Episode 56 Crowdfunding (with Zach Gehring) 1
Matt: Welcome to Don’t Feed The Trolls, a podcast where we dish without the ish. I am Matt.
Nate: And I’m Nate. And today we’re going to talk to our buddy Zach Gehring from the band Mae – you might remember the band Mae – about a big part of the DIY movement. Something Matt and I have done many times, and that is crowdfunding.
But first!
Matt: First we got some Troll Mail. Nate, you threw it out there the other week, you wanted to hear from maybe our youngest and our oldest listener. And I think we might’ve found the youngest. Which I feel a little bit weird about because I feel like now we have responsibility to speak to this person (laughs) a little nicer.
But he wrote us an email: “Dear Matt and Nate, my name is James. I’m 16, maybe youngest listener? I live in Idaho. I discovered you through a small group leader at church and I’ve listened to all your episodes since number four.”
Can you believe a small group leader at church would recommend us, Nate?
Nate: Yeah, isn’t that funny?
Matt: In Idaho? This guy, very progressive. “I really credit you guys with getting me into podcasts – “
Nate: Might be Jake.
Matt: (laughs) Could be. “And I listen to over thirty now. I’ve grown up in a very conservative Christian household” Me too, man! “And over the past few months I’ve really challenged myself to look beyond my presupposed ideas about politics, Christ, and life in America. Your podcast has really helped me think through my opinions and even change a few, even though I don’t always agree with everything you guys say. I just wanted to say thank you guys for all your hard work and let you know it is making a difference. Sincerely, James.
“P.S. I’m a Bigfoot believer.” (laughs) Nate loves that, Nate smiles.
Nate: There you go! Everyone in Idaho should be because that’s –
Matt: Nate flags every email we get from a Bigfoot believer.
Nate: I didn’t flag that one, that was just –
Matt: As proof! Yeah, I’m really encouraged by that, that’s awesome, man. Like we don’t want everyone to agree, we want you guys to argue with us and send us
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your emails. But we also love when people are open to new ideas. And it sounds like James at a young age, very precocious, is open to challenging some of those preconceptions in his life. So that’s awesome!
Nate: Yeah, yeah, it makes you feel bad for dropping the f-bomb every once in a while.
Matt: Well, you know, he’s a big boy, he’ll get over it. (laughs)
Nate: I’m 36 years old and I still feel bad about dropping the f-bomb. So, it doesn’t ever – you don’t grow out of that conservative guilt.
Matt: When you cross the lines vocabulary wise, that kickback shame that comes immediately. (laughs)
Nate: Yeah, even though we always drop them as exclamations to a story or a point. And it’s when you should use them, and we use them right, and yet we still feel guilty about it.
Matt: It’s a hard habit to kick.
Nate: Speaking of feeling guilty, we’re going to make all you listeners out there feel real guilty right now.
Matt: Yeah, that’s right!
Nate: Sucker you into backing our podcast on Patreon.
Matt: Yeah, patreon.com/dontfeedthetrolls, I believe it’s called. I think that’s the name of our podcast. We want to welcome a couple patrons this week. Michael Pollack has increased his pledge, so thank you. And Michael [Farbauk] is back, which I think we pledged before but then he came back around, I don’t know. Just want to thank you guys for supporting the show and taking care of us. And we hope that we can bring you some awesome exclusive content. If you guys haven’t check out our Patreon, go do it. We got a bunch of extra bonus goodies up there.
Nate: So many goodies.
Matt: As well as a completely different podcast, called Troll Talk. Where Nate and I just kind of shoot the breeze. So definitely check that out. Topic of the day –
Nate: There’s a lot to talk about, so we don’t have to dilly-dally for too long because we had a great talk with Zach.
Matt: We did have a great talk with Zach. Zach wrote his master thesis on crowdfunding and how it changes the relationship between artist and fan. And it was really intriguing stuff, stuff I’d never even – I’ve done, you know, a ton of
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crowdfunds for Classic Crime and for BC Music. And I didn’t think about a number of these things and how the dynamic had changed and so it was really thought provoking and I really appreciated Zach’s insights. And we think you guys will too!
So, listen on and we’ll welcome Zach to the podcast.
Nate: Welcome to the show, Zach Gehring, guitarist for the band Mae, who recently you did your senior thesis on crowdfunding. Which I participated in. Zach, you’re kind of like Matt where you’re not shy when it comes to expressing your views on Facebook which makes you a great guest. So I guess we can start off by saying – ask you, sorry – why did you do your senior thesis on crowdfunding?
Zach: I got my Master’s, it was a Master’s thesis.
Nate: Master’s thesis, sorry.
Zach: I’m just going to clarify. And I did it because I grew up playing music, you know, when I was in high school and when I was in college and before I quit college initially to play music full time. I was touring during the summer time. And I was using my own money with the band that I was in.
And so I came up in one culture. I’m 35 so, you know, this is probably late 90s, early 2000s, you know. And we’re using our own money to do this, everything was self-funded. Whether it be through parent’s money, work money, playing show, what have you. And so crowdfunding thing started happening. And it was just really interesting because I didn’t know how I felt about it.
Like the initial reaction from me was kind of, I guess that best word would be suspect. Kind of suspicious. But it wasn’t obviously outright, you know, kind of reaction against. It was just, “This is kind of a weird thing.” And so I started looking into it more. I started to have just more questions.
In doing my undergrad – I was getting my philosophy in undergrad – and I did like a Marxist critique on crowdfunding.
Matt: (laughs) A Marxist critique of crowdfunding.
Zach: Yeah and it was really bad. It was like for a three hundred level concourse and I was relatively unfamiliar with, you know, heavy Marxism. And it was just kind of this thing that I wanted to try and I did. You know.
I went to a professor afterward and I told him about this idea that I had. And then he offered to coauthor an article with me for like an academic journal. And that was something I was interested in and I knew that it was a steep learning curve, especially for me.
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So he helped and so we kind of developed this article together. And so that’s kind of how my interest started, it was just more of an assignment I had plus this kind of personal experience I had in the music industry.
And beyond that, you know, I just started working on that as a thesis because there was not critical work on crowdfunding and that was kind of what I was interested in doing.
There’s a lot of uncritical, just kind of like exploration of crowdfunding. Especially in the business world, like marketing and business courses. So all the journals, all the articles I would look up were just like these kind of opportunities. Entrepreneurialism, things like that. But for me, I experienced it from a different kind of perspective and I wasn’t seeing much scholarship on that.
Nate: So it sounded like you were a little bit suspect going into this. I mean, how do you feel after?
Zach: After, I still feel suspect. I’m still just kind of like middle of the road. I think it’s a case by case basis. So, you know, my thesis just looked at specifically how crowdfunding might alter the fan/artist relationship. And I think we have all played in bands in the Indie scene so to speak. We all like kind of cut our teeth on the road.
We understand, we have a valued understanding of this kind of dynamic, right? Between the fans that started to come to see us when we were just starting out versus these fans that stuck with us and then these new fans we are, you know, fortunate enough to acquire form working super hard.
