Welcome to episode 74 of the Bandhive podcast.

Now, let's get this show on the road. It is time for another episode of the Bandhive podcast. My name is James Cross and I'm here with Matt Hoos of Alive In Barcelona. How are you doing today, Matt?

Doing pretty awesome, James has everything over on the east side that is great to hear and I'm having a wonderful day. I hate talking about the weather on the podcast, but it's just, I'm so drawn to it. We have a nice gray april day and it's wonderful. I love this kind of weather. It's not too hot, it's not too cold, it's not a windstorm like we had earlier this week. And it feels like what I remember of Germany and my childhood, not that I grew up in Germany, but I was there a lot and it just reminds me of like good times.

So I like gray april days and I'm having a good one today. That's good man. I love hearing that. We actually, yesterday there was a break in the day and in the morning, it was nice and beautiful. It's pretty typical for colorado mountain weather to change drastically. So we had a beautiful morning and then in the early afternoon a rainstorm came in and it rained for like two hours and then in the evening, which colorado doesn't get a lot of rain. I mean, I lived through through Colorado's longest drought in history.

So, I, I mean for me, I love rain because whenever it falls, it's like, oh man, this happened like 10 times in my childhood, so getting that rain was awesome, but then later on it turned into a little bit of snow and so now the ground is frost covered, which is super cool, and I'm sure that here in the next hour or two the sun will come out and melt away all the snow as in colorado fashion. Yeah. You know that reminds me you're talking about no rain when I moved to L. A five years ago.

Now, I didn't see rain for like four months or no, it must have been two months because remember we had a rainstorm around March, but then in May, I went on tour and we were in, what's that city in the very west of texas? Is that el paso? I think that's what it is, right on the border. We were there and it started raining just like a shower and I was like, this is amazing! And I literally took a selfie video like spinning around in the parking lot with joy and I was like it's actually raining, this is the best day ever.

And everybody else in the tourist just like, dude, really? And like yes, yes. Really? Yeah, dude, people don't understand. I mean we were on a long tour, I remember worked for one year were that we made it down to florida and it was just, it had been like the hottest summer ever with little to no shower opportunities and we got down to florida and it was ST pete's and it started a torrential. Yeah, I know ST pizzas gross, but but the torrential downpour that came in was awesome.

And literally I hadn't had like a legitimate shower in like a few days with like shampoo, like I had rinse myself off a couple of times or done done a few solar showers but hadn't like done anything. And when this rain came in I was like, screw it, I went back to my, I ran back to my bus, which at the time had a speaker which was then full of water by the time, I mean I could literally pour the water out of the speaker and they still worked, which was incredible, but got back there, grab the bottle of shampoo and just literally right there in the middle of the sidewalk, like crabgrass on my right street on my left and right on the beach, just sitting there suds and up my hair and it worked.

I literally got super clean as soon as I was all wet, dry it off and jumped in. My van was done for the day, It was like, oh cool. And then of course it was Saint Pete, something like 10 seconds later I was swimming in a pile of myself because it's just so muggy and the air is so wet that you can't escape it. And that's pretty much torture for somebody who lives in a dry climate like me. So that's the reason I have a vivid memory. It's funny because I hate Saint Pete for those exact reasons, the humidity and all that.

But the venue is one of the most beautiful venues on warped tour Because in Vinoy Park, right on the water, yeah, right on the water. Both years that I was there on the tour, I would just wake up, walk off my bus and be like, oh we have an oceanfront view today, Yep, literally right there. Yeah, we would be parked like 50 ft from the shore or from the bike path that goes along the shore. So it's like okay, time to go, take a picture of the sunrise, do a nice little panorama.

I literally had a dolphin swim up to me right there on that pier. That's amazing. Yeah. Everybody else saw dolphins. I didn't see him unfortunately. I hate to rub it in. Yeah, I remember. I don't know if that story you told was 2015, but for me, 2015 was uh that was crazy. Like the kids got evacuated multiple times before the show even started and all that. It was insane. It's like you're all standing in line, go walk a mile to that parking garage and don't come back till we tell you it's safe.

