Welcome to the Jungle: A Success Manual for Music and Audio Freelancers

Copyright © 2013 by Jim Klein

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2013 by Hal Leonard Books

An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation

7777 West Bluemound Road

Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices

33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Klein, Jim L., 1956-

Welcome to the jungle : a success manual for music and audio freelancers / Jim Klein.

pages cm

1. Music trade—Vocational guidance. 2. Musicians—Interviews. 3. Sound engineers—Interviews. 4. Sound recording executives and producers—Interviews. I. Title.

ML3790.K468 2013

780.23—dc23

2012041790

ISBN 978-1-4584-7449-0

www.halleonardbooks.com

For Joan Martin Klein

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I: Welcome to the Jungle

1. Setting Goals and Planning for Success

2. Welcome to the Jungle: The Geometry of Freelancing

3. Networking

4. Building and Maintaining a Portfolio

5. Time Management and Organization

6. Personal and Professional Finances

7. Smoothing Out the Ups and Downs—Royalties, Residuals, Rentals, and Partnerships

8. Words of Wisdom

PART II: Voices of Experience

9. Howard Benson

10. Julie Slick

11. John Avarese

12. Brian Bricklin

13. David Cerullo

14. Kevin Killen

15. Jon Gordon

Appendix

Acknowledgments

This book came about as a product of concepts I developed for a course I teach in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at Drexel University, called Music and Audio Freelancing. The faculty of the Music Industry program in Westphal College is given significant institutional support and almost complete freedom to develop the best curriculum our industry and teaching experience will allow, and I would like to thank the administration, staff, and my Music Industry colleagues and students for the great environment in which I do my teaching.

My deepest gratitude to Howard Benson, Kevin Killen, Brian Bricklin, Jon Gordon, John Avarese, David Cerullo, and Julie Slick for their willingness to be interviewed for this book.

I’d like to thank Gary Fishkin for making sure chapter 6 didn’t contain any factual inaccuracies.

I would also like to thank my wife, Robin, for twenty-eight years of love and career support, and for the substantial help she provided in proofreading and editing the preliminary drafts of this book.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Joan and Larry Klein, for taking the time to teach me so many things.

Introduction

Who are you? What is your career dream? Maybe you picture yourself as a music producer or engineer, working in the recording studio with talented artists, helping to create the next hit album. Or perhaps you seek a career in post-production audio as a sound designer or mixer for television or the movies. Maybe you want to be a professional songwriter or composer.

Right now, thousands of people are trying to make careers in the music and audio fields as music producers, songwriters, performers, audio engineers, film and television composers, post-production mixers, and more. Every year, even more students graduate from hundreds of music, audio, and film schools into the job market, all of those graduates joining the thousands already trying to gain a toehold in the career of their choice.

The bad news: the overwhelming majority of those people will fail at their goal and be doing something else for a living within a few years.

The good news: the reasons that most of them fail have nothing to do with talent and everything to do with what I’m about to share with you in this book.

For the purposes of this book, I’m going to assume that you know how to do whatever it is that you dream of doing professionally. Maybe you don’t know how to do it at a fully professional level yet, but for this information to be meaningful to you, you need to at least be able to produce, perform, engineer, mix, or compose at the level of a university graduate with a bachelor’s degree.

The 75 Percent Rule

It’s important to remember that in the professional world, you’ll be competing for work, but not with everyone who is out there with the same aspirations. In my experience, 75 percent of everything is mediocre. That’s right, everything. Think about it for a minute. Think about the last ten movies you’ve seen, or the last ten restaurants you’ve been to. Think about the last ten books you’ve read, or CDs you’ve listened to. How about plumbers, television shows, or U.S. senators? Starting to get the idea?

Well, the same thing applies to the professional world, perhaps even more so. Keep in mind that anyone with three thousand dollars can buy a laptop, a microphone, and some software and advertise as a state-of-the-art recording studio. There are no licenses needed and no accrediting boards exist for songwriters, record producers, or audio engineers. Anyone can print up business cards or build a website saying anything. Anyone can put out a CD. Spend an hour on MySpace, listening to bands, and get back to me.

So, what I’m saying is that you can stop worrying so much about the overwhelming numbers of people who are trying to do the same thing you are. The majority of them don’t have the talent or the skills to have a prayer of succeeding. I’m writing this book for the other 25 percent who do, because the hard truth is that most of them fail, too. And in their cases, it doesn’t have to be that way.

The Career Train

When I graduated from college, I didn’t know anything about the music business or how to begin to establish myself. I was a very good guitar player and a decent songwriter. I knew a little bit about synthesizers and recording. There was no Internet, no personal computers, no inexpensive home recording equipment, no CDs, and no recording schools. I moved to New York City and got a job stringing tennis rackets, intending to become the next Steely Dan as quickly as I could.