And I thought that this was novel in one sense, but at the same time there is a vulnerability that was kind of built into the infrastructure of these crowdfunding sites, which is lack of oversight. And there’s also these values at work that are able to be exploited if you’re an artist.
So all that to say, I was interested in how the fan/artist relationship might develop. I was interested in the vulnerabilities that might be inherent in this kind of relationship. But within that perspective I was looking at the artist side of it.
Because there’s fan engagement which is one of these things were you just say, “Okay, well of course I like this band. And I’ll give ten bucks, I’ll give twenty bucks, you know, just to see what happens.” Just a good faith thing, you know? And this faith has built up over years.
And so I started to see this idea being translated in a way that I thought was disingenuous, I thought that was potentially manipulative. I though the value systems got really screwed.
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Matt: Are you talking about specifically when it came to bands who like maybe asked for things that they never plan on or intended to fulfill? That sort of like exploiting trust of their fan bases?
Zach: That happens. And for me I wasn’t trying to investigate that because I think those are easy, ethical breaches, right? There’s really no way around it. My interest was more if you’re – you know, I grew up paying fifteen bucks, twenty bucks for a cd. I grew up paying like twenty bucks for a show. I saw Dave Bazan do a house show for like fifteen bucks.
But on crowdfunding, I would see – and I don’t know if any of you crowdfunded. I have personal friends that are crowdfunded, so I want to say I’m going to say things that some of my friends might be guilty of, but it’s not –
Nate: Oh, we’re both guilty. (laughs)
Zach: No, I mean I’ve crowdfunded my own projects so it’s not about like you shouldn’t crowdfund. It’s just like, “How do you use this in a way that’s going to reward your fans of the most legitimate way, right?”
So you have people that will say, “Oh, I will play a house show for you if you give me two thousand dollars and pay my flight out.” So, to me that’s egregious.
Matt: Right.
Zach: Basically because I know that I’ve seen one of my favorite artists of all time for fifteen bucks down the road. You know? And so I’m not saying that you can’t ask for more than whatever, but I’m also saying that, “Look. I know that this doesn’t cost you this much money.” And I know if you want to get out there and play, then you might just ask for cost to get out and play for free. Or you might just ask for two hundred bucks, you know, or a place to stay while you’re out there.
Matt: So the Marxist critique would be that’s like price gouging? Profiteering. But then on the other side I mean, if you’re making a critique that’s based on price then that varies based on what people are willing to pay for it. If it’s a critique based on principle, then that’s completely different, right? Because it’s more based on – yeah, go ahead.
Zach: I feel like I’m following your question, and correct me if I answer incorrectly. But in that sense okay, so you have this approach that says, okay number one there’s this philosophy going into this idea. If the fans, these fans are giving freely, right? They’re not being like forced into paying, offering this money, right? So there’s one approach that says, “Well, let’s see what we can get. Let’s ask for this much. If we don’t get it, we don’t get it.”
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Right? I just think that’s a backwards approach because on the other hand, if we’re going to speak about this kind of dependency, this urgent dependence on fan donations, you know, then there’s larger economic and industrial constraints and contingencies at play. In recent years you have this kind of dismantling of the industry. And the new media technologies that we have. So in one way it enables artists to do things more liberally without these kind of – without relying on these third parties that had traditionally exploited artists, right?
So there’s that thing. But then there’s the other side of it where the artist can now –
Nate: They set the market price, right? With no, yeah.
Zach: Set the market. And I think that because of these narrative that can be employed, right. That because you can say, “This is my dream and I need to do this. And I can’t do this without you. And I’m earnest.” And you know, they kind of play on these tropes that have been around the music for a long time. These are not new tropes, like you have this kind of, that’s kind of like the underlying framework of the whole indie and punk rock scene that I came from. Like, “Okay, well, this is a mutual investment for us.” Right?
And so that kind of idea is used in the sense of we are creating narratives. And then it’s employed in a certain way that actually I would argue can disempower the fan more so. Because the fan really has no easy legal recourse to come after artists that they feel have, you know, done them wrong in some sense.
And these things are very subjective, right? So I’m looking at genre because in the indie genre it’s different than the hip-hop genre and the country genre. So there’s a lot of things that are in play and so I’m not trying to generalize at all. I’m just saying that in my experience I see this things happening and it’s turning out this way.
Matt: There are problems within it, yeah. They need to be addressed for sure.
Zach: Yeah. And there’s also, you know if a crowdfunding campaign like just goes out and it does well, then that’s great. And I think that fans do feel more involved. But at the same time, I mean, let’s be honest. When I say “we” I mean the artist who are asking for the money that we want to do. And we don’t really have any intention of letting these fans in too much of the creative aspect of things. Or in terms of what we’re going to do with our product, right?
So there’s this kind of thing where we’re asking them for money to do something, but we’re telling them these things or we’re saying these things that are very kind of saccharine and very sweet and very just kind of like, that turns me off.
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Matt: Right, so that, “We can’t do it without you and I need this specific amount and like only you can make it happen.”
Zach: And then we get into the amounts where I do see upwards of two or three thousand dollars for certain things that I know don’t cost that much. And I know that there’s this kind of like opportunistic approach to these campaigns.
Nate: Yeah, a couple crowdfunding things come to mind. Like Eisley got kind of in trouble because I think in 2013 they asked for a hundred thousand dollars to just have a tour bus to open up for Say Anything.
Zach: Yep, I remember that.
Nate: And fans went crazy and totally butchered them. And then they kind of like didn’t hit their goal and it kind of fell off. But now you have things crazier. Like I just emailed this girl to try to get her on the show to talk about this, but she raised thirty thousand dollars on GoFundMe because he parents didn’t support the fact that she had a black boyfriend. So she’s raised over thirty thousand dollars just for college.
And so she doesn’t have to give people anything, it’s just, “Feel bad.”
Matt: That’s GoFundMe. GoFundMes are kind of the worst because there’s no exchange of goods or services. But at the same time, that goes to show how much emotion, like you were saying, go into these things. You know, whether negative or positive, how much it appeals to some sort of emotional need or desire. And how much the language is kind of provoking those emotions in a way.
Zach: Well, you know when I was looking at crowdfunding campaigns, doing the research, you see similar themes form artist to artist. And this is this theme of passion, this idea of dreams, this idea of dependency, this idea of involvement. Participation.
I mean, on our end, we understand what executive producer means and producer means, right? Do fans understand that? Maybe, maybe not, depends on who you’re asking. But to charge any amount of money to get a title on a record that’s something that, for me, like yes. The fan might enjoy that. You know, but for me like I just don’t like –
Matt: Is everything for sale? Right. Is credit for sale?
Zach: So, you know, it’s just this thing that happens within this context of media liberalism. This kind of really this ideology that encourages and it kind of enshrines this idea of entrepreneurial work. “We’re going to do it ourselves.”
