Getting the band back together
Many years before joining The Barbarian Group and the zany world of “Strategy” my day job used to entail living in a van traveling from city to city playing music. My band at the time “The Sheila Divine” was signed to the metal label Roadrunner Records even though our fey alternative songs channeling our heroes like Joy Division and Ian McCulloch were no match for the Sepultura and Slipknot’s that the label was known for.
We were touring in that era of Cookie Monster rock like Limp Biscuit and Puddle of Mudd, so despite experiencing moderate success as the opening band on several tours for the likes of Manic Street Preachers, Morrissey, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club we were ultimately dropped from the label and vanished into the darkness of irrelevancy.
Since those days I have released many more records and have maintained a cult following in places that begin with B like Boston, Buffalo, and Belgium.
A few weeks ago out of the blue I got a series of offers for The Sheila Divine to reunite. (Actually as a result on Thursday we are flying to Antwerp to headline a 10,000 person festival called Crammerock.)
During the rehearsals for the shows and after many beers the band decided that we should reform and make a new record. I had been thinking about my next album and given that my job at TBG is in digital strategy I really wanted to use the internet in a fun way.
I had been interested in the website Kickstarter which uses crowd sourced funds to finance creative endeavors. I was curious to see what the interest level for Sheila Divine would be and set up a campaign with a goal of $5000 to make a record.
I sent the link to my Facebook and Twitter accounts and a week later we raised enough money to fund the album. The campaign actually has 4o more days to go so who knows what our final tally will be. (Currently we are up to almost $7500)
The Boston Globe () The Phoenix() even wrote about the project.
The second part of this project is how we are going to involve people in the process of making the album. We are treating this almost like a television series on the web. Each Thursday night from 7-11pm we are going to U-Stream the recording sessions. The songs will be created live through a mix of crowd sourced collaborations and in studio visits from other musicians.
One night we might have users give us the chord progressions, tempo, style, or influences, and the next week it might be an in studio visit by Bill Janovitz from Buffalo Tom. The idea is for people to have a hand in the making of the music, and see up close the entire creative process from song inception to mixing.
We are really excited to see where this project can go. The web truly is a magical place where good ideas small and large have the chance to blossom without the confines of the music industry. Now more than ever in the humble words of Bob Dylan “All you need is a red guitar, three chords, and the truth.”
