sory for eng.
i dont know, maybe no metal band, except mainstream, ever earns money? maybe it's all for fun. i released one album once in CD-format, it was epic doom metal about coprophilia and ive sold 8 CDs only in 9 years. maybe making metal is not about earning money. but in case there IS money in all of this, then maybe my proposal maybe of interest to somebody.
so there is me and i make epic heavy metal songs with a peculiar concept of the lyrics, a couple of albums are done, third is 50% completed, i'd like to find listeners for it, but i know no way, i dont know how to release any album on cd and how to sell (that one 9 years ago was by luck i suppose, some label wrote to me first and released 500 copies and gave me 50 for free). i suppose one has to write to metal magazines or something, get reviews, to get attention. but i dont belive in luck, i cant waste time on writing to all these magazines hoping they will review. so if there should be somebody who could do it for me and arrange physical releases for my products, i could just provide him with my pieces of creation and he could own the cds and sell them, or in whichever way one is supposed to make money on making music. i'd only like bandcamp sellings to be my part, maybe through it i could earn on guitar strings or something. the earning through everything else is yours.
you can estimate my music here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXWG9RFS9pg the fresh album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN0flQiBF9g album recorded in 2010
the third album is going to be more folkish and progressive than this fresh one. the fresh one is like a test of what sound i can get at home alone. it's really the maximum, so bear it in mind.
one album is going to be a summoning-like one, i only need to create a concept for lyrics to begin to record it. that album will be really able to get attention (as summoning is very popular), and consequently earn money. i beleive all these shitty caladan broods do make money, since there is so big a cult about them and so much merch and all. (sorry if i offended sombody's feeling, but i really dong care for untalented music like caladan brood or eldrewind. i like prfessionals, like bathory, or metallica or iron maiden, a cople of albums by summoning, they know how to create catchy music, not all that "atmospheric" fucking crap)
govnilium@gmail.com

^^post of the year for me. following this thread with great interest!

you yourself are not interested in managing the project? it might be an addition to your cds if you're selling somehwere. the only thing to do is to find a label interested to release my albums on cd. then, as usual, i think they will send you some part the cds, which you can sell. the russian label sent me 50 cds when i released govnilium. it's true that ive sold only 10 cds in 8 years, but i didnt promote it at all, i only uploaded the album on 2 sites in 2010 and that's all. and i think most people (even fans of epic metal) didnt even listen to it mostly because of the provocating concept. if it hadnt been for the concept i think it would have been far more popular and demanded by morons who waste money on collecting cds. im not talking about releasing the last album, it is a very primitive album. but the next albums will be as good as any of bathory's late albums, and thus far more likely to be demanded and easily sold.

this keeps getting better and better

sorry, I don't run a label anymore... but if you put your money where your mouth is* and you material's that good, it will be easy to find a label to take advantage of your enormous talent.


*that's an english expression, please don't put banknotes or coins in your mouth

my music is already better and more talented than 99% of crap released by metal labels. no sense arguing, that's a fact, aknowledged by many.
but how will labels find it? i suppose the normal practice is musicians send the material to various labels or something like that. that's what im looking for somebody for

what prevents you from doing it yourself? all you need is to include the "my music is already better and more talented than 99% of crap released by metal labels. no sense arguing, that's a fact, aknowledged by many" line (music link very optional) and you're on to a winnar!

You sound like an artist that managers would absolutely line up for the opportunity to work with.

You'll find it difficult to convice a PR manager to work for you without paying up front. PR agencies have no control over how much people will actually like your music, let alone buy records, so promising them potential income is not going to cut it. You might as well promise them "exposure".

why i cannot do it myself (even as little as send promo material to labels) is that i'm above that. i cannot bring myself to beg to release my albums somebody who has released crap and praises it. i hate underground metal music, which is 99% untalented crap as i said, as well as whoever listens to it, or releases, or even pushes like button to it. you might say 'then try it with bigger labels, who have released your iron maiden, megadeth, etc'. but the sound and performance quality of my material is of course not as high as that of those big bands. thus i fall neither into the category of underground labels nor big labels, and will stay unpublished unless somebody takes up this lowly business of sending out the material to shitty labels. looking for a pr manager, as i call it, i basically aim at people who individullay trade cds on discogs. i don't think that to send a message to a few dozen labels is such a big deal as to need to pay for in advance. if i were trading physical cds or vinyl, as i once did, i would be very interested in such an offer, and much more so as the material in question is in folkish epic doom style, something in which few bands have ever made great albums, and which ensures that it will be demanded. if the label should send back at least 50 cds of every album it will make 50 x $5 = $250 of potential profit for the effort of sending out the promo to labels. it's just that those $250 is not a very interesting sum, i guess, which is where all my pessimism about releasing albums begins. but maybe there are ways of getting more than 50 cds or a better price than $5 for a cd.