Metaphorically, I boarded a career train with a group of people in their early twenties. The train was pretty crowded, and I got to know many of the other passengers. Over the next five years or so, we formed bands and recorded demos together, wrote songs and created informal support groups with one another, played sessions together, hung out, crashed and burned together, and watched with envy as one or two of us got record deals or other big breaks and went on to the first-class cars every now and then. Mostly, we became friends and supporters.

That first five years was a bumpy ride. At every station stop, the doors would open, and someone would get off the train for good. Let me remind you, all of these passengers had the raw talent to be successful in their chosen field. On the other hand, the various reasons they had for exiting the career train were as valid (for them) as they are still universal for those who leave freelance careers every day for normal jobs:

• Most of their friends were becoming established in their respective straight jobs, making money and settling into rewarding lives, while they were still living hand to mouth and eating ramen noodles.

• They couldn’t deal with the constant rejection anymore.

• They realized that the amount of work and commitment required to be successful in their field was just more than they were willing to give, and wanted to do something easier.

• They wanted something that allowed them regular hours and weekends off, instead of the kind of crazy hours that are a normal part of the freelance lifestyle.

Most commonly, though:

• They didn’t know exactly why they were getting off the train, but they were tired of being unsuccessful at achieving their goals. They hadn’t thought it was going to take so long or be so hard. They were tired, frustrated, and had had enough.

For those of us who stuck it out for five years, though, things got a little smoother. For one, with so many empty seats, there was more room on the train. When we did get work, the jobs were better. And it was around the ten-year mark that I started to realize something. In my chosen field (producer/songwriter/engineer), I would pretty much see the same faces at every recording session. When I was engineering, whether it was a jingle, a song demo, a record session, or whatever, it was usually Tony or Seth or Will on bass, and Larry or Joe or Jon on guitar. Frank, Sammy, and David did a lot of the drum work. A handful of engineers were freelancing around town, as well. I started to think about why that was. New York City, after all, was a very big place, and a lot of great musicians had moved there from all across the country to try to make careers there. Why did a few dozen people get so much of the work? It was that thinking that became the genesis for what, twenty-five years later, is in this book.

What Is Freelancing?

In the music and audio fields, there aren’t very many regular jobs. For audio professionals, there are some. It’s possible to work in television news or sports, on a show that is broadcast daily, without reruns. There are some audio jobs in corporate audio-visual and advertising. There are even a few regular music jobs. Theme parks employ staff performers, musicians, and audio personnel, for example. WWE and NFL Films both have full-time staff composers. Mostly, however, if you want to be a songwriter, record producer, performer, composer, audio engineer or mixer, music editor, or basically any kind of music or audio professional, you are going to have a freelance career. Television professionals go from show to show. Even most successful, long-running television shows are only in production for half the year. The other half, television professionals need to find other work. Film professionals go from film to film, and the same applies to those who make records. You work full-time on one project, and then hopefully you don’t have too much downtime until the next. Either that, or you juggle a couple of projects simultaneously, burning the candle at both ends until those jobs are finished and you can collapse until the next job comes up.

Freelancing means that you will be in charge of soliciting and maintaining your own client base, managing your own schedule of projects and accounts receivable, promoting your business (which is you), keeping up with the latest developments in your field, and networking with prospective clients and associates. You will need to be able to manage your finances through good times and lean times alike. Without a corporation to work for, you’ll need to provide health and retirement benefits for yourself.

You will also need to develop mental and psychological skills to be a successful freelancer. You’ll need to be self-confident without being arrogant. You’ll need to develop the ability to stay mentally tough through periods when you’re not working. You will need to be able to critically analyze your work so that you can improve your skills, without tearing it apart and being needlessly negative and overly critical. If you’re not good with people, you will need to work hard to become so. There is a fine line between phony self-promotion and genuine self-confidence, and you’ll need to walk that line with prospective clients and associates. The building and maintenance of key personal relationships is the cornerstone of every successful career, and is especially critical to a freelancer. Ever notice how so many film directors and record and television producers have teams they consistently work with over long careers? If Tim Burton is directing a film, the odds are that Danny Elfman is going to score it. The same goes for Steven Spielberg and John Williams. If Mutt Lange is producing a record, the odds are that Mike Shipley is going to mix it. If the Flaming Lips are making a record, Dave Fridmann will probably be producing it. These are the kinds of relationships that are the core of successful freelance careers.

So, beyond the bottom-line assumption that you have the goods in your chosen area(s) of music or audio, you need a number of other skills to make it as a freelancer, and that’s what this book is all about.

Why Listen to Me, Anyway?

As I said before, I came to New York City with a dream of being the next Steely Dan. I could play guitar and write songs, and I had access to a small recording studio. I made some demos, and through a college buddy, I had a connection to rock star Todd Rundgren’s bass player. I was able to get him a cassette and had a chance to get the opinion of a real professional. After waiting a couple of months for some feedback, I finally heard something, and it wasn’t great news. He thought the songs were pretty good, but told me that I couldn’t sing very well and as a studio project (I had played all the instruments on the demo) with no band to play showcases or tour, it didn’t look good for a record deal.

