If you like it, send the gift around to all your friends, it’ll help us pay back the bill for the studio time it took to record it lol!

We have a couple of shows coming up in the interior.  We are heading back to play Villager’s Pub in Fruitvale on July 10, and then we play an outdoor benefit concert called Cars, Concerts and Causes in Trail BC at Gyro park starting at 6 pm with guests BlackLightProphet.

The Trail show is all ages and admission is by donation.  Both bands will be donating a portion of their proceeds to the foundation as well.

For more information click http://www.fearzero.com/tour-2/.

Thanks everyone!

Now Fear Zero needs your votes one more time.

Between 8pm and 9pm Pacific time on Wednesday, June 3, they will play our song “Breathe Again” on CFOX and you can vote for Fear Zero (only during that time) by phone at 604-280-CFOX (2369) and by Text Message to 843369 (THEFOX). (A 25 cent charge will apply as usual to all text message votes).

Not in Vancouver? Go to http://www.cfox.com/ and click LISTEN LIVE!

Thanks so much for the support!

Thanks all!

Please vote for us by signing up at www.seeds.cfox.com/fearzero.  Add us as a friend and vote away on our music.

Voting starts on May 22 and runs until May 29.  You can vote everyday up until May 29 so put it in your day planner.

Thanks to everyone that helps out, we really appreciate it!

Recently Fear Zero shot a couple of rock videos for release with our CD in the (hopefully) near future.  I just wanted to talk about the experience, maybe destroy a few myths and let you know what it is really like.

We have shot 4 videos now bearing the Fear Zero name.  If you are a fan you have only seen one of those so far and there is a reason.  Shooting a video is a bit of an art.  On top of trying to capture the essence of the song in the form of a storyline, you have to also capture the image that the band is trying to project.  If you are doing the videos independently like we do, that can be a real challenge considering the fact that most videos you see on VH1/Muchmusic cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Two years ago we shot 2 videos for songs from our last CD “In Lights” for the songs “Breathe Again” and “Broken, Still Hoping.”  The reason you have not viewed the second one is that it just did not turn out right.  We spent thousands on it and the director just did not capture what we wanted so we had to scrap it.  We did this video through a third party and trusted them with organizing it and getting it to look right.  For this reason I recommend bands do as much as you can yourselves from storyline to location, get it right in your minds and it should turn out better than if you just trust someone that had nothing to do with the project.

Anyway, these last 2 videos we shot we did all on our own with help of course from friends that are close to the project.  The footage we captured is a million times better and we have what we think will end up being 2 great vids.

Next time I will write about what a day on a video shoot is like since this is turning into a bit of a novel.

Thanks for reading and I will be back with another installment soon.

One friend recently said to me that a CD is like a business card.  I agree but damn those are expensive business cards!

I have noticed over the last 7  years a definite change in the way people respond to the prospect of buying a CD.  Way back in 2002, a band could expect to sell at least 10-20 CDs if they had a decent act and good songs to perform.  I have watched that amount dwindle to much less at most shows and the familiar refrain “I’ll just get it off of Limewire.”  The fact that music is free now is a tough thing to accept but as a modern musician, I have to come to grips with that fact.

Another producer friend of mine pointed out a story to me that he had read recently.  EMI music is the 3rd largest label in the world.  They have 14,000 acts on their roster.  Guess how many made money last year?  200 out of 14,000.  That ought to tell you something about the music biz.  Better do it for the love, not the money.

Now the conundrum.  If band X spends $10,000 on their 5 song EP, how do they recoup the money?

Take some guesses.  If you said CDs you would be wrong, nobody really buys them anymore.  If you said downloads, you would also be wrong.  After Itunes takes their cut and then the distributor takes their cut, you are left with almost nothing.  I have seen downloads where we literally got paid $0.01 per song.  That is not the answer I’m afraid.

Playing live you say?  Sure if  you have a market you have managed to build up over a year or more but you can only go to that well so many times as an independent band.  Eventually, once you start to tour you will bleed money if you don’t do it right.

What do you think gives a band the best chance of getting their money back out of the CD they spent it on?  T-shirts.  That’s right, t-shirts are the single fastest/best way to get money back for a band.

Being in an independent band once meant rebelling against authority, trying to be artistic and not changing your ideals for anyone or anything.

What are you if you are in a rock band now?  T-shirt salesmen, simply for the fact that  you cannot download a t-shirt.  Pretty strange really, considering that just 7 years ago we (Fear Zero) were able to sell enough CDs and make enough money from royalties etc. without t-shirts that I was able to cover most of the cost of making the first CD ($20,000 or so).

We did a tour in 2007 sans t-shirts.  Big mistake!  We probably could have chipped a big chunk of debt off the credit with a decent couple of t-shirts.

Well, that is the way it is now and I have accepted it.  If you are a musician, you need to as well.  Sure, keep writing, performing, all that but remember, without a good t-shirt for sale you’re dead in the water.

Check out the LIVE page for  more details.

On March 29 we will be back in Vancouver playing The Bourbon for a Juno after party with guests Darker The Sky and Agents Of Influence.

See you at the show!

More from fear zero at Myxer

This short story I am about to reveal falls into the latter category.

We had just finished a show in some city in Ontario and all of us had jumped in the band van including some of Spokane’s (our guitarist) college buddies that came out to the show.  Two sketchy looking girls came up to the van window and began knocking on the window so the boys in the back seat opened up the door to see what they wanted.

One girl was twitching while the other was kind of leaning into the van as the vile smell of old liquor wafted through the door.

“Hey, where you guys going?  You look like you need some ho’s on the go!” she said as she tried making sexy eyes at Spokane’s buddy Iggy.

He replied succinctly, “Hell no,” and slammed the door in their faces as we sped off.

I know this story is not exactly headline material, just one of a million weird things that happens to you on the road in a traveling band but I needed some way of introducing you to some music that Iggy wrote after the encounter.

This piece was sent to me a while ago, obviously it is not a serious piece of music but I just thought that it captured the moment so well I had to share it with you.

Click on the link below to hear:

Ho On The Go

Hope  you get a chuckle!