Yeah, great, good luck with that.

splendid. I give you 10% for being entirely honest, besides being full of yourself.

so, which album would you want the "PR manager" to pitch to labels? that merry and free one, or a "forthcoming" one, based on your word that it's better than anything?

i'd say merry and free definitely deserves life in a physical form (seeing what crap is released nowhadays and even on cassettes and vinyl), but perhaps not yet, for there is too much weirdness about it, i need at first to expound on the style and the lyrics by releasing something more. the forthcoming one, with which i'm finishing presently, consists of songs in vein of my 2010's track 6 and 2019's track 3 + instrumental tracks, which in my estimation makes it as good as bathory's nordland. it's just that if there is no arrangement that some label will release it, then i will upload it on the web straightway as usual and also connect it unrestrictedly with my other activities and thus perhaps too much degrade its potential value to be ever released on cd afterwards.

no label will sign you for material they have not heard (unless your name is James Hetfield or so). once this masterpiece is finished, upload it on soundcloud or some other platform that allows you to have "private" streamable material and send me a link, together with an email address, here, on a PM.

ok, i'll pm you.

I remember listening to your first album a few years ago. It's good Bathory worship. Very good, even. However, the lyrics and themes are so at odds with what people want and expect from this genre that I don't think it's going to be an easy sell. The lyrics translated into English make the whole project seem like a joke or satire. I remember listening to the album on YouTube with some friends and we were enjoying the tunes while laughing out loud at the lyrics. It was a shame honestly. It almost made me feel like I had been cheated out of a good band.

This style of music has a market and you could build up a decent following if the right energy was put into promotion but I think that the themes and imagery either needs a facelift or needs to be kept super mysterious to build a more cult-like atmosphere. I'm listening to the 2019 album you just linked and it seems like you've moved away from those sorts of themes?

I may be able to help you out with your next album. I have a good working relationship with some labels in the USA/EU who deal with this kind of music and other people in graphic design/video, plus merch and all that other shit. Publicists as well. I can't promise that anything would come of it but there's potential in a band with this sound. But I'd only be willing to work with you if you're willing to make sure that your presentation (photos, artwork, video content, overall vibe) can match the quality of the music. I would also need to hear the next album when it's ready.

I (mostly) concur... what's wrong with singing about vikings or russian winters?

also saw your post in the seeking musicians forum, and I think you're shooting yourself in the foot :/

To compose lyrics about vikings and nature-inspired stuff require the author to have the peter pan disorder. Nobody in their senses and beyond teen age will work for ten months on an album whose lyric is going to be about savages extinct centuries ago or snowy mountains and forests. Those who do, they either earn money, like quorthon, falkenbach, or otherwise benefit from it, or have this peter pan syndrome. I too am a peter pan, only i am a peter’pervert’pan. They dream of vikings and wandering in the woods like animals; I of girls and fucking like a human. So, yes, that’s the rub, my lyrics will always be sick and unconventional, even if i find a vocalist, because otherwise i just don’t enjoy the creative process. In all other aspects i can concede, i mean, i can put some landscape picture for the front cover, as it is in fashion, and use idiotic aggressive fonts, and even change the name of the artist (this if some vocalist be found. Otherwise, to call your one-man band some name as if it is a band is also peter-panism, in my opinion. All serious musicians who work single call their projects by their own name). And i seriously am looking for a female vocalist, i have 7 more recorded songs for which i have no ideas for lyrics and i imagine they would be very cool if with a girl vocalist singing some nasty female perversions,moreover that would be more interesting to male audience than my current obscure peter-pervert songs.
Also ive found a local musician, a fan of hanz zimmer, his own music is crap but he has great skill with these orchestral vst instuments, and he likes to collaborate with others, and i have many great sketches for symphonic epic doom, perhaps instead of seeking for a collaboration with any nymphomaniac i should rather try epic instrumental doom, with those vst instruments it would be a bomb, better than any summoning.
In short, it’s all empty talk of course, i must finish with this damned album first, maybe in two weeks.