It's like the kids aren't even in the venue yet and you're already telling them to leave. The whole venue is like flooding and risk of flooding and they weren't sure. Yeah, it was it was great though. Even the drive getting there is awesome because you go over a bridge that's like sitting on the top of the water and it's like you look around you you've got the bay and the ocean and your and all the inlets and you're just like, wow, we are really in the middle of the water.

So then when they tell you that it's like, oh yeah, flooding is probably gonna happen. You're like uh Does't that mean that just this entire island is going to disappear? Like there's there's not that much place for this to go, you know? Yeah, that was a little sketchy. But I mean they had a plan. I'm sure, you know our buses were parked in the law and they're not going to let multibillion dollars worth of buses because there's like 30 or 40 buses, they're not gonna let those all go to waste.

Like, we'll be fine. I don't know if it's billions, but I think those buses are like 1. 5 million each. They're expensive with all the conversions and stuff. It's pricey. Yeah, it's definitely How many buses that go out on warped tour? Close to 100. Yeah. If you count all the bands and everything to and total vehicles, if you can't like cars and Vans and stuff is over 200, at least it was back. And when I was out there, it's it's insane. Yeah. You're probably close to like $150 to $200 million it's pretty incredible.

I mean, and that's not even including stages. Yeah. For hell. Anyway, I'm gonna turn this thing around. I totally started a sidetrack talking about weather and reminiscing about work. Tour in ST Pete ventura was the other amazing venue as well as Toronto. I love the Toronto venue. Anyway, I'm going to shut myself up now, You know what? I love James, I love stories, and that's actually what this whole episode is about. So, it's not really a sidetrack, see you and I are telling incredible stories that hopefully our listeners are relating to.

Hopefully they're saying, wow, these are really cool stories, I love hearing these, I love knowing that the park Vinoy Park down in Saint Petersburg florida is right on the water. Maybe people didn't know that before, and maybe that's something that when they go play there, or maybe we have listeners from ST Petes, and they're like, oh, I know that park, it's all about a good story, and that's what today's episode is actually about. Isn't that right? Yes, it is. Because your bio is a story. So matt, you have a story about a bad story that you turned into a good story, right?

Yes, absolutely. So on occasion I do content writing for people. The very first band bio that I ever wrote was my own. And then the second one that I ever wrote was my own. And then the third one was my own. And it was always me correcting and correcting and correcting up until a few years ago when I made the basically the final major correction to my band bio. And that was after having taking some classes and going through some courses and consulting other people in the industry who literally do this all day every day.

And during a lot of those classes, what I learned was about telling stories relatable stories. So the other day actually, I was reached out by my guitarists and he said, hey, I've got a band who has to do, has to write a small piece for their new release and it doesn't need to be anything more than a paragraph, but it just needs to be something short and sweet. Good for press material. Good is a little bio for a music video release is what it was. And so he sent me something that they had written, but after reading through it, it was just pretty generic and don't get me wrong, generic things do work in the industry and they have their place generally in the butt rock world, that is what it is.

But there was no life to what they had written now. And that could be for a number of reasons. Sometimes, you know, you're forcing yourself to be creative is really hard and it's no different for writing bios, that's no different for, you know, like people interviewers especially have a way of being like, oh, like what's this song about? And you have to really dive into it, you know? And maybe that's not even something that you as a songwriter have fully thought about, because not every song has this crazy deep meaning that anybody who's ever listened to brand new, you know, they have songs where there's a massive amount of lyrical depth and then they have songs that are, you know, don't believe in filler baby, which is literally a filler song, and that's, you know, it's irony, there's not always this this crazy deep, you know, meaning behind every song.

And so it's kind of up to you to really know at its core like what your songs are about. And really once in that bio, you know, if there's something about that song that you want to get across, you need to make sure that that shines through. So this band had written a small piece that basically said, you know, their song was about perseverance and endurance and about achieving your goals no matter what, you know, and it was very, very good and I mean, and if you listen to the song you listen to the lyrics, that is what the song is about, but there's a lot better ways to say that, and when I say better, I mean, there are more relatable ways to say that, so instead I I took it and I rewrote it and I basically said that, you know, the song is about growth, it's about the struggles that you have to go through in order to get to where you want to be, you know, nobody ever focuses on the finish line.

