His Fans Lend an Ear (and Their Money)

Why did you turn to fans to help finance your latest album? I had a lot of projects going on and money was tight, so I gave fans an opportunity to be patrons. With a minimum $500 investment, I promised to pay them an 8% flat-rate return, which should take at most two years based on past sales. I needed only $15,000 and turned down offers.

What's the album about? The whole album is a collection of songs I've written for movies and television shows. It's called Never Saw Blue, which is the title of a song I wrote that was in the movie Runaway Bride.

Why did you switch to indie albums? I came up through the publishing and major-label system. My first album, 5 to 1, came out in 1987 on Mercury/PolyGram, and it cost about $250,000 to produce. Next came Circle Back Home, on Polydor/PolyGram, in 1990. It was a classic instance of executives losing perspective; they spent $400,000 just to produce it. I lost my recording deal after that. Since then, I've done five self-financed indie albums.

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What are the economics of one of your indie albums? The most expensive album cost about $25,000 to record. We charge $15 each, of which about $10 is profit. My best-selling indie record has sold 7,000 to 8,000 copies, and that's about the ceiling for most artists.

Is the big-label model dead? It isn't just breaking down -- it's broken down. It always troubled me that the wealth of talent out there had to be filtered through only a few major labels. It's not just that labels decided who was talented and who wasn't; they decided who was attractive enough. Patsy Cline couldn't get an album looking like Patsy Cline.

What's your strategy now? I call this my ongoing experiment. The cutting edge for me is making a new record every couple of years and using a limited, sensible, cost-effective promotion to get it out there. I just need to expose it to people who might like it, mainly through touring and the Internet. I've made a commitment to owning my own work entirely. I've been able to make a living in the music business while doing what is sacred to me.