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On the other hand, it’s a lot of work for the artist if they do try to come through on everything they said. And I think generally artists do try to come through. They’re good willed. You know?
So even if artists do ask for like a lot of money, I don’t think I agree with it. I don’t think they’re doing this out of – you know, I would just say that it’s a lot of work to do a crowdfunding campaign. And so the irony of seeing crowdfunding consultants is beyond me. Because like you’re paying for someone – you don’t have the money to project, but you’re going to pay for someone to help you do it.
I think that it’s just a lot of work. A lot of the things that labels used to handle, they don’t handle anymore. So if you take things on by yourself, it’s a full-time job and there’s things that you can quantify, or commodify I should say. And there’s things that maybe you can’t. But I think that you’re starting to see a commodification of a lot of things that should not be commodified in my opinion.
Matt: Right. Yeah so, I mean, I wonder, did you get into the critique of maybe in the fan/artist relationship, maybe the fact that you tier up these exclusive packages to like higher dollar amounts. You get more and more exclusive, more and more access to the artist. Was there anything in your critique that spoke about maybe the people who have financial means being able to get access to the artist? As opposed to, you know, that original indie DIY scene where it was like you were there first. And regardless of if you’re wealthy or not, like we always provide for our original fans.
Zach: No, I mean, I did not go that angle in that critique, but that just goes to show, I mean, that’s a valid approach to take. Where you can say, “Okay well, we’re prioritizing what? We’re rewarding not devotion. We’re reward the ability to express that devotion financially.” And that’s not something everyone can do.
I mean, there’s between myself and Dave, the singer of Mae, we both crowdfunded. There’s one particular fan of ours that, you know, gave substantially to both campaigns. And I just think he has these means to do so. And that’s how he expresses his fanship or one of the ways. He comes to shows, he’s a cool guy, you know.
But you have this kind of tiering that reflects certain things that people don’t have control over. Or I guess, so directly.
Nate: So it sounds like anyone who hasn’t done a crowdfund or isn’t in a band, just to kind of speak to people who are in the middle who haven’t done either side of this – it is hard on both sides of the coin. Whether you’re a fan and you give thirty- five bucks and then you have to wait maybe sometimes a year before you get anything back. And if you’re the artist, I know fulfilling all this stuff is impossible.
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I mean, I did one for a solo album and I think I lost money on everything.
Zach: Oh, it’s super hard. And you know, I think fans are really forgiving. You know? In the case of Eisley, I think they just at the time maybe crowdfunding was become this thing that people are used to so they’re seeing certain campaigns go one way versus the other. But I think that fans are generally pretty forgiving in terms of how long you might take to reward, send those perks out based on what the schedule you kind of put forth initially –
Matt: Yeah, as long as you’re up front and communicative.
Zach: Yes, exactly. I think communication is –
Nate: But it doesn’t even matter how much you communicate because like I did a record in 2012 and I’m still getting emails from Kickstarter like, “So and so filled out their backer report.” Four years later! I’m like, “What?!”
Matt: I’m very up front about telling people if you’re – because I hunt people down. If there’s people who – basically I chase down for like six months to get them to fill out their survey. And if they don’t fill it out, I’m very up front about saying like, “You didn’t fill it out in time and I’m not sending you anything.” (laughs) Because I worked really hard to get – I look up people on Facebook, I message them from my personal profile, friend them if I haven’t yet. And so I work really, really hard to get people their stuff and if they get back to me four years later, it’s way out of the range of what I’m willing to fulfill.
And I think people know that, I think people know that now. They know they kind of screwed up, you know. If it’s something like they needed to change their address or whatever and it’s all within a reasonable timeframe, I’ll help out.
Nate: I kind of want to understand more of what you’re trying to get to, because I think that’s the more interesting part of this conversation. So like let’s use those two examples that I threw out.
This girl, Allie, her parents disown her, she’s 18 years old. People just give her thirty thousand dollars. It’s almost like she can’t really be held like responsible for like doing something lame because she just put it out there and people gave her money.
Versus Eisley who is kind of exploiting their fans’ emotions. “Hey, we have kids, we can’t really tour anymore, but if you really want to see us, give us a hundred grand and we’ll come to your town, maybe.”
Are you saying Eisley is kind of more at fault than this girl kind of here?
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Zach: Well, first I mean, I think GoFundMe is an entirely different platform. And I think we’re also dealing with someone who is asking for money more in a direct charity type of way versus Eisley who are kind of engaging –
Nate: But it kind of sounds like charity if you read what Eisley wrote for their crowdfund.
Zach: That’s the thing, but Eisley is a band. And we know that Eisley has had moderate success as a band. We know that they are choosing to tour a certain way, that’s not necessary. Which I think is a big deal.
Nate: Tour bus. Yeah, for people who don’t know, a tour bus costs about a thousand dollars a day, no matter what.
Zach: Yeah, I mean, the last few tours Mae have done, just van and trailer, and we were in a bus before, and so like, there’s just things you adapt to to save money. And just embrace the reality of your economic situation at the time, you know? And with the Eisley case and I think with bands and art in general you’re engaging certain rhetoric that has a lineage.
And what I mean by that is that art has always just had a special place in people’s – their own lives, right? So it’s a very powerful thing and people are prone to respond in a way. I mean, fans, you think about the fans you have, the bands that you’ve been in. I mean, it’s a powerful thing and I think that with crowdfunding it just becomes super delicate because you’re asking, you’re taking control of the reins. Which in one thing is a good thing, right? So you don’t have to rely on a label.
But that removes that third man that you can easily place blame one. I mean, when you think about the structure of the industry before, like, “Look, it’s that labels, the manager. I mean, no I’m sorry, I can’t do this, the band – “ You know you have a structure that allows for this kind of negotiation between quote unquote authenticity – which I think is a bad word or at least a problematic term – of the artist versus this monolith in which they have to work in order to bring the fans what they want, right?
So now, since the labels have just been kind of like been radically kind of restructured in terms of how they work, it gives the artist more freedom. You know, like “I’m going to put this song up by myself, I’m going to put it on Soundcloud, and I’m going to do this.” So there’s a lot of new liberties in there.
But it puts a direct – you bring the fan in in a very direct sense that they weren’t a part of before and so you are engaging a certain relationship and exploiting, and I don’t mean that in like the intentional negative sense. I think you’re just utilizing the relationship for a certain end. And that end, you know, like let’s say I do crowdfund. And let’s say I raise the money to record and mix and master all on
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crowdfunding back, you know? And then I sign to a label with the record that they funded. And that deal included points obviously for the label, but the fans don’t get any of that kickback that maybe if the record is successful, right?
Now we could say, “Okay, well that’s not my responsibility. The fans knew what was going on.” Yes, you know. Of course. But I just think there’s – crowdfunding has been normalized. And I think people just kind of crowdfund. You know, I think it’s just like it’s one of the first things you think of these days in terms of how to fund a project?
Nate: But now there’s equity crowdfunding so people are trying to –
Zach: Which is big deal. You know, this whole they’re financializing it, they’re kind of looking to get legislation involved.
