I’m Matt Bacon – head of artist development at Ripple Music – the label side of this whole thing. It’s an honor to get to wake up every day and work on Ripple artists. And now I get to work on sharing some of what I’ve learned with Ripple with you guys via The Ripple Effect! For my inaugural article I wanted to talk on the thing that has shined through the most in my five years with Ripple, and that is the importance of community for bands.
Community is important for bands. Now more than ever. It matters because it gives you a network to build off of. Not only that though but it also gives you a great place to learn from others and to build ideas. Most importantly – it lets you enter a group of the best friends you’ll ever have.
3. The Power Of Your Network
This is the biggest one for me personally. When you start to focus on engaging with your community you can start to tap into a really meaningful network. This is something we see all the time in Ripple’s community .It manifests in everything from bands playing shows together to touring acts getting a place to crash on the road. It’s even turned into the splits that have come to define our various split series.
Beyond that – I think it’s valuable to be connected to people because often they are also connected to relevant people who you might not normally be able to access. I’m not saying every relationship should be opportunistic, but I’m saying it’s good to be in a world where you can talk to your friends in the know and be plugged into a few hip producers for instance.
2. Learning From Others
This is something that I think folks don’t take advantage of enough. The people in your community are the people you can learn from. Maybe they have experiences you don’t have. Or they’ve made mistakes so that you don’t have too. The thing is if you don’t talk to the people in your community about these things then you just won’t know.
Reach out on social about the things you want to learn. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or look for guidance. You’d be surprised how often someone can come out of the woodwork with the skill you need and they will eagerly help because you immersed yourself in this community that we all love.
1. The Friendships
The friendships that you can make by being a part of the stoner rock community are probably the best part. Be it from overcoming a shared problem or just by having a great time at a show. I will never forget Mark from Zed helping me with a tricky web development issue. But I also love all my memories of the crazy Ripple showcases we have had around the world.
I think it’s important to embrace these, especially in these trying times because what are we without our friends? This is how we are able to move forward, through the dark night and into a brighter, more hopeful future. Immerse yourself in the community for this if nothing else.
In short there are a lot of reasons to love being a part of a good community of bands and labels. There are a lot of ways that you can grow from it. Be it because of the power of a good network, the fun of learning from others or just the friendships that you build. All these things go to a brighter future. Join us in the community, might I recommend starting with our Facebook group – Waveriders Unite?