Michael Hoy is the co-founder of MusicBox, an independent musician discovery platform where musicians are able to reach listeners that have opted-in to receive not just music from these artists, but also music from similar bands. It’s an amazing way for aspiring artists to create new fan-bases outside of their zip code.
Michael believes the current system of searching for music, even though it’s all out there and readily available, is flawed. You’re less likely to discover truly new and exciting tunes if you are left to your own searching process. Even sites like Pandora and Last.fm typically direct you to artists that are almost too close to the ones you plug in, almost too safe.
Through MusicBox, Michael wants to expand listeners’ horizons by hand-picking and hand-delivering awesome independent music that’s just on the periphery of your comfort zone. The flip side of the service is that up-and-coming independent artists get a brand new distribution channel that places their music directly into the inboxes of listeners who may not otherwise have found them. Theirs to download and own.
Table of Contents
2:57 – If you had to describe yourself as a band, a song, or a gene, what would it be?
4:56 – Tell us how you got started in the music business and how MusicBox got started?
8:38 – What has been your proudest moment?
10:40 – How can artists become a part of MusicBox?
16:32 – What has been your biggest failure?
23:12 – Three things artists should be doing right now to grow their fan-base and move their careers forward.
If you had to describe yourself as a band, a song, or a gene, what would it be?
They are a pretty popular band now, but when I was growing up, they were just coming through the ranks. It’s a band called Four Year Strong. It’s tough to put a genre on them, but if I had too, I’d say they are an amazing mix of pop, punk, and melodic metal. More importantly, they are incredibly syncopated and very detail oriented, and you can kinda tell that they are particular about every note they play. It’s so fun to listen too.
Tell us how you got started in the music business and how MusicBox got started?
Before I got into MusicBox and start-ups, I was a professional musician for 12 years. I’ve had the opportunity to tour around the country and around the world. I’ve played in some pretty awesome bands, and some not so awesome.
So I’ve been fortunate enough to spend some time in the music industry, both on the music side and on the business side. I’ve produced and planned festivals, created tours and managed bands. It gave me amazing insight into the holes and gaps in the industry today. From the outside looking in–it’s an incredibly large and fun and dynamic market–but once you are in there it is really easy to see where the holes are.
One of the reasons you guys are doing this, and why we are building MusicBox, is for these independent musician coming through the ranks and trying to find their way, it can be really hard. That is why we built MusicBox–to give those guys and girls another tool to create not just an enormous fan-base, but an engaging fan-base that they can call on for a number of different things. To attend shows, to check out new music, to spread their good word globally.
What has been your proudest moment?
I had a lot of really fun times playing music. One of the bands I was in headlined for several thousands people in Germany. That was so, so cool. But I think one of my proudest moments, and I think my co-founder Dave would probably share this moment, involves MusicBox. When we created MusicBox, we did a short beta test. Inside of that beta test, we had an article written about us in LifeHacker, and we were able to bring on 6,000 listeners in a day. Now it’s not necessarily a proud moment because we built something that people were interested in. It was a proud moment because now we had this incredibly eager, opt-ed in base that we could send our artists too.
It was powerful, because now we had the power to help the artists we were recruiting. We had found so many really good artists, top 40-quality artists, who for whatever reason couldn’t break into the mainstream, or just hadn’t yet. Not 6,000 may not be a big number to a lot of people, but to the artists we were working with to say, “Hey, we can put you in the earbuds of all those people.” That was huge for them.
It was such a gratifying moment, to be able to do that for the musicians we were working with at that time, and for the artists we are working with now.
How can artists become a part of MusicBox?
Signing-up is free. And we encourage all artists to sign-up. We are currently working on ways to include everyone. Our feeling is that anyone that is willing to put their heart on a track and put themselves out there deserves the opportunity to get in front of people and promote their product.
Right now, we are taking applications to build our Boxes. We have a vetting process that involves a curation team. We also have a matching algorithm that helps distribute and curate Boxes, so its a healthy mix of human and electronic curation.
Any artist that wants to apply can go to MusicBox/SubmitAnArtist to learn more.
What has been your biggest failure?
It was actually as a musician, but it really contributed to why we created MusicBox. For one of my bands, we planned a CD-release tour. This had to be 2010 or so. It was eight or nine shows up and down the east coast. We worked our tails off, and every single show had two or three people at it.
It was demoralizing, obviously, to drive all over the country, pull all your stuff out of the van. I think we had a show or two cancel because no one showed up. It was disappointing, and definitely a failure. Looking back on it, we didn’t do things the right way. We didn’t promote the right way. We put the cart before the horse.
One of the reasons I love what you guys are doing is that you are educating musicians on the right way to do these things. The right ways to schedule your tours, or legalize your music. All these things can be prevented. Or situations could be made a lot better if the knowledge was just there.
And it’s one of the reasons that we built MusicBox, so musicians can have fans everywhere to engage with, and eventually see those same fans at the show.
Three things artists should be doing right now to grow their fan-base and move their careers forward:
- Engage the fans you have and turn them into your promoters and advocates.
- Get feedback from your fans, promote what you change, and then start the process over again.
- Shameless plug: Try MusicBox! We offer the best, free platform for artists to grow their fan-base globally. Any artist that is interested has a shot at getting in.
The best ways to reach Michael:
On the web:
http://www.mymusicbox.me/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/WeAreMusicBox
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/TeamMusicBox
Cool song feedback tool you need to check out:
http://www.audiokite.com/
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