If I say I crossed the finish line, people will immediately respond with what finish line, what finish line did you cross? Because it's never about the finish line, it's about the journey. If I tell you that I crossed the finish line, but the race was 10 ft, you don't really care that much. But if I say I crossed the finish line on a marathon, then you say, wow, that is impressive because the journey is really what people want. It's the story as a nineties kid. One of my all time favorite rappers is Eminem.

Now I have a theory that Eminem has always been as popular as he is due to the fact that he tells a story and every single one of his songs so wonderfully and is so relatable and I honestly believe that people continuously by Eminem's albums and I really, I think that there was a certain dropping off point for a lot of nineties kids. And it was when he wrote an apology song to his mom, when he wrote an apology song to his mom and an apology song to kim to a lot of us that grew up through the nineties hearing him talk about how bad his life was because of his mom and because of kim Well, when he said that, I'm sorry and I forgive you.

And when he wrote those songs to a lot of Us, that was the end of the story. And I'll be honest, I haven't purchased or even really listened to an Eminem song since the release of the album that had those uh those Thank You songs on it. And mainly that's because The story that I had been relating to since I was like 13 years old had finally concluded, and I related to that so much that I wanted the end of the story. So, to bring it all the way back around your bio is the very first thing that a fan is going to interact with on your website or on your social media platforms, and so you need to make sure that right out of the gate, the very first thing they see is relatable, you know, it needs to be directed towards them now, there's lots of different ways that you can do this, but the easiest place to figure out where to start is to identify your branding, which we talk about all the time.

Whatever your branding is, you need to follow that to, you know, your core, you know, for a live in Barcelona, we really try to appeal to people that have a a very depressed background. Our goal is hope, that's what we want to point towards. And so for us, with every single song that we write, you know, that has to shine through in every bio that we talk about, when every press release that we talk about, the core backbone of our band is providing a safe haven for people who want to kill themselves and consequently, we have songs about Not Killing Yourself, we have documentary videos about Not Killing yourself.

We, you know, like, we've partnered with companies who really dive into suicide prevention and every step that we take. You know, if we were to turn around and write a song, it's like, I hate you all go kill yourself. That would be very anti, you know, at first off, that would be horrible, but it would also be counter branding, it would be super strange, it would be out of character, and it would be not be relatable. So that's what we particularly use. But for you, it might be something different.

Lots of people are in the, in the industry specifically. Like if you think about a large artist, they have a particular niche that they're trying to fill and a lot of them rally behind a cause whether it be business like Taylor Swift and her fight against Spotify, whether it be personal, you know, Halsey and her struggles with sexual oppression, you know, whether it be dr dre and coming from the streets of Compton and building himself a billion dollar enterprise, you know, whatever it is, whatever the struggle is, it's it's about that story and people want to know that they want these intimate details.

So first it's important to know that a good bile can push you forward or hold you back. So rule number one, make sure it's got good spelling, good punctuation if you have poor spelling, bad grammar, bad punctuation run on sentences. In my opinion, there's only one thing that you can do worse than having poor spelling and that is misspelling somebody's name, it's also spelling. So especially in the industry, somebody sends you an email and it has their name on it. And then you respond to them and you misspell their name or let's say you have a radio campaign and you go to post something and you misspell the name of the local station.

That is a horrible, horrible, horrible first impression. You never, ever, ever get a second chance at making first impressions. And so how do you make a good first impression? You spell people's names correctly, you use good grammar, you use correct punctuation. These are all basic things. These are this is level one professionalism. This is why they teach you these things in school. So that way you don't look like an idiot in the real world to put it bluntly. So there's going to be bios, you're gonna have all sorts of bios, you're gonna have social media bios, you're gonna have website bios, you're going to have a press kit bios, you're going to have all sorts of different bios and they're all going to be different lengths.

So certain ones you can copy and paste and you know, your E. P. K. One which you know, that's an important bio depending on who you're sending it to. They're going to want a different length. Most of these guys, if you're sending out an epa or an electronic press kit, then what you're actually sending is like a you know a nice little wrapped up bundle, it's a resume, essentially music industry resume. And then uh certain people will want, you know, a medium sized bio because they're also going to go and check out your website which should have your long bio.

