Industry Insider: Jonathan Coulton

Aug 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Jason Feehan and Randy Chertkow

           
 

AN INDIE MUSICIAN'S ADVICE FOR GOING IT ALONE

When you tour, you head out to the UK or the West Coast rather than New York and the surrounding areas. Why is that?

When I play out, I go where my fans are. And that's because of a site called Eventful.com that created a system where anyone can sign up and demand you to play their city. As a musician, Eventful tells you where your fans are and how many will be at the show before you even decide to play there. They also allow you to send messages directly to your fans. It's one of those ideas that makes you wonder how we did it the other way for so long. It's the only way I have been able to tour — by finding the places where I actually could make money.

How does your income-stream break down? Can you give us percentages — what you get from selling your music versus touring?

The largest single chunk, about 40 percent of my income, is from digital downloads. This is through my online store at my Website and CDBaby; digital distribution through iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, eMusic, et cetera. Another 20 percent comes from touring and ticket sales. Another 20 percent is merchandise, which is CDs and T-shirts. The rest is ancillary stuff such as playing private parties, BMI royalties from TV placements, donations and licensing.

Your song “Code Monkey” ended up becoming the theme song to a TV series on G4. How did that come about?

They found the song on the Internet and felt it was the right theme, so they contacted me. I ended up licensing it to them and we worked out a deal to give them the source tracks so they could cut up and remix the song in ways that they were asking for where I didn't have to do any work.

You've also had some success with breaking into the videogame world. Can you tell us how you ended up writing a song for Valve Software's game, Portal?

I was playing a show in Seattle and a fan from Valve Software came up to me after the show and asked if I was interested in writing music for videogames. I met with one of the writers for the game and together we hit on the idea of having me write a song for the closing credits based on a character in the game. I wrote it as a work-for-hire since it was a commission. The song became such a big part of what people liked about that game that the Rock Band people decided to put the song in their game. All this wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for my fans. They've helped me in many ways.

And that's one of the reasons why you included them in your new DVD/CD?

Yes, absolutely. I asked fans to help me record the concert. It's a live show I did in San Francisco and is the culmination of what I've been doing the last couple of years. I hired a professional company for the main footage — 5-camera, HD — and it's a very different experience from the cheap-and-easy Internet approach. We cut all the footage the fans shot and put it in there. Yes, it's an idea totally stolen from the Beastie Boys, but I loved the idea and my fans responded with excellent footage.

Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan are authors of The Indie Band Survival Guide: The Complete Manual for the Do-It-Yourself Musician, The D.I.Y. Music Manual, and founders of the open and free musician resource, IndieGuide.com (www.IndieGuide.com).