Gatekeeper
I like those acoustic guitars with the violin or whatever it is. It sounds like greg joy, a celtic fingerstyle guitarist, also canadian. so far i havent managed to achieve anything close to this quality of sound of the acoustic guitars, tried two types of microphone. maybe that sound is achieved via a pickup and a cable straight into the soundcard?

at last ive finished the damned album. ive decided id better not make any private links to soundcloud for i would have continued to remix it trying to get it sound better, which is a waste of time and hopeless considering my audioengeneer skills. (but if i get negative opinions on the sound the next few days, i may perhaps remaster it yet once more before uploading on bandcamp. so i would be thankful for any opinions on the sound)
this time ive given decent titles to the songs, avoided dialectical orthography, and made a decent cover, all this to help you have better chance getting some label interested to release it.
so anybody is welcome who's interested in offering it to some label and releasing and selling it. contact me and i'll send you the wave tracks and the cover and all.
ideally i would like it to be released on some label who deals with artists like gg allin or something (i mean serious artists, who are serious about what they sing about, not all these phoneys, black metal and pornogrind musicians), if there is such a specific label. any label of course will do (for if i dont get released i will be unknown at all), but what im after is finding the right audience who can relate to things i sing about, for my project is less about music than about conveying the message and looking for like minded people. in the future i will probably be uploading my music along with my various manuscripts

https://soundcloud.com/nickkaper-732282 ... her-spring

not a smart move to stream the entire album you're looking a label for publicly... and in general your attitiude needs some rethinking, but it's your music, whatevs. will have a listen when I'm home.

listen to the bandcamp version or here is mp3 in an archive https://yadi.sk/d/-GcK2daQ9iwDGw
ive remixed it a bit since soundcloud.

it's just also that the quality of sound turned out rather bad and i listened to some freshly released crap, the new ereb altor, with their studio quality of sound, and i saw there is no chance with this sound of getting any decent label interested in it anyway, and indecent ones i guess are not so strict about whether the album is already in public. i need to do something urgently with the sound, the reason why im not recording my better songs is that i dont want them sound like this. ive decided to begin with changing strings on the guitar, which were for acoustic guitar and 4 years old. maybe i at least get some more sustain and my epic doomish songs will sound better. but to change bass, drums and guitar plugins is a challenge, the installation and keeping working of all these modern vst instuments is so fucking sophisticated that it is that that drove me to working in my 200mb sonar 4 with synthesizers installed in it, a software released in 2004. so if the changing of strings will work for sustain (but i doubt, i think what i need for longer sustain is a gibson guitar) thus then i'll begin working on either some really epic doomish winter album, or, if sustain remains short and shitty ,as i said here, on a rival for summoning's best albums, that is , with folkish orchestrals domineering over guitars, but still with much of solo guitar working where summoning completely fails and those upstarts caladaladan brood completley suck. im very sick of crappy music. and this time i will be content only with really nasty lyrics without any euphemisms, maybe i will be lucky and find a female vocalist, one wrote to me today, im wating for her to finish a test task

Nobody contacted me on the matter of finding me a label, and so, finghing back the disgust which i always get when i see metal bands' agressive logos and photos of hairy metal musicians, i did email about 80 labels myself. In all the emails i said i need not any cd or money, i need only a certain description, certain words, be assosiated with my work. A few replied that they dont seek any new atrtists, but one requested more info, i sent, then he said he had had good feedback from his management, and he sent me their proposal , brief terms of the contract which was of course more than what i needed (and this was all new to me too, as i hadnt had an idea how official labels work), 2000cds, 50/50 royalties split, but it also had this article saying that the marketing expenses are to be shared 50/50. I began to ask for the details of it, he sent me as an example marketing plans for another artist, therewere three option, the smallest was $4400 total (and is to be shared 50/50 between artist and label) , but there was too much listed even in it that i said that in my case it seemed to me that i would need only 1/3 of that plan, considering that my project is quite specific. He said im close to the reality in my anaylsis, but he really recomnded not to be too thrifty when it comes to promotion. I said however that for now i should like to stay by the sum i said i thought enough. He said okay, sent me three plans, without costs, i said the smallest of the three is of course what i should opt, then was another reply from him, some recommndations again, and then i said that i really should like some $770 to be my part and no more. He seems not to have understood and he asked what i meant for 770, and i replied , explained in other words, and after that there’s no reply from him anymore. perhaps i didnt get it right from the start, maybe those $4400 and the phrase ‘to be shared 50/50 between artist and label” meant that in total label and artist pay $8800. Anyway, i guess there was a misunderstanding (most likely on my part) somehwere and i didnt get the figures right and thus he lost all interest to continue. If there had been some ‘manager’ who negotiated for me and with better english, perhaps the result would have been differen. but at least i learned that there is a way to get to all these web-zines and large sites, it’s a really enticing prospect, before that label sent me their proposal i thought there was no way of getting to those web recouses unless you have studio quality of music, but it turned out that money can buy anything, perhaps even those bands with studio quality of their recordings pay for their presence on those websites and magazines too.