Matt: Yeah, seed invest. I just got this thing where I bought some jeans through like Instagram and they sent me a, like some seed invest equity thing where you can buy stocks pre IPO or whatever.
Zach: Weird. Like that’s the learning situation. Like I don’t have that kind of knowledge to even know what they really means. And I have been reading, I read an article the other day about how this is kind of causing some kind of confusion. There’s not sufficient oversight for these kind of equity buy-ins.
So going back to the GoFundMe thing, I mean, when Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, supporters of – I forget the cop’s name. Wilson, Darren Wilson, started a GoFundMe campaign to pay for his legal fees, so to speak. And then Michael Brown’s family started one to pay for his funeral fees or associated costs.
And so now we’re getting into this kind of political, pseudo-political situation where in one sense these are political opinions and social issues expressed through this website. While at the same time the website really offers no recourse. You know, there is questions of the legality of actually using a crowdfunding private funds to pay for an officer’s legal fees.
So there’s these, it becomes like a stage or performance. In one sense you have this money being transferred that really is not going anywhere. I mean, there are guys who try to trace where the money was actually going for the Darren Wilson fund and they couldn’t really find it. It was kind of linked to various organizations.
So there’s a lot of issues. I mean, GoFundMe is an entirely different beast, because like I think you said, Nate, there’s really, you don’t have to give money back. It’s just asking for money. People are asking for college, people are asking for money for doctor’s fees. So it really reflects a lot of things.
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Nate: But I’ve even seen where like, the weird thing is like where it goes third party. Like I saw this thing where this guy walked to work every day, ten miles. And then somebody found out about it and started their own GoFundMe for this guy and then next thing you know, he raises two hundred and fifty thousand dollars because he walks to work every day. And now this guy is like, “Is this my money? Is it coming to me? And then what do I do? I have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that I’m now accountable for, I got to pay taxes on.”
Matt: You can ruin people’s life with all that money.
Zach: No, exactly. Like these question are raised and I haven’t really seen much about it lately. I saw an article today about scammers through crowdfunding. I also see also to of academic research being crowdfunded. I did a short kind of a field question for a website when I was doing my studies. And you know, you have this one thing where this crowdfunding research, but what does that reflect? It reflects that grant money is really hard to come by. And so maybe if crowdfunding for research takes off, then the states and the federal government might say, “Okay well, there’s less need for academic research funding.”
Which is a problem because there’s a lot of infrastructure built into these kind of regular vetting of academic research that you don’t have when you crowdfund because it goes private.
And so, you know, there is a lot of these things that are just kind of questions up in the air with crowdfunding.
Nate: Well, I want to say, it become a burden too. Like, I get emails every year from Wikipedia like, “We really need you to donate because you know, if not there’s no more Wikipedia.” And you’re kind of like –
Zach: We’ll lose it, right. We’re not going to be able to do it anymore.
Matt: I’m in a band called The Classic Crime, we were on Tooth and Nail Records. Same record label as you guys. And so we kind of parted ways with the label in 2010. And in 2011, it seemed like crowdfunding was kind of taking off. I think I remember seeing the Five Iron Frenzy one, which they got like two hundred thousand dollars, you know which seemed super driven by nostalgia and all that.
But it seemed like once the crowd sourcing systems were in place, once Kickstarter was there, people seemed to flock to support the campaigns and the products they cared about. I mean, this was before, you know, there was issues of like, “Oh wait, I never got my cd.” You know? But it just seemed like people were all about it. All about like getting rid of the middle man and getting that direct to fan, having that relationship.
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So we did it, and we asked for thirty thousand dollars. Which a lot of people were like, that’s a ton of money. But we thought it was less than half of what we would get for a record to do a record on Tooth and Nail. So we figured we could do it for less than half of what the label would put up as far as a budget goes.
And there was no problems because in twenty-four hours we sold enough packages to meet that goal. So as soon as we came out, we sold enough packages to meet that goal and it was like, “Oh my gosh!”
And then suddenly – and this was 2011 – it kind of blew up online as like a story. Like this band overnight, you know, raised thirty grand. And then there was like a backlash of people who didn’t know about us and weren’t fans of us but were like, “Who are these people who think that they need thirty thousand dollars to make a record? I can make a record in my cousin’s basement for a hundred bucks.” You know? And so like everybody was weighing in critique.
And we got like trolled super hard on our Facebook page by like people who thought like music should be free. It was like more like an east coast underground pop punk scene that was just like, you burn cds, you give them out, like that’s the scene.
And I’m like, “I’m sorry, I’m not from that scene. I don’t know the code of ethics, I definitely never agree to that.”
Zach: That’s unrealistic honestly, you know?
Matt: Yeah, (laughs) but I lost sleep over it. I lost sleep over what should have been –
Nate: A celebration.
Matt: A huge shot in the arm because we though our band was over. We were like, “This is going to be our last record. We’ll just do it. If we can raise this, we can take the time off work, we can put it out, fulfill all the packages.” Well, we ended up raising eighty-six grand on the crowd fund.
Zach: Awesome!
Matt: Which seems like a lot of money, but then of course, you know, half that goes to fulfilling and manufacturing and the vinyl. And everything is like a ten thousand dollar chunk. And then everyone was like, “Well, what are you going to pay yourselves?” And I’m like, “Well, nothing because I feel obligated that everybody gave this money to like make this product.” So, you know, I got like Ted Jensen from like Sterling Sound in New York who mastered the Eagles, to master it, you know. Because I was just like, “Well, I got to spend the money on the record.”
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So when it was all said and done – and we like physically shipped everything ourselves. We packed everything up ourselves. Like I was very intentional about making sure that like everything was done right. And it was, overall it ended up being a really rewarding and fun and hard, but like good, experience. And the fans seemed to be really into it. And the band was like, “Wow, it looks like we can do this.”
And my worry was, maybe crowdfunding isn’t like a long-term thing, but right now as long as it’s working, we can make records. And it seems like people love this exchange.
Nate: Which you might have an odd problem when like, you know, you’re Five Iron Frenzy and all of a sudden two hundred thousand dollars rolls in and then the band members start fighting. Like, “Hey, where’s this money go. Who gets this money?” You know what I mean?
Matt: Yeah, I saw the record budget gets the money, nobody takes it.
Nate: Yeah, but Five Iron Frenzy is not going to spend two hundred thousand dollars on an album. They’re just – if they do, they’re just not very smart, so.
Matt: (laughs) It’ll be the best sounding Five Iron Frenzy record ever.
Nate: Tom Lord-Alge mixes the new Five Iron Frenzy!
Zach: You know what funny is you mention the problem of too much money. I mean, I think that’s a problem that Amanda Palmer ran into that she was obviously this groundbreaking, notorious, case study for crowdfunding.
Nate: Didn’t she raise like a million dollars?