They're also going to go and check out your social media is what you're going to have short bio. So keep that in mind a twitter bio. Short, sweet couple words. It's going to have maybe a link in it or something like that, something that's a little bit more relevant to your current events, your current album cycle, your current video release. Maybe it'll have a Youtube link in it, Maybe it'll have a Spotify link in it, you know, whatever it's short sweet to the point, you know, and twitter is more for that rapid fire commentary Anyway, that's not your main marketing platform, but it is a line in the water, you know, like you can always catch a big fish, doesn't matter what you're doing, but the more lines in the water that you have, the better chances you have of catching that big fish.

So you make sure you put your good lines in the water and you make sure all of those lines have cohesive, wonderful thoughts, beautiful grammar, all these things and guys don't be afraid to have people proof read it when I write something, I send it to my band mates, they all proof read it, they send it back to me, I approve, read it again and sometimes we still miss things and and it's like embarrassing, it's very embarrassing, you know, and so like don't be afraid to even reach out on fiber or something like that, you know, find a content writer, there's places you can find people and there's always people willing to do the work.

So if you're not good at writing, you're not strong at that, the bio typewriting have somebody else do it. You know, you can you can do it for relatively cheap, so basically, you know, depending on what you're using the bio for, you will have a different length bio. I talked briefly earlier about how your bio really needs to include your branding, that's like really, really important, and the way that you can do this is by incorporating stories into your bio for us. Since we have such a focus on hope, we talk about stories of death and we use specifics, we talk about how Jessie's dad passed away, we have songs written about the healing process, all of these things tie together, and if you're not willing to be vulnerable on these things, then you're going to have a degree of separation from your fans, your fans love to relate to your most intimate struggles because you're a human being and they are also human beings and as human beings, we like to naturally band together and because we do that, we naturally band together with people that share our experiences, share our struggles through our trials and things like that.

So when you are vulnerable on a social platform and you put yourself out there, you are basically, you know, and then it's it's also how you portray yourself, you know? So if you say you have a struggle and you're presenting yourself as destroyed by the struggle, I'm defeated by the struggle, that's a little bit harder for people to come to you in confidence, because maybe they also feel like they're defeated and two defeated people aren't going to really do anything. Maybe your goal is providing a safe haven, maybe you're focusing on community and, you know, for us, like no matter what we do as a band, we cannot stop people from killing themselves as much as we want to.

But what we can do is we can talk about how we've conquered our individual spells with depression. We can talk about how we have been slowly healing and we can talk about the ongoing process. You know, it took Eminem 20 years to put out an album where he forgave his mom, where he said he was sorry to Kim, But it was 20 years worth of material that kept you hooked and that that made people relate. Now, maybe people didn't relate to the same thing he did. Maybe it was more like a, you know, driving by an accident on the highway where you're like, you don't want anything bad to happen, but you can't look away.

But the point is he built this story that was relatable, that somebody could see even on the outside looking in, they could empathize with and whether or not it was their particular struggle. He also he talked about the emotions that he felt which made it even more relatable because you know, he's like, even if I'm not in this situation, I've definitely felt this emotion before. And so when he writes music like that, it's it's even more relatable how you write your music, how you you know what you talk about, that has to be relatable.

Your bios is step number one, Kellen Quinn had a marketing press release that was I think it was called the strays. And uh you know, he encouraged people all over social media is to post a picture of themselves holding a sign with the hashtag the strays. The album mark corresponded with this trace. And it was I believe it was a song on the record if I recall and all of the social media imagery changed the bios have updated information with the hashtags in it. It included a call to action talking about posting those photos.

All of their social media is did everything changed to a picture of Kellen holding a sign that said the strays. And you know what then Kellen shared his story about how he felt like a stray and that was the encouragement to create a community that included people and brought people in which it did exactly that. I mean I saw all sorts of photos across all social media platforms of little boys and girls and and not even just little boys and girls literally of all ages sharing pictures and sharing parts of their stories.

And what he did was absolutely incredible. Like that is successful at its core in business. That is successful and what's more is that he took a stance of, I care about you and I wanted to focus on community and so all of my bios, all of my branding, all of my, my songs, my images, all of these things came to a head, and where did it come to a head right in front of you, right in front of the listener who said, oh, I'm going to be a part of this too.

