I am pleased to finally announce Severed Fifth; an idea that has been kicking around in my head for around two years, and a project which has been actually in the works for the last five months or so.
To kick things off, I have recorded an announcement, and you can download it here:
One of the most traditional, unchanging industries in the marketplace right now is the recording industry. The model is simple; a record label signs a band, they record an album, the label works with a distributor to get the album in stores, they market it to the right people, and finally a customer buys it and listens to it. Then come the auxiliary products such as tours, merchandise and videos. Despite the changes in music formats as we progressed from vinyl to cassettes to CDs, the model has always remained essentially the same.
Music is a playground for creative thinkers, a place in which inspiring minds can take what once went before, build on it, make something new and give it their own signature…their own spin…their own flavour. This is the core recipe for musical progression, and any other form of creative progression for that matter - we learn from our elders, mixing up the ingredients, trying new techniques; always learning, always exploring, always developing.
Creativity needs the right environment for it to thrive. Creative minds need the tools, the time and importantly, the opportunity to show off the fruits of their labour. Exciting progressions in music, art, theatre and literature don’t mean anything if they are never experienced, never enjoyed. In the early days of the music industry, the only people who could afford to make vinyl were record labels. Although the cost of production has dropped dramatically as technology has evolved, a handful of recording companies have maintained their stronghold on the music business. As a result, hundreds of thousands of artists, bands, groups and collectives that are really, really good never get the opportunity to be heard. I myself while gigging with my own band, played with many artists who were passionate, unique and original, putting every ounce of their soul into their music, but sadly never got heard.
Right now however, we are in a period of change. With the birth of the Internet, and the ubiquity of information, and importantly, information sharing tools, the traditional music industry has been forced into a state of self-reflection.
The industry has faced some stiff problems in recent years, with possibly the most notable one being the wholesale copying and sharing of music from CDs on file-sharing networks, and the attempt to solve this problem with Digital Rights Management, or DRM; the frankly broken concept of using software to restrict the copying of media. The problem with DRM is that it openly accepts the known side effect of restricting the perfectly legitimate rights of listeners to listen to their music in their car, their music player, on their computer, on their unsupported Operating System, on their phone, or elsewhere. When the industry was faced with the prospect of significant challenges, such as this widespread sharing of content, their reaction was to button down the hatches and restrict the rights of the listener, as opposed to innovating, educating, developing new approaches, new products, new media, new packaging, new incentives and new services. Instead it was easier to restrict than to inspire.
What has resulted is a record industry that is broken. From the perspective of the artist, it is an impossibly difficult environment in which to fairly deliver your music to your listeners, and for the listener, it is an environment built on dis-trust in which you are restricted in what you can do with the music that you like to listen to. Interestingly, if you connect the artist directly to the listener, the ethos is shared - the artist wants people to listen to their music, go to their shows and buy their merchandise - the listener wants to listen to good music, go to good shows, and buy good merchandise - nobody wants the restrictions, the arguments, and the difficulty we currently have.
With all of the problems facing the industry, a groundswell of interested parties have been discussing, debating and exploring alternatives. This has included core licensing concepts such as the Creative Commons, a range of licenses that easily allow artists to share their work in the way they intended, as well as online music catalogues such as Jamendo and Magnatune. We have even seen artists such as Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead release their music in alternative ways, trusting their listeners to fairly compensate them for their work. And of course, there are the many essays, opinions, forums threads, panel discussions, events and more revolving around the subject of where free culture and the record industry intersect.
Despite the theoretical disposition though, all of this tells us little about the actual reality of a new economy for the recording industry. Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead made very high profile successes when they changed how they released some of their work, but they are high profile bands, built on the coat-tails of the traditional recording industry, and in terms of the extensive discussion in essays, blogs, forums and elsewhere, virtually all of this discussion is largely hypothetical - promoting and encouraging a new recording industry that is based around free culture and the Creative Commons. But none of this answers the real question in my mind - for an unknown artist, someone without a reputation fostered from the traditional recording industry, can they really become successful with the new economy, and if so, what needs to happen for that to happen?
Today I am announcing my new project - Severed Fifth, a project designed to explore this question by applying this new economy to my own music. Severed Fifth has two important components involved, which are closely related and strongly interlinked:
One. Severed Fifth is the name of my new musical project. For the last four months I have been writing a full solo metal album, which is nearly complete in the writing stages. In addition to writing the album, I will record and mix it in my studio, while also performing all of the instruments and vocals on the album. I will then release all of the final pieces from this new album online at www.severedfifth.com under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license. This will allow anyone to download, listen to, share and re-mix the songs freely, with the only condition that suitable attribution and credit is placed.
Two. To test the new economy of the recording industry, I will be starting an extensive campaign to see just how far I can take this new album while ensuring my project is fair to my listeners, and that the music is free. I will be exploring different approaches to promoting it in different mediums, and to different demographics, different methods of fund-raising to support other elements such as CDs, DVDs, tours etc, trying to build a strong community of regular listeners as well as free-culture fans around the project and more. Throughout this entire process I will be reporting, writing and speaking about the things I learn, which can be read at www.severedfifth.com. Even if this project nets so measurable success, one of my core aims is to be able to answer some of the questions that bands and artists in coming years will consider when evaluating how they approach their own musical ambitions. Importantly, this project is not designed to be primarily of interest to free culture fans - if it were, the results and expectations would be inaccurate; Severed Fifth is targeting real music fans, people who have probably never heard of free culture, and to really see if the economy works in a realistic setting.
A core decision has been to approach the music as a solo project. From being in a band since the age of 14, one thing I have discovered that is ever-present in all bands is politics and a constant need to gain consensus on decisions about the direction and focus of the band. By making this a solo project, I have the opportunity to unilaterally make decisions about every element of the creative musical process, which reduces stress and provides more time and focus on the core aims of producing music and exploring how to promote it and find the answers to the questions I have.
Another core consideration however, is that this is not a project I can achieve alone. To put a quality, well-made album out there and squeeze every ounce of juice out of it in taking it forward, is not something I can do on my own. I have always been a believer that amazing things can be achieved when you bring together the right group of people, with a shared ethos - a trait that the free software community has demonstrated time and time again. As such, I have been in touch with a group of people who will be contributing their own expertise in a range of aspects of this project - this includes Design, Web Development, Photography, Video, Business Development, Community Growth and more - each of these areas has one person involved who will be striving for quality in that part of the project. We have an amazing team of people working together to make this a reality, and together I am confident we can achieve great things.
But having a great team to work together on this project is not enough. We need your support. If you believe that this project is a worthy and valid contribution to free culture, we need your help. Over the coming weeks I will be releasing more and more information about the project online, and a key component will be the Severed Fifth Street Team - a collection of enthusiastic volunteers who want to help promote the project in their area and across the Internet. If you would like to be involved in the Street Team, go to www.severedfifth.com/streetteam and sign up. I will be in touch over the coming weeks with more details. One thing I can assure all prospective Street Team members - you will be a strong and valued part of the project, and I will do everything in my power to ensure you are well looked after as part of the Severed Fifth family.
I am incredibly excited about this project, both in terms of the musical and social possibilities and the opportunities that it presents. With the right minds, anything is possible, and I am looking forward to just seeing how far we can take Severed Fifth. Stay tuned to www.severedfifth.com to see how the project unfolds.