Zach: Yeah, and she was asking for like five hundred thousand, which number one is like a lot. And then she made like a million bucks and she got a lot of heat for it. But I think, you know, Matt, you bring up a good point. At the end of the day I mean, look if you’re crowdfunding and this exchange involves your fans and what you want to do, I mean, that’s a focus that needs to be retained.
And I think when you talk about this kind of obligation you feel, whether or not that was aggravated by what you were seeing people troll you with. And maybe you felt – this is me projecting entirely, so don’t think I’m trying to read into you.
Matt: No, no, no. I’m reading it.
Zach: Maybe you felt, you did sort of feel guilty. Maybe this stuff kind of –
Matt: I did, yeah.
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Zach: And so you started doing this things where –
Nate: I think everyone who does one feels guilty in some regard.
Matt: Well, no, I felt like it was so successful so fast I was not expecting that. I was expecting it was going to go thirty days and we were just going to creep over our edge at the end and then we were just going to fulfill this smaller thing. And it ended up being three times what we asked for. And I was like, “I can’t stop it.” It’s like it goes for thirty days. It’s like people keep buying packages and I feel like people hate me because other people are buying. I’m not holding a gun to their head, they just keep doing it. So. (laughs)
Zach: And you know, I think that can kind of facilitate or nurture this kind of new kind of engagement with their fans. A new kind of hands-on because you said you kind of like, you guys did yourself. You literally shipped that stuff out, you packaged it up.
I mean, so in once sense like you get this kind of discord vibe, right? Where all of a sudden here you are packing this stuff up for so-and-so, I don’t know, I think that’s why it’s so interesting. Because you have these conflicts and these things in flux. And you have the opinion of people who say, “Oh, well you know, they should crowdfund for this, but once they ask for that, it’s weird.”
Matt: Well, right. Someone was so mad, one of the trolls was so mad because basically we tiered up. Like I tried to make the fifty dollar package the most appealing. Like that’s the one you get your name in the album liner notes and you get the t- shirt and the cd and the early download and like all this stuff for like fifty bucks. Because I figured that should be, that’s like affordable for everybody. And I wanted to make it like the coolest package.
And then up from there I went to like a hundred bucks, we’re going to do a limited pressing of vinyl. And it included everything in the fifty bucks, plus something else, plus vinyl. And someone was so made that their interpretation of that was, “You’re asking a hundred dollars for vinyl.” And I’m like, “No, that’s just the package that it comes in. There’s also six other things in that package.”
But they were like, “Vinyl should be no more than twenty-five bucks!” You know? And they were like angry about that. And so it was just so weird to have this like, you know, in once sense we were like super elated that like people cared enough to support our band so much in twenty-four hours.
And then the backlash happened and I was just like, “Oh my gosh.” Like I felt like physically threatened. (laughs)
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Nate: But Matt, you know what’s funny is you’re like kind of a purist when it comes to crowdfunding. Because you feel like you have a different set of rules. You feel like all the money raised in the crowd fund should go directly to the project. None of it should go in your pocket. Whereas some people would say, “Look you got to make something to pay for our hours to do the work.” You know you’re marketing guy at the record label is going to get paid a salary to market your album, why can’t you?
Matt: Right. Well if you’re putting hours in, yeah, you log your hours. I’ve done that. Our second one, we did like an acoustic ten year anniversary album where we did a bunch of our old songs acoustically. And we asked for fifteen because I was like, “Well, it’s acoustic. You know, I ‘m going to record this in my own studio. You’ll have the people who’ll like mix it and stuff. But like I want to take my time, take six months, do this things cool. Get strings, piano, everything that we don’t normally have as a rock band.”
And we asked for fifteen and then we raised fifty. And so I was like, “Crap! Well now I’m like stuck here making sure that this acoustic album is like the best sounding acoustic album ever.” Because it was just a lot of pressure.
But one of the things I want to ask you, Zach, about this. One of the things that I was worried about – and we just did a third one last May, because I don’t know what else to do and it seems to work – but we did our third one and I was thinking, “Is this still going to be a thing?” Like I feel like at some point the heat has to die off or people have to be over it or roll their eyes at it. I mean, that just happens with different marketplaces and such. It’s even happening with like Craigslist. People are like, “Yeah, I don’t want to use Craigslist anymore.” Or whatever.
But then we do it, and we do it on Kickstarter again so we have all our kind of built in fans. Fans are built in, they have their accounts there. And we asked for thirty again like we did on the first one. And we raised ninety-nine thousand dollars, which is basically like fifteen grand more than the first one. And about five hundred more backers.
Zach: You’ve done three crowdfunding projects. Three?
Matt: Yeah.
Zach: And each time, the first time was what? You raised –
Matt: First time was eighty-six, which was like 285%. The second time was over 300%, because it was fifty on fifteen asked for the acoustic record. And the third time we asked for thirty and we got ninety-nine which was percentage-wise not as big, but it was huge!
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Zach: That’s insane. So, I mean, to you question in terms of your band Classic Crime. I mean, obviously it doesn’t seem to show any signs of letting up. I think that, you know, is it becoming this things where it’s the way records are funded? Right? Is this, you know, maybe so. I don’t really know how the industry works on the official side anymore. I’ve been –
Nate: (laughs) None of us do.
Zach: Yeah, exactly, right? So I couldn’t really say how it works there, but what I did with my study was a speculative critique, right? I did interview some artists and I tried to get their take on it. But when it comes down to this exchange, I mean, what I think is most important is what it does to you relationship with your fans and how this kind of –
Matt: Yeah, I felt like the dynamic changed pretty dramatically from one of like a bit of mystery maybe, to just more like, “Hey, here I am. Packing things up in my garage.”
Nate: Yeah, I was going to ask you that question, Zach. And I use movie metaphors a lot on this podcast to explain my questions.
Zach: Good deal.
Nate: It kind of feels like once you crowdfund, you step off the field of dreams and you just go back to being the normal guy. You know what I mean? Like before you’re on the baseball field and you’re this legend and it’s like, “Oh my gosh! That’s Shoeless Joe Jackson!” and then he steps off the field and he’s just this dentist. And you’re like, “Uh…”
Matt: And that’s why I feel like it sort of goes along the principles of social media because people want to follow people on Twitter because they see their vulnerabilities, their misspells, their errors, their humanity, right? And that’s kind of like crowdfunding, I think that’s the appeal at least, is that it’s slightly adorable. It takes the artist off the stage and into your living room, you know, with struggles. Financial struggles are even sort of adorable like, “Oh, they can’t make it? Well, I can spend twenty bucks and help them make it.”
But then what you’re saying – and I’ve seen this happen with massive like metal bands who have tons more likes on Facebook than my band, and they do a Kickstarter and they can’t raise anything. Because they have this propped up projected, you know, ideal image of themselves that they’re extremely wealthy or important or on this pedestal. And people see them coming with their hands out with a crowdfunding campaign and they’re like, “Whatever, dudes. Like, you know, you’re just greedy.”
