Power 104 in Kelowna

Phone 250-763-1047
Email info@power104.fm

CIFM in Kamloops

http://www.98.3cifm.com/request.php

Zed 99 in Red Deer

Studio 403-342-7625 (ROCK) or 403-342-7655(ROLL)
Free on Telus Mobility: #989
Free on Bell Mobility: #989
Free on Rogers: *99

http://www.zedfm.com/index.asp?mn=2&id=51&cc=9

atompson@newcap.ca

The Goat in Lloydminster

Request / Contest phone (780) 875-1061 Request / Contest fax (780) 875-GOAT (4628) Request E-mail request@borderrock.com

K 106 in Sarnia

http://www.k106fm.com/equest.php

Toll Free: 877- 464-1063

CHDR The Drive in Fernie/Cranbrook

info@thedrivefm.ca

Ph: (250) 426-2224

89.5 The Hawk in Chilliwack

604 703 0895

www.requests@895thehawk.com

Mountain FM in Castlegar

1877.560.1010 or *MTN on Rogers

drex@mountainfm.net

Click here to view video:

Read the tab I have included for important details.

Have fun!

Creativity is my drug of choice and I hope to continue developing mine for a long time to come.

BTW, check us out at www.sellaband.com/fearzero and if you are feeling generous, invest a few $ into the making of our next CD.  You can check out what you get in return for investing in the band at the link provided.

That’s all for now, stay tuned, I will be posting some guitar lesson videos and acoustic performances of songs from past CDs in the coming weeks.

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!

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.

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!

The day after day travel mixed with the terrible food (Taco Time anyone?) and lack of sleep makes it very easy to get sick especially when you are putting demands on your voice every single night.

One such instance literally landed me in the hospital!

We were about 3/4 of the way through our tour schedule that spring and had played around 25 shows.  We had 6 nights in a row in Eastern Canada and on about day 3 in a row, I caught a nasty cold.  Trouble is, we were about to play in Fredericton where we had a decent amount of airplay and not only that, we were actually getting paid a somewhat fair wage for the 2 nights were scheduled to play.

Some vocal teachers recommend total rest when the infection is in or around your upper chest but we could not afford to miss these shows, after all, we had travelled thousands of kms and this was one of the towns we really looked forward to playing.

I felt like dogshit but I went on like a trooper anyway and we played about 5 songs, my voice croaking the whole time.  I ended up letting my emotions get the best of me since I knew I could do so much better if I was healthy.  I decided on the spot during an angry section of the last song to let loose with a scream Dave Grohl would be proud of.  Immediately following this, I felt something snap in my larynx.  Not good!

I cancelled the show after that and did not speak for the rest of the evening or the next day.  We made it through the next night but my voice was clearly damaged and never recovered from that point on til the end of the tour.

After getting off the road, I took a rest for a while but my throat stayed gravelly and now it was getting really sore to talk.  Finally after suffering with a sore throat for months, I decided to hit up the local ENT to find out what the hell was going on.

Next time I will tell you what he said…