I mean, before the reply from that label i didn know that it is possible to be published on those sites, i thought that cds are(like my first album govnilium which was released on cd) always just distributed over all these shitty underground stores and that is the end of it, and only if your music is great then there is a chance of somebody from those large magazines getting interested in your music and write a review and thus you get out of the underground. But since one can just pay some sums and get their place on the large resources, whatever the qaulity of music and recording be, then i of course should prefer this way to get known widely, rather than count on chance and wait till reviewers and people find me in the underground. I can finance (reasonably. That label in his marketing plans listed much of articles that look like really unnessesary, although he said the opposite. I think, say, the japanese market i dont need at all) and my manager could get all the royalties from sales that there will be. Why is nobody interested? You dont loose anything, you only negotiate and find labes and receive your money.

been playing this for a few days now, thanks for the download... it's really good. I absolutely love the instrumental tracks, and think you could have a genuine future there. from the metal songs, I prefer the more Bathory-influenced ones. your production values are not stellar, but they're good enough for an album, esp. in that style. your vocals mostly work, but at points they reveal some limitations, though it's mostly your style rather than skill/range.

if I were you, I'd drop the plans for instant infamy, and set up a band instead. you can win this in the long term, with perseverence. I'd tone down the attitude as well. typing "sex maniac" in all caps and asking to find people "who approve of violence" in your promo blurbs won't get you any attention, not from people you'd like to work with in any case.

hope you stick with it and feel better about stuff gradually and thanks again, I really enjoy your music.

thanks for the feedback on the music, i hope you listened to the version from the archive, for, as i said, those on soundcloud have some shortcomings and the solos stick out too much in the mixing, and i shall probably work on them in the 2nd track a bit more for some very final version of the album. if you liked the instrumentals and bathory-like songs you might like my govnilium album, if you havent listened to it.

i appreciate your and all other people's advisings, im perfectly aware of what impression i must be giving by my behaviour. you all wish me good and im even sorry that that is all lost on me, but i love to be what i am and have always been, react to circumstances of life in my natural way and continue to go to the extreme. and yet my next recordings and promotional talks may after all become more decent, for i of course have little hope of finding the vocalist, and, as ive no interesting experience to write lyrics about, instrumental will be the only option left. ive already changed the guitar strings and begun a new thing, and i perhaps remake some already recorded songs to instrumentals, and as ive promised myself never to make any real choirs again, to sing and edit which for this last album took up all the summer, it's possible that i'll come out with a new album in the next few months.

that label replied yesterday and said that $2200 is the minimal budget (although i still didnt get whether it is the 50% share or the total and is to be split between artist and label). i assumed it was the 50% share, and said my material, being of homemade quality, simply doesnt deserve such investments, massive marketing and even such a large press run (2000 copies). it would look incongruous. i said i'd aimed for a small label, dealing with press runs of 300-500 copies.

Thank you, I'm glad you like it.

The guitar itself is a really old, beaten-up Yamaha from the 70's and it doesn't have a pickup. I think we only used a large-diaphragm condensor mic, placed about 30cm from the 12th fret. I think it was an AKG but I can't remember, this was two years ago. The studio had a great tracking room and some wonderful preamps which I'm sure helped a lot. The Sonic Farms Creamer got a lot of use on our record. We also double-tracked the acoustic guitars, so you're hearing two performances of the same song panned Left/Right.

I listened to a couple songs off your new album it sounds good dude, nice work. I'm surprised that the label you're speaking with wants to split the marketing expenses with you. I've dealt with several labels with Gatekeeper and this has never happened with me. I'm curious which one you've been talking with.