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Zach: Well, that’s where genre comes into the picture, you know? Because with the indie scene I think it’s always been built on this more kind of, there’s a simple mentality to it. There is a directness to it where you used to go to shows at VFW halls and there was no backstage. Like this kind of intimate –
Matt: You just mingle, yeah. It’s a community of artists and fans kind of movement.
Zach: Yeah, I do think the crowdfunding can translate that and I just really think that there’s a lot of space for this manipulation to occur.
Nate: That is interesting that sometimes it feels like the VFW hall, like the vagrant records band, and help them get to the next town. And then sometimes it feels manipulative.
Zach: Yeah, and I think –
Nate: Like, “This metal band shouldn’t be asking for money, they were millionaires!” You know?
Zach: How it plays out on the flip side too, like when it’s done in the case of Classic Crime if you guys are continually successful, it can only mean that you are doing something correct with your fans.
Matt: Right, I’m exchanging goods for money. Services and goods for money. And people think it’s a good deal. Which it the thing that I’m mostly concerned about because if people think – then that’s the stress, I think, in my mind too. If I don’t make a great record, and I’m, you know, principle songwriter and the guy recording a lot of stuff, so it’s just a lot on my plate. If I don’t make a good record, they won’t come back next time. They’ll be like, “Nah, the last one sucked.”
And that is completely subjective. So it’s so much more pressure because I have to make something that I like that I think they like. People are like, “Do you like not being on the label? And they’re not telling you what to do?” I was like, “The label never told me what to do. I feel way more pressure now because I have people’s money before I even make it, you know?”
Nate: Well you definitely appreciate record labels after you do a crowdfund all across the board. You’re like, “Oh!”
Zach: With me, I’d almost rather do it on a record label now. That was my point. The preorder. What this is when you get inside is just, this is a preorder. Right? And I think that the campaign language should be this kind of idea like, “Look, this is going to be a preorder.” And I think it becomes a normalized exchange between the fans and the band. So I’m assuming that you and your fans, you have consistent backers. You have a level of engaged fan that you can rely on.
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And in that sense, like you said, “Those are the only people that I care about and I have faith that those people like what I do.” And so the ambition shifts. So you’re not really trying to build a fan base anymore, you’re not opposed to it –
Matt: Just maintain it, yeah. No, I’m not against it.
Zach: Yeah, but it’s not like this direct kind of effort within these campaigns to build a fan base. Are you guys touring still?
Matt: We do like two weeks maybe once or twice a year. Yeah, guys take the time off work and we do West coast and then East coast.
Zach: I think that’s what happens with bands is we kind of – Mae does the same thing. It’s like, “Oh, let’s do one a week or two. I can’t do it with a kid.”
Matt: Well, we’re kind of revolutionizing that whole aspect too, cutting middle men out of that. And that’s been going really good. Actually we make more money touring now the way that we do it than we ever did when we sold a bunch more records than we do.
Nate: Yeah, so I was going to ask you, like what’s Mae up to? And are you guys going to crowdfund?
Zach: Well, me and Dave’s experience with crowdfunding –
Nate: Bittersweet?
Zach: I think Dave had a pretty intense one. He asked for a lot of money for the schematic thing. And I think he ran into things that maybe he couldn’t conceptualize of beforehand, right? So once you do it, like you run into these situations where you just, you’re surprised.
And obviously I’m not going to speak for him. He doesn’t seem at the time too interested in doing that again at a large scale level. Myself, I’ve crowdfunded my other project and I asked for like thirty-five hundred bucks. And my top donation point was fifty bucks. And it was like, I mean I guess this is just me telling you about the fact that I have crowdfunded and so I did want to have the experience and see what it was all about before I actually wrote a whole critique on it.
And so I’m like, “Okay, well I’m going to do like ten bucks, twenty bucks, and fifty bucks. That’s all I’m going to do.” And it matches the value system that I’m used to which is like if you go to a show, you know, you can maybe get a cd for ten bucks, a shirt for twenty, I don’t know. I just tried to mirror that kind of off that physical experience.
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And what I did was, what the fifty dollar donor – I said, “If this record makes money, if I not only recoup but I start getting money back, then I will send you checks split up based on – “
And I said this. And the thing is, it is kind of humorous because obviously we know we’re not going to make money on this kind of stuff. Especially if you do it –
Matt: Right, but it’s about the intent, right?
Zach: But I think there’s a symbolism about it that I think is important. That you say you’re going to do this on this record, then you’ll do it. Now, I started the campaign, it was through Indiegogo. I did a fixed campaign. I don’t know why I did Indiegogo not Kickstarter, that was just a decision I made. I think Dave had done Indiegogo, so he said, “I can help you out and stuff.” So it was like, “Alright, I’ll do Indiegogo.”
And I think it was PayPal called me and they said, “You can’t – “ Now this was before this kind of legislation was passed about equity investment, right?
Matt: Yeah, you can’t send the money?
Zach: Yeah, they said, “You can’t promise money back. This is not an investment. Like this is a contribution or a donation.” They said, “You can do what you want, you just can’t word it this way.” So I changed the wording. So I don’t think I would have made my mark if it weren’t for the Mae fan base I could rely on. But I did. And, you know, it was an okay experience for me just because I didn’t promise really anything at all aside from a record and a shirt, you know?
Matt: Right. So Nate and I are on Patreon. You know we do this podcast and people can support or whatever. It’s coming out either way. But I get on Patreon and I see a lot of these – because it’s a different, on-going, recurring crowdfunding thing. I see a lot of people who start Patreons and they’re not doing anything. And they’re not even like, they’re saying, “Hey, fund my life. And watch me do adventures. And I have no fan base, nobody follows me on social media. There’s nothing I offer.” And that’s kind of what I’m seeing on GoFundMe, too. It’s just like people every day, someone sends me a GoFundMe or I see it in my feed.
It’s like, “I’d like a new guitar! GoFundMe!” And, you know, Nate and I and you, we’re from the age where you like you fund your own projects. And that’s how you get fans. And you buy that van and you go on that tour and you get in front of people. And you press your cd and that’s how it works. You save up and you mow lawns all summer and you buy your drum set. That’s how it works.
But there seems to be a shift in culture and I don’t know if it’s just, you know, millennial generation or what sort of psycho-social thing is going on. But what
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would you say – and speaking of bands specifically, because I deal with a lot of people who are wanting to crowdfund me. They see some of the success that I’ve had or the bands that I’ve worked with with BC Music, they’re like, “Well, I want to do a crowdfund. Can you help me?”
And I usually have a list of things that I tell them. But what would you say? Like when do you think it’s a good time for a band to do a crowdfund of some sort and then is there just a time where you just shouldn’t? (laughs)
Zach: I would say if a band asked me about crowdfunding I would say, “If you’re going to do it, I would just say, don’t offer too much. Don’t offer more than you can give back in a reasonable amount of time.” And I would say, “Always do not the open funding, but the closed funding. Never do like a funding where you can still get the money if you don’t meet your price point.”