I took that information and thought about it for a long time. I still had my dream of being in a big-time rock band, so I spent six months taking voice lessons, auditioned some other musicians, and cut another demo. After some critical listening and difficult soul searching, I realized some things on my own:

• I was a lousy singer and didn’t have much potential to get better.

• On the other hand, I had the potential to be a very good songwriter.

• I really loved being in the recording studio.

• Keeping a band together was difficult, and I didn’t like having to rely on other people to move my career forward.

• Finally, the most important thing to me was to become a self-supporting professional in the record business, on the creative side, as a producer, songwriter, or studio guy of some sort. I didn’t really have that part fully worked out, but I knew I was open to whatever opportunities happened my way.

That initial reassessment of my goals and open-mindedness regarding how to achieve them have resulted in a career that has had many facets. Above all, I have maintained a freelance career as a creative professional in the music industry for over twenty-five years.

While I never reached the superstar level at any one thing, I’ve performed in the major leagues in quite a few different areas:

• While I’m not Kara DioGuardi, Diane Warren, or Billy Joel, I’ve had more than two dozen major label cuts as a songwriter. Four of them have hit the Billboard Hot 100 and three have hit the Top 20 Dance charts.

• I’m not John Williams or Hans Zimmer, either, but I’ve scored feature films and promo trailers for Miramax, and had my music featured in films starring Nicolas Cage, Danny DeVito, Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, Kathy Bates, and Michael Caine, among others.

• I’ve scored dozens of television shows and received eight Daytime Emmy nominations, winning twice for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition for a Drama Series.

• I never did become the next Steely Dan, but my band Pajama Party released two albums on Atlantic Records. We had four hit singles and sold hundreds of thousands of records. I produced, engineered, played the instruments, and cowrote all of the songs on both albums. I also sang backup on one song. Waaay in the back.

• I worked as a freelance producer and recording engineer in New York for ten years, five of them as chief engineer at a well-known studio. While there, I produced and engineered dozens of albums for major and independent acts, film scores, and commercials. I earned some gold records, too.

• I’ve composed, produced, and recorded national jingles and underscores for several New York music production houses. I’ve written commercial spots for Coke, AT&T, Midas, Bounty, Glad, Secret, Clearasil, Vicks, Canon, Ethan Allen, and dozens more. If you watch TV, you’ve seen some of them.

• I’ve done lots of other things, too. I’ve made karaoke CDs, produced children’s music, written music for theme parks, mastered CDs for bands, and done voiceover work. I’ve mixed live sound at cabarets, worked as a session guitarist and keyboard player, composed a lot of production music for television, and once I wrote a custom theme song for an exotic dancer.

• For the last eight years, in addition to scoring a network series, I’ve been a full-time college professor, teaching what I know about music production and the music industry. In that time, I’ve learned how to distill my knowledge and experience and pass it on to my students.

Big deal, you say? What does that mean for you? It means that while I may not be famous, I know how to get the work, do the work, maintain the proper attitude, and do the business of managing a freelance career. I’m going to assume that you’ve got the creative talent, a reasonable amount of training, and the desire to make a living doing what you love. Let’s talk about what it takes to make that happen.

Part I

Welcome to the Jungle

Chapter 1

Setting Goals and Planning for Success

You’re reading this because at some point in your life you decided that what you wanted most was a career in music or audio. You learned about this career from reading books or watching films or television shows or maybe from the Internet. Maybe you were in a band and had the chance to see what a recording studio looked like, or had friends or relatives who were professional musicians or audio pros and learned about it from them. In any case, at some point you were made aware of many of the careers that were possible in the music and audio industries, and since then you’ve put in the years of time and effort to become proficient in your craft.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m going to assume that you already have technical skills that would allow you to perform in at least an entry-level capacity if given the opportunity. What we are going to discuss is how to leverage your recently acquired skills and your desire to succeed into a freelance career.

Goals and Plans: Why You Need Both

Everyone needs a goal in his or her life. Goals help focus your ambition, give you drive to succeed, and remind you of the reason that you are working so hard each and every day. Goals can be as big as the moon and as high as the sky. I’m sure that plenty of people have the goal of becoming president of the United States, an Olympic athlete, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. It’s good to set the bar high when deciding on goals for yourself. Long-range goals don’t have to seem realistic or particularly achievable at the time that you make them. To serve their purpose, they just have to be there as a distant target. You’ve heard the expression, Keep your eye on the prize? Well, in a nutshell, that means, Remember your long-range goals when the going gets tough.

For several reasons, your goals will change as you move through life. For one, you will achieve some of those goals and be able to cross them off