Take control of your band’s future!
I’m just going to cut right to the point: all the doom-and-gloom stuff you hear about the demise of the music industry is, well, BS. Sure, there are challenges (as there always have been) but the truth is that there has NEVER been a better time to be an independent artist or producer– as long as you embrace the opportunities in front of you.
Which is why we were so stoked to hear from Exit Empire, a Czech band of URM members who embody exactly what I mentioned above. They’re taking advantage of all the amazing resources at their disposal, putting in the work and getting results– not waiting around for some gatekeeper to swoop down from above and give them the (non-existent) keys to the kingdom.
So if you have any ambitions toward making a living from music, use these guys as fuel for inspiration – take full advantage of every resource you have, keep a positive attitude, and watch opportunity come your way!
Tell us about yourselves and your band in a few sentences: where you’re from, how you came together and what your goals are for the band.
No band from the Czech Republic is worldwide famous, especially not a post-hardcore one. Why not? Two years ago we kind of decided to be the first, haha. Talk about ambitions, right? We’re already heading more mainstream direction. We just released our debut album while gaining fans for the past six months just online. We’re working on moving out, getting smaller gigs and we’re trying to book festivals across Europe next summer. Ultimately, we aim to move to Los Angeles and tour the world from there.
Is your band completely self-produced? If so, do you want to work with an outside producer eventually or stay self-produced (and why)?
It is! Literally from our bedrooms. We left colleges the moment we discovered Joey Sturgis’ classes. With tons of other study sources on songwriting, management etc. we realized we can’t wait for the gatekeepers, so we went after our dream – to have a great band. Learning production was simply a necessity, although turned passion. So we definitely crave working with other talented minds and professionals to help us chase the perfect tone.
What advice would you have for other bands who want to self-produce? How do you stay objective about your recordings and resolve disagreements (eg, “turn up the guitars!” “no, turn up the vocals!”)?
Compare your mixes to other songs. Study the production day and night, support and compete with each other in the band. We’re so lucky to be a band of three best friends with a common goal, so swallowing our individual pride doesn’t taste so bitter. Two of us actually founded a studio now, offering mixing and mastering for others and also soundtrack composing! That is so much fun and it enables us to finance our band.
What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned from URM and why?
We could list here a bunch of essential technical details we learned from the URM mentors and this community, but the most valuable thing was this: Mindset. Listening to URM podcast and learning about the background of so many successful people gave us the energy to keep grinding. We even took it a step further and learned to do our own music videos, but without great audio, this band wouldn’t be possible.
For anyone out there who’s heard of URM and Nail The Mix but hasn’t yet joined, what would you say to convince them to join?
If everything stated above hasn’t convinced them already, let’s try this: Download our new album for free at our website by joining our mailing list (http://exitempire.com/download). After two weeks, we will pick one email address by random and pay him or her one Nail The Mix month. Thanks for reading! And remember: No small time!
Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Gojira, Meshuggah, Bring Me The Horizon, A Day To Remember and Papa Roach. Join now for instant access!