Because, you know, maybe getting into a situation where someone donated one of the high amounts to something that you’re going to have to now produce and make. And it’s going to like screw up your budget, you know?
Nate: Yeah, like vinyl.
Zach: Yeah, I would say always communicate why you’re asking for what you’re asking. I do think specifics in terms of that help. But I mean I think –
Nate: Don’t ask for handwritten lyrics because that just takes forever. (laughs)
Matt: Yeah. I always tell people, stay away from the experiential stuff. And maybe that’s a little bit what you’re talking about, the whole para-social relationship that you’re exploiting. The experience like, “Come hang out with us and play Frisbee golf for five thousand bucks.” (laughs)
Nate: Hey, I’ll do that. I’ll play Frisbee golf all day long.
Matt: I mean, I do it. But I’ll feel like, I’ll feel terrible. (laughs)
Zach: That’s like a specific point that me and my advisor [inaudible] like talked about. The difficulty in quantifying the value of music is the fact that it is an experiential good. Right? You can pay for a ten dollar cd, but that cd has this kind of like unmeasurable value in your life for years and years and years.
You could pay seventy-five bucks to see Ryan Adams, with the understanding that he might, you know, depending on when you see him, he might be drunk, he might like – you know you’re going into a situation where you don’t know what’s going to happen. You know, best case scenario you get two hours of music and that’s it. Right?
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So there is just kind of an experiential side of music and art that is enabling in terms of crowdfunding but also kind of constrictive when you thing about how that aspect is exploited.
And I think you hit on a big point. That with crowdfunding when you value these experiential goods in a particular way, it’s very presumptive, right? You’re saying that our time is so valuable and this is how valuable it is. When at the very same time you’re asking them to fund something that you can do on your own. Say, “Well, we need you, but we’re going to charge you this much money to come have dinner with us.” You know?
Matt: So we did that once – well, we’ve done that a couple times – where we sold a Space Needle dinner. So you come to Seattle and we’ll all go to the Space Needle. And we film a video which we put on our YouTube, like basically capturing the whole experience. We did two of them.
And I think it was like fifteen hundred bucks or something like that to get it. But literally like we go up there, we film this whole things, we have like a four course meal, whatever they want to drink, whatever. And the bill comes out to well over a thousand bucks. (laughs) So it’s not like we’re profiting a ton, like it’s more just like we want to have a nice meal with you guys and have this cool experience and then we’ll also document it. And it’ll be like forever in video form.
And I feel less douchy about that, because it’s not just like, you know, we actually have some hard costs to have an amazing meal. It’s not just Frisbee golf which is, you know, free. Or, you know, go cars which we did once. Which was, you know, a lower cost. It was a little bit higher, but yeah. I totally get what you’re saying.
We’re not trying to charge people to have dinner with us. We’re just trying to have a really nice dinner that you pay for. (laughs)
Zach: Well, what’s interesting about that particular situation is it introduced something I’ve never thought of, right? Which is basically, you’re not really gaining much in terms of cost towards your project by offering this. And what you’re bringing the fan is an experience that they do value, right?
Maybe on my end, fan didn’t shove out fifteen hundred bucks for a dinner with Mae. That floors me, you know? Because who know if we’re going to be in a good mood? Who know is we’re going to be sober? Like all that stuff. I mean we’re very weird sometimes.
But then, like you say, you put it on YouTube. Like that becomes something that they take with them and I think that’s – like if Pearl Jam asked me to pay five hundred bucks or a thousand dollars to go on stage and play a song with them, right? Like, that’s something that costs Pearl Jam nothing. So in a sense they should not ask for it. They’re just going to use the money on themselves, right?
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Charity is their own story. But for me, that’s one thousand dollars easily well spent. If I can go up there and play Do the Evolution up there with Pearl Jam, like –
Matt: It’s free market.
Zach: So there’s this thing you have to think about. And I think on that end, when artists value something or maybe in a different way. Like versus this experience that the fan wants. We have this one fan from Japan and she’s super cool. She hangs out, but you know, if we played in the states, she’d fly from Japan.
Matt: But what you’re saying is that’s kind of her prerogative. You’re not asking her to do that.
Zach: Well, in that sense, yes. It’s not in the crowdfunding vein of things. But all that to say that she’s paying this money and to her it’s entirely well spent. While to me like I’m not going to go across the ocean to see insert band here.
Nate: When you’re behind the curtain – the Wizard of Oz is sort of a joke, it’s just – but when you’re on the other side of that curtain, you just think it’s the best thing ever.
Matt: Yeah, but you would love to open that curtain and see that it’s a joke, too. I mean, that’s kind of the fun of it. When the stars are just like us, that revelation is almost worth the fan spending it, I think. Just to realize that, “Oh, they take poops too. And they’re boring and they can’t, you know, they drink too much or whatever.”
Nate: I think one thing though, that I wanted to throw out is that no matter how much money you raised to crowdfund your album, it’s never enough. Because –
Matt: (laughs) Yeah, it all costs in the end.
Nate: It all costs more than you ever thought it did and –
Matt: Yeah, I was just talking to Nate. I was like – it’s the most money we’ve ever raised to do this new record. We didn’t ask for it, but it came. And it’s like, I’m toward the end now and it’s like dwindling. And I was just like, “Six thousand for t-shirts! Ten thousands for vinyl!” It all just like, and I’m starting to get stressed.
So I totally relate to that. It’s never enough, no matter what you’re doing. If you’re working on a project and you really care about the project, it’s like you’re going to spend that money on it and trying to make sure it’s good. And that’s the one kind of I think, misnomer or misconception from a lot of people. They see the money and they go, “Oh my gosh! You must be rich!” You Know? My friends are like, “Just use some of that crowdfund money, dude!”
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Nate: Yeah, no.
Zach: When I was doing the interview for my thesis, I mean, there was one experience where one artist was telling me that once a fan does donate a certain amount of money and they have access to you personally in the sense that they have access to your Facebook account or profile or what have you. Does that relationship, individual relationship change because now do you feel obligated? Is this friendship now commodity? And do you have to work as if it is a commodity? So like I don’t want to talk to this person right now, but I feel obligated to.
Matt: Yeah, and that’s the reason why we don’t really sell access. I don’t think that’s something that is responsible to do. To sell access to your life. Because yeah, you’re on the hook sort of long term.
Zach: I mean, I’m talking about in the sense that maybe they friended you. You know, maybe your personal profile is kind of split with your band persona, right? So then, with them it’s like, “Okay well, I have a profile and I’m Matt from Classic Crime but I’m also Matt that is friends with my brother or you know on this profile.”
And so, the profile is accessible and so now you have this person all of a sudden IM’ing you one night. And you’re just like, “Ugh! What?!” You know? Like, “Okay, let’s talk. Uh…”
Matt: Yeah, and sometimes I do feel obligated to respond to those. And sometimes not. It just depends on my mood really. But it is awkward, I mean, I agree.
Zach: Yeah, so you think of it in a different way. So yeah, I just think that, you know, you enter into this kind of direct exchange but it’s also just kind of an idea –
Matt: Yeah, it buddies up the relationship for sure.
