So what is Dead Rebel Team?
Seydou Coca: Dead Rebel Team is a group of young aspiring artists from various fields and backgrounds such as creative writing, production and film amongst others. Together we share a collective mindset in which we aim to speak directly to our audience to share a message of positivity using current and real life events.
Is your music available online? Where?
Matt Wood: Our music is available online on YouTube and Soundcloud. Our current events can be followed via our Facebook and Twitter profiles. Our first mixtape is also available for free download via the links on your Facebook fan page. Just search for The Dead Rebel Team and enjoy.
How important do you think it is for musicians/bands to market themselves?
Graeme: The music industry is such a large and varied entity nowadays that if musicians didn’t market themselves they stand to become drowned out by the noise of others around them. We see marketing and drawing attention to ourselves as key to becoming successful and give us the ability o reach into the lives of those who share an interest in our personas and our general positive messages as a whole.
How important do you think it is for musicians to have an online presence?
Ben: The internet is a massive part of modern day life, from the rise of social media in popular culture to the smart phones carried in the hands of a vast majority of the general public. To not exploit this medium would leave us likely to fall behind our rivals in the marketplace. An online presence allows our audience to listen to or watch our music freely and follow our day to day events. This allows them to feel part of the team and share in the unique experience that has become our lives. Sharing these experiences with our fans is a massive part of why we do what we do.
Have any amazing opportunities come up from people seeing your work online?
Matthew Tate: We’ve had the opportunity to work with or meet up with some fantastic up and coming artists who are on a similar path to our own such as Nick Wood, Sonny Jim and The Projekt. Our online video’s have given us the ability to display our talent to venue managers who have in turn provided us with stage time to play to crowds all around the country including our hometown of Sunderland. We have also been given the opportunity to write a song that will feature within a movie due out in August with a £1 million budget.
Do you think soundcloud is a useful platform for musicians?
Matty: Soundcloud is a fantastic worldwide platform. It’s a quick and easy way to share our music with those without the ability to download or anyone wanting to play our track on the go. What’s more is it’s a free and stable website that can be linked to and offers a download function to our tracks. It makes the job of sharing our music with the world so much easier and allows us more precious time doing what we love most.
Do you think YouTube is a useful platform for musicians?
Frawd: Everyone loves music videos. The success of MTV in the 80’s and the subsequent success of the channels following in its footsteps such as Kerrang and Channel AKA are testament to this. For those, like ourselves, in the dawning of their careers YouTube offers a free and easy way to get seen as well as heard by the worldwide populous. This is integral to those who aren’t currently in a position to get their video’s onto these stations. YouTube also gives us an opportunity to see how well our video’s are being received by our audience by means of view counts and comments.
Do you think Twitter and Facebook are useful platforms for musicians?
Graeme: With over 1 billion users on social media you can bet your life it’s a useful platform. We use Twitter and Facebook daily to speak to our fans and update them with what we’ve been up to, where the next gig is and link them to our latest tracks.
Are there any other online platforms that you think musicians/bands should know about?
Seydou Coca: Mixcould If your a DJ and Bandcamp are good ones.
What is the best marketing advice you have been given?
Matt Wood: Use the law of attraction. To us it is more than an idea; it’s a powerful force that affects our everyday life. Concentrate, focus and work hard enough on what you want in life and it will come to you. You can’t expect positivity in your life without yourself being positive. This is something we speak about through our music and in our everyday lives. Also don’t put all your songs on YouTube or sound cloud give people a reason to get your mix tapes and come and see you live for new material.
Do you have any marketing tips for musicians or bands out there?
Graeme: Just basically what we have already said. To those who haven’t used these methods we say research and test them for yourselves.
Where can we see you next?
Matthew Tate: If you check our Facebook and Twitter we always keep people updated about Gigs which we have loooootttts of coming up, new material and any news regarding the team. Seydou Coca our DJ has his own live feed where he does a mix, you can tune in there.
Find Dead Rebel online:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Dead-Rebel-Team/274718582576109
SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com/dead-rebel-team
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/thedeadrebelteam
Twitter: @deadrebelteam
Penguin in the Room @prartsmarketing is one penguin with an arts marketing dream: penguin stepping my way into the arts industry and helping creatives flourish! Specialising in online marketing, social media, branding, copy writing, media coaching and web design for actors, artists, casting directors, agents, production companies, theatre companies and creative individuals.
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