Art by Jaclyn Espinoza
“Selling out”: Possibly having your music heard by others? “Others” start the minute your friends are willing to listen to you and not run out of the garage. So, the minute it is not you and your friends just playing for each other the “sell out” has started. Get over it and get on… people are lying if they don’t want more people to hear their music.
Kevin Lyman, Founder of the Vans Warped Tour.
As I prepare to go sit in the sun beaten (hopefully) grounds of the Washington County Fairgrounds in Hillsboro, OR, for the last stop of the Vans Warped tour 2011. I have been figuring out how I am going to manage trying to get from band to band… stage to stage, figuring out who is going to be at this stop and who is going to be worth watching. I went to the Warped tour website to see who the current lineup is, and each band gets a mini bio and a comments area for “fans”.
For the most part, it is nothing but love, people proclaiming their love for their favorite bands, talking about how Foxy Shazam eats a pack of lit (yes, lit) cigarettes every stop, about how they are glad Grieves and Budo are going to the only legit group there and how they simply cannot wait to go mosh with their friends to The Devil wears Prada and Asking Alexandria. This stuff was getting me all pumped up until I starting reading more and there were people complaining about people like Foxy (who is currently labeled “the most creative and diverse act” on the tour) and saying that they’re a bunch of sell outs who used to cool, or even saying they’re absolutely awful and don’t deserve to be on this tour at all.
Some might consider selling out to be making a song/album and aiming to make it popular, a hit even and straying away from their “roots”. In case you need an example, Metallica was considered to be the most metal band in the early 90’s, then the “black” album came out, became one of the highest grossing albums to date, and suddenly all of the people who once loved them were now turning their backs on them because the band was no longer “theirs”– it was everyone’s.
This can apply to any genre of music, and no one is exempt from this type of scrutiny. I can understand the frustration of having your favorite band, whether intentional or not, switch over to a style that sells more albums. We have all seen it, and we all hate it. Instead of bashing them and wasting your energy putting people down, why not just go out and find new music to listen to? Better yet, spend that energy and make your own album. You will never have to worry about selling out; you can make exactly what you want to hear and could go on your merry way.
As a musician, I never worried about selling out; in fact, all I wanted was to be heard. If people didn’t like my music, I assumed they just “didn’t get it” or their taste in music was horrible. Reality is, my music wasn’t as good as I believed it to be. It never stood in my way though. I made what I wanted and was proud of everything I created, because it was mine. I feel like a lot of musicians are doing the same thing now a day. We recently brought you an exclusive on free album august; these artists were quite literally giving you their music because they purely wanted to share their art with you. While they might not get to retire this year, they are still not holding back and letting “selling out” stop them from doing what they love. They just want you to listen.
So next time you want to call someone a sellout… stop and see that we’re all sell outs. If you aren’t selling out, then you aren’t letting yourself be great. You are too concerned of what other people think and what they may call you. I am not saying you need to go hand everyone your demo, I’m saying do what you love and forget about everything else. The more we can bring the music community together, the bigger and better music scene we will have. Stop hating and start participating. If you are a musician and want to be heard, send me an email at Joshua.seech@gmail.com and I would be glad to hear what you’ve got to offer.
This year’s Vans warped tour is coming to end on August 14th, We Out Here will be out supporting and shooting photos of fans and the bands. Let us know who you’re excited to see and maybe we’ll see you out there, hang out and snap a pic of you and post it on the site. Until next time, remember this… as a musician; you got to sell out, in order to eat out.
One love.
Joshua Seech.