Zach: Communion.
Nate: I think we’ve all experienced that, though. Like you know that a fan has access to certain things and you’re like, “Oh, that guy works for Nike, I can get free shoes maybe if I talk to…” You know what I mean? You kind of think these things and you’re like – I mean, we were that band that was like all the money went back into the band for so long. So it was like any kind of free sponsorship we could get was a big deal. Because we weren’t making anything on top of the expenses.
So it was like, “If we can get free cell phones, or we can get free clothes.”
Matt: You guys were so good at getting free stuff. You got a free bus!
Nate: Well, that was Myspace. Myspace got us a –
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Matt: Yeah, you still negotiated a free bus.
Nate: Yeah, we got free cellphones, we had a couple deals. But I was ruthless about it. I was like – I mean, that to me is like, “I get a raise! Someone paid my cellphone bill this month, that’s awesome!”
And I think we sort of wore out our welcome at Myspace because I was hitting up Tom from Myspace all the time asking him like, “Hey, could you hit up this company and – “ And he was like, “Dude, you guys are moochers.” You know? Relient K just started calling us Moochwood.
Matt: (laughs) Moochwood.
Zach: But you mobilize these relationships in different ways.
Nate: It does raise weird lines. Basically you just have these weird relationships, it kind of becomes like, “Are these my friends? Are they not?” And you know, I’ve been hit up on Facebook by fans, Sherwood fans, too and it’s a little bit –
Matt: I always lived by the policy that honesty and openness is better than like trying to be scare with it, but I also because of my personality, I have no problem just not responding to people or saying no to people. Or saying good-bye. Like that’s fine.
But I’m generally open to like people contacting me and emailing me and I will – if I have the time – I will do a long back and forth sometimes over weeks with somebody who I feel like, I don’t know. Maybe there is a connection there. Which is weird. But I’m also like totally fine just like not ever talking to them again after that. Maybe I’m a sociopath, I don’t know.
Zach: What’s funny is that one of the fans that did start hitting me up on Facebook – you know we have become kind of just like people that talk sometimes, right? So we’ll talk about all the political stuff or he’ll message me and it’s this thing that has developed into this kind of relaxing kind of like, you know, virtual relationship where it’s just so kind of fraught with these questions, these situations –
Nate: What are the rules? We’re making them up! Well, you know it’s funny and this could be another episode and I kind of wanted to do an episode on this. Which is just like the hierarchy of friendships and the hierarchy of cool and who gets like - there’s so many people you can hit up and they won’t get back to you.
Matt: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s people I hit up that are way more popular than me on social media that I know personally and they won’t get back to me.
Don’t Feed The Trolls Podcast Episode 56 Crowdfunding (with Zach Gehring) 26
Nate: Or bands that we all went on tour with and then three tours later they’re huge and you text them –
Matt: That’s probably the reason why I have the conviction where I’m like, “I get back to people. You’re not smaller than me. We’ll talk. I’ll argue with you on my Facebook comments. I will dignify you with taking offense to your stance.” (laughs)
Nate: But my point is, we’ve all been on tour, we all have contacts in our phone that are like socially a little bit bigger than us. And every once in a while I’ll go – I know I’ve don’t this – I’ve texted him going, “I don’t think I’m going to hear back from that. I don’t think they’re going to text me back.” Because I’m not in the arena. I’m not cool anymore. I’m not in the scene, you know?
And I think that’s some of this. From the fan’s perspective, they’re just kind of out of touch, out of reach. And when you blur those lines, it’s just always going to be weird.
Zach: You know, one of those people that I’ve been able to develop a relationship with, is Aaron from MewithoutYou. Well, the MewithoutYou guys in general. And this is neither here nor there. I just saw him the other night. It’s one of those things where I was able to kind of – you know, we played shows with those guys over the years. We went to Europe with them, with Coheed and Cambria back in like 2004 or 2005.
And it’s just one of those things where, you know, this guy who just super inspiring becomes this guy that’s just like, “Oh hey, what’s going on?” These kind of like perceptions we have and then you know, like you said Matt, “Oh, now we’re just kind of hanging out.” And now this is this one thing that either kind of increases or kind of like intensifies this kind of like admiration you have, or it’s like, “Oh, they’re kind of jerks. I don’t know if I like, I don’t hear their music the same way anymore.”
Matt: Yeah, I ruined that for a lot of people, I’m sure.
Zach: No, yeah. Like the other night I was at my buddy’s and he’s like, “Are you going to the show?” It’s like, “Oh man, I don’t. I’m busy, blah, blah, blah.” You know, me and Ricky kind of talk and hang out. So I hit up Ricky and all that stuff just like, “Man, this is really weird because I love this band.” And they’re just like super cool and super congenial and Mike and all those guys are super awesome. You know? So it feels good in that sense like your relationship and your appreciation in that world intensifies and it has this kind of, you know, “Oh man, touring was so much fun! Those days!” Blah, blah, blah. Like kind of get into your mind space.
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But then, you know, you remember you have two jobs and a kid and you can’t find time to do anything. (laughs)
Matt: (laughs) Reality sets in.
Nate: Yeah, speaking of reality, Matt, you have filet mignon cooking. And your wife might yell at you, huh?
Matt: I know, I actually got to go cook the filet mignon right now. So I got to jet. But, Zach, man thank you for your time. Super enlightening. I was happy just to sit and hear you talk about crowdfunding. A lot of stuff I never even though about. So appreciate you for that.
Zach: No, I’m glad that Nate hit me up. I appreciate you guys having me on and obviously anytime I can talk about something I worked on for how many months I‘m super stoked just to talk forever about it.
Matt: What’s your like – can people hit you up on Twitter? And private message you and -
Zach: (laughs) Yeah for sure. My profile on Facebook is just what it is, Zach Gehring. My Twitter is zgehring. I’m on Instagram as the7others, and that’s the number seven, the7others.
Nate: And you have your side project, Demons, right?
Zach: Yeah, I got that. We’re actually almost done recording. You know, Mae’s here and there, we’re doing stuff but from week to week just like with these guys around here I’m doing Demons. And Mark Padgett is going to mix the new record we have. Mark Padgett was the base player in Mae, engineered a lot of that stuff. So yeah, l that’s going on and if anyone wants to please take a listen to that, we have an ep out on Spartan records.
Matt: John Frazier!
Zach: Frazier. Been a couple years ago now and so now we’re working towards something else. So yeah, I’m encouraging people to just like if they want to hit me up and say hi, please do.
Matt: Well, thanks, Zach, man. That’s awesome. I respect the hustle too. It’s good.
Zach: We all have it, obviously. You’re awesome. Thank you so much guys, I appreciate it.
Nate: Yeah, we’ll let you know when it come out.
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Zach: Awesome, very cool.
Nate: Alright man, have a good night.
Zach: Bye-bye.
Matt: Bye-bye.
Don’t Feed The Trolls Podcast