He made it inclusive, he said, I'm encouraging you to share. He used these bios, these, like, simple pictures and things like that in order to create a very, very, like, he gave a place for his fans to consistently go for news and current events, and then when he switched, everybody wanted to be a part of it, and they did it like, overnight, it was like all of a sudden all of their branding changed. You know, it's like they went live, it's like turning a light on. It wasn't like, oh, I turned this light on in a couple of these, let's go on and then that one will come on in like 20 minutes and they're not going to come on a week later because we're still waiting on a certificate and it's like, no, no, all of it switched.

They went live and they started building this community. They started building this network of people who felt like they could rely on each other and this was all done with one song, a few images. And I mean I'm pretty sure he literally had the strays written on like a piece of cardboard. It's very powerful. What you can do just with the simple things that you write. Words are without a doubt the most powerful drug known to man. That's a rugged kipling quote and he's absolutely correct. It's one of my all time favorites, the words that you put on your bio, the words you put in, you know, they're just as important as the words you put in your songs, They're just as important as the words that you say directly to your fans when you meet them.

And on top of that, in some cases, they're even a little bit more important because they're published, they're sitting on a website and people can refer to that. So if you're on there like, oh, say trapped and you're constantly slamming people and I mean eventually, once you get to a certain point, you get banned from twitter, twitter is gonna just turn your account off because words have weight. And so when you include stories in your bios like that, wait, is what you're trying to essentially like put on other people's souls, you know, you want people to feel this heart warming sensation of wow, you know, like, like for us, when we talk about Jessie's dad and him passing away, the goal is not to constantly be talking about the hardest event that he has ever had to go through as a human.

The hope is that other people who have had to endure, losing a parent can turn to us or turn to him and say like, hey, how did you do it? And he can in turn Ben say like, hey man, I'm still dealing with it every day, but maybe we can talk about it. Your bio is a means to an end. If you use the right words, it will inspire people, it will spark questions and that dialogue is really what you want to have the second. That your music is the very end of your interaction with your fans.

Well, DNA they're you know, they're not really relating to you be there, definitely not going to your merch table and see you are a fun show on a friday night, that's what you are. You weren't this band that change somebody's life and I'm pretty sure that everybody who is taking the time to even listen to these podcasts probably has an artist who they really feel, I'm sure that all of us would say music saved our life, Music drastically changed every fiber of our being and who we are, every decision that we've made in life, what careers we've pursued, like how our family life has turned and so like you know when you think about all these decisions and all these important things like all these artists that pulled on your heart when you were younger, like how did they do it?

Did they do it with generic, this is about perseverance and endurance. Or did they do it by saying like, hey together, like we can make a community and whenever people are struggling, we can turn to each other, we can be our own support system. It's how you choose to brand yourself, maybe your struggle something totally different. Maybe you had a big drug problem, maybe you know, you want to focus on like losing weight or something like that. You know, everybody has their own set of struggles or their own goals really is what it is.

It doesn't have to be struggle either. It has to be the path, it's about the path. Now people love the rags to riches story. Now that goes both ways, It can be, you know, from rags to riches Monetarily or rags to riches emotionally. People love that emotional attachment. You know when you can actually tell a story that relates to people, they don't want you to stop till James. I've been going for a while. Why don't you jump in? I think you had something to say about social media bios.

Yeah, absolutely, basically I just wanted to add about social media bios. You really want to keep it short and sweet, especially for instagram, tell people what kind of music you make. You know, drop in a couple of bands that you are inspired by. Not necessarily that you sound like because then you're setting people up for disappointment, tell them who you are inspired by and then tell them where you're from. You don't have to be super specific. Just say, you know, Georgia or Vermont or colorado or you know, if it's a big state maybe say so cal or nor cal, you know, something like that and then have a call to action.

