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Bobby Bensley

Bobby Bensley hit the online music scene a few years ago, trading songs on various messageboards and quickly became a real force behind a number of indie artists. He drove his own new songs up the mp3.com charts, "Stolen Story" reaching #1 in Americana, all awhile promoting dozens of online musicians with the help of the Colorado Musicians Allied Promotions, of which he is founder and president. Through his tireless promotion he caught the eye of javamusic.com, an online distributor of music and rival of mp3.com. I chatted with Bobby from his new office in California... the one that say's "A&R" on the desk....

Mb: Hey Bobby.
Bobby: Hey Mb, what's up with you these days?
Mb: Working a bunch of projects you?
Bobby: Ditto, we launched a new BB yesterday and dealing with the removal of a bunch of Gamers.
Mb: So let's start at he beginning.... your music…. How long have you been playing?
Bobby: I have been singing all my life, but I did not start playing guitar until 1999 after I got divorced. The first song I wrote The Search was of course about my divorce.
Mb: Inspired to say something?
Bobby: You could say that. It was a period when I was feeling a lot of pain. The writing and singing was oddly comforting then, at least to me it was. I am
not sure about the people I tortured with my guitar playing at the open stages.
Mb: And the songwriting has done well for you online?
Bobby: Yes, I have been fortunate and have had some success with it. Much more then I thought I ever would.
Mb: Where do you send people to listen... url?
BobbyBensley: http://www.javamusic.com/bobbybensley
Mb: lol…But of course
BobbyBensley: :-)
Mb: How would you describe your music?
Bobby: In a catch phrase, I call it "Folk Rock With Teeth", it is solo acoustic folk with a dark and emotive soul.
Mb: I'm listening to "Stolen Story: live". New song?
Bobby: No, it is the same song that charted #1 in Americana at MP3 a while back. This is just a new recording of it. The Internet has for better or worse allowed me to document my growth as an artist. This recording is taken from my opening slot for Karla Bonoff in Colorado in April 2001.
Mb: I'm listening to the band version now. Do most of your songs speak to man's hardship? The songs… they all seem sad.
Bobby: Yea pretty much, Stolen Story speaks of the loss of family tradition, most of the others center in one way or another to drug addiction. Yea I do not recommend listening to them if you are prone to depression.
Mb: Is there a warning label on the CD?
Bobby: LOL, no but their probably should be.
Mb: So what about you as a promoter of indie artists... starting with your first involvement as an NMA over at "you know where"?
Bobby: CMAP NMA at Mp3.com grew out of AHA which was a project that went horribly wrong. CMAP though was an excellent experience. Over the course of a little over a year I went from a one act promoter to working with an average of 50 artists at a time. Many of them were top shelf artists like, Our Religion, Greta Gaines, Dave Beegle and Llynda Moore. CMAP quickly became known for promoting top quality Indie music.
Mb: And now?
Bobby: Now I still work with a hand full of the artists that formed the backbone of CMAP but for the most part CMAP as an online promotion company was retired following the CMAP World Wide Festival For Youth.
Mb: How did you catch the eye of javamusic.com?
Bobby: I was alerted to them shortly after they launched the site. I signed up my own music and much of CMAP. I quickly recognized that it was a company with integrity and potential so I started talking with management about ways to improve what Java had to offer and increase the user base of the site. They went on to be one of the main sponsors of the CMAP festival.
Mb: And your capacity there now is...?
Bobby: It says A&R on my card but I spend huge amounts of time developing promotions for artists, seeking out new artists and labels and basically being
the guy from JavaMusic who is out there on the front line.
Mb: So what do you see the role of an OMD being?
Bobby: I think that it has taken a serious shift over the past 12 months. While the OMDs used to be a free place for all artists to house their work and and make it available to the public, that is slowly changing. Today to be successful
the OMDs need to be much more service oriented. They have to be able to form and provide strategic alliances with other companies to provide "real world", as well as online, promotion of their artists. They are in position to become legitimate forces within the music Industry and provide high quality promotional services to Indie artists. They are also on the frontlines of helping to develop the future of music distribution, both online and of physical copies (CDs). Soon an OMD will break an Indie artist into the mainstream.
Mb: Much like the farmclub.com approach?
Bobby: No, I do not see OMDs actually becoming labels. I see them more in the vein of a developmental platform. One, where a quality artist can set up and receive the tools and the education needed to learn to become solid, self promoters, and learn how to work with outside organizations that can help them
open doors that on their own they could not. For instance, Javamusic can get an artist a review in a major Industry trade or an international newspaper with readerships that exceed a million. We have relationships with XM Radio and other companies that most artists can not reach on their own. I think that is were the OMD is most valuable to Indie artists, opening doors that traditionally have been lock to them.
Mb: How does an artist go about getting this kind of attention from javamusic?
Bobby: There are several things that come into play. The first being quality. It serves no one any good for me to promote and artist at this level before they are developed to compete at this level. They also need to have a commercially manufactured CD and a well developed promo package. In this regard, we act much like a traditional shopping agent. Instead of paying a percentage of any deals they get they pay a small yearly subscription fee, i.e..(Espresso Membership) to cover the cost of hosting their web page. Not all top level promotions at Java require "Espresso Membership" but most do. Most importantly, they need to pay attention, follow the instructions for submission, provided with each opportunity, and put as much effort into promoting themselves at Java as they would like us to put into promoting them.
Mb: So, as one time cover singer to now major OMD A&R mogul, what advice would you give to people trying to make a go of it with their music online?
Bobby: Forget Free! If you want to find success in the real world music industry, if you want to make all or most of your living making or playing music, don't continue to think that everything you need to succeed is going to be given to you for free. Promotion costs money in the real world it takes lots of money to become even relatively well known. Don't think the OMDs and other musician sites online can do it all for you for free plus pay you for distributing your singles. Stop chasing pennies in a gold mine by promoting for downloads and focus on selling CDs. Stop trying to promote 15 songs at one time, focus on one single and make a hit out of it through repetitive recognition. Start considering the quality of the recordings and the packaging of them before you make them publicly available. Today "close enough" is not good enough. Be flexible and willing to work it like your career depends on it. Be prepared to act professional if you want to be treated professional. To sum it up, have some respect for yourself. Stop giving it all away for free on the other hand treat it like a businesses and do not expect it all for free.
Mb: So anything else you'd like to leave my readers with?
Bobby: Yea, the Internet is the future of music distribution. The landscape is changing slowly and subtly, but changing none the less. Those who build a presence for themselves now, will be the ones in the driver's seat when everything hits so "Don't leave 5 minutes before your miracle happens!"