for it. Talk to people that write for different sites. Then, like I said, don't discount any of the things that we look at as dead from the past, like mailing lists, radio.”
That’s the thing - you gotta start somewhere, but you gotta do it at your own pace.
“It's obnoxious to like start this whole thing by yourself out of nowhere and just be like, okay, here's everything. Let me start trying to do everything at once and collect all these different contacts and everything. Start somewhere, and you just keep doing it. Once you gather those contacts, it's super low effort to just send a press release, you know, and you can use the same press release for your emailing list, you know, of fans that you send to your PR contacts and that includes all the radio people that you can find.”
None of this is a magic fix. Emailing your local college radio station this week might not be the answer - you just never know!
And if you’re not in a band, take this concept and run with it.
Maybe it’s not hitting up college radio, but maybe there’s a local print weekly, a flea market, a record store, a DJ night.
This is all built on people, on relationships. Build those up, and see where it goes.
Listen to Úzkost on Bandcamp.
ANTI-SOCIAL
A vulgar display of social media hostility
👋 Avatar’s Johannes Eckerstrom talks about leaving Twitter: “My main reason to be (on Twitter) has always been to promote band stuff, podcasts, and my Cameo account. I have come to feel that this platform has turned near useless for any of those things. Any sense of fun beyond these functions is drowned in a sea of bots, conspiracy theorists, and flat-out fascism.”
🤖 Meta has been using your Facebook and Instagram posts to train its AI products.
😮 “Usage has plunged, prompting Meta staffers to look for ways to revive interest in the app,” from ‘Instagram Looks for Ways to Revive Interest in Threads’
I’m Seth Werkheiser.
I help artists escape the social media rat race, reach their fans directly, and make more money.
Support this holy errand and become a paid subscriber.
Email: seth@closemondays.com
Web: closemondays.com