Listen now buy merch, whatever and then add a link. You always want to have a link in your bio and it should never ever, ever be just a Spotify link, just an apple music link, anything like that. You're absolutely shooting yourself in the foot Because for the 95 of the population of the world, who doesn't use Spotify? That's bad. Even fewer people use Apple music. If you just drop Spotify links in your bios, you're hitting five of the population of the world. Now, obviously music fans probably do have Spotify, But even Spotify only has, I want to say about a 40 market share of music streaming.

So if you use a link in bio tool, like the one that I just set up on my personal profile, which is called sleek bio, you can add multiple links to each platform. This is the same thing that we've got set up at better dot band slash listen. You go to that and you see our podcast and Spotify in Apple in every single major podcast platform. There is that way, if I say, hey, go check this link, people can find us wherever they are now that's not sleep bio, that's another tool that I use.

But I'm moving over to sleep bio because it's easier to edit and it's actually, it is sleek and it looks a little better. The one I've been using, you can't actually edit on mobile, Which is ridiculous because it's designed to be displayed on mobile. Whereas the sleek bio, you can edit it on your computer or on mobile and it's a really handy tool for this and it's essentially a link tree alternative, with the difference being that you can still add your Facebook pixel, you can still add all your links, but it's $19 lifetime versus $6 a month for link tree premium.

They both have free versions, but to add the facebook pixel, which lets you do retargeting ads to anyone who clicks your link in bio, which you absolutely want to have, You need the premium version. So I'd much rather pay $19 which is three months of link tree and have it done with and never have to pay for it again. Instead of paying what? $6 a month? That's 60 $72 a year for link tree. That's a no brainer. I'm gonna go sleep bio every single time. So if you want to see how I set that up, literally the first time I ever used it, I went in and set it up and just did a video of myself setting it up and gave an honest review of what seemed good and what didn't seem so good.

If you want to see that, it will be in the show notes at Bandhive dot Rocks slash 74. That's the number 74 and I'll have a link to that there and I'll also have a link to sleek bio if you want to pick that up. Like I said, I absolutely recommend paying the $19 because you can add that facebook pixel and that is so vital to any kind of advertising. If you're doing advertising too cold leads, you're wasting money. You need to advertise to your followers and your fans first, the people who you can retarget and then when you've got that down, you can go target cold audiences.

But for right now, keep your social media bios short and sweet. And please please please don't link to any specific platform. Just use a link in bio and say something like our website are emerged, store, Spotify, Apple, Blah, Blah Blah. Have all the major platforms, you should have like 6-10 links in there. You know, YouTube should be one of them. Keep it short and sweet. Put your links there. Don't force people to one platform because if they don't have that platform, they're not going to search for you elsewhere.

That's going to be it. And you're going to lose that connection, multiple lines in the water, more lines in the water, more fish you catch. Mhm, mhm mm mhm. That does it for this episode of the band. I've podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in and listening. I really hope that you learned a little something about writing your band's bio. It's really incredibly important and it's something that too many artists overlook. So make sure that you go through all your bios with a fine tooth comb, take out any typos, any grammar issues run on sentences, all that kind of stuff and make sure it's on brand and tells an interesting story.

You have to have something that people will care about or they're not going to care about you. And a bio ultimately may not seem really important because it's about the music, but you have to keep in mind that a bio is telling your story. And for the fans who will become your biggest fans, they want to know everything they can about you. So, having a good bio is one of the keys to getting those die hard fans. I really hope that this is something that you will take to heart and take seriously if you have any questions about writing a bio or if you want help writing a bio, head on over to our facebook group, which is the Bandhive Community.

You can find it either by searching for a Bandhive on facebook or going to Better dot band slash group in your browser. We would love to see some examples of what you've written there and we're absolutely happy to give feedback on anything you'd like a hand with. So again, better dot band slash group or just search for banned Hive on facebook. We'll be back with another new episode next Tuesday at six a.m. Eastern with a really cool guests. I'm super stoked about it. I'm really looking forward to it.

Keep your eye out for that one. Make sure you're subscribed in Itunes, Spotify or whatever other player you use. And if you are listening on Apple podcasts or itunes, it would be super appreciated if you can go leave a rating and review for the podcast because that helps us out quite a bit and gives us a chance of getting a bigger audience so we can help more artists just like yourself. Thanks again for listening. We hope you have a great week stay well. And of course, as always, keep rocking that.