Dick Dale Interview
We´ve found this great interview with Surf guitarist legend Dick Dale aka
The King of Surf Guitar where he was asked by Tommy Liberto,
the interviewer, if he had any advice to up and coming musicians.
Tommy Liberto: Is there any good advice you can give up and coming musicians?
Dick Dale: Yes, and here it is.Don´t sign with a label. Don´t sign with a record company cause the minute you sign your name you loose all the rights to your music
and you will never see a dime. So what you should do is build up your following by continously playing, save up your money and record your own stuff and your own CDs and then learn to market yourself.
Sell your own CDs right out of your vehicle, right out of your show just like Johnny Cash sold his records right out of the trunk of his car.By doing that you make all the money from the CD and you´ll make back your money TEN times faster.And you can take that money and then advertise in magazines with your pictures so people can see you, learn how to market.
And then once you do that you will control everything so when a company like Mountain Dew or a company like Nissan comes up to you and wants to offer you a 100.000$ for 30 secs
of your song you will control all of it you can make your own deals with them and because.. if you sign with a label, the label will take it all.
And that’s why labels will give you a million dollars up front put you on the cover of the rolling stone, make you a big star they´ll invest 4 million into you
and take about 14 million making that kind of money off of you and you end up owing them 2 million. So you´ll never see a dime of anything you do and when you start to make money for the company they make you record another song so that you will go back to the hole again […] so that´s the reason you will never see a dime in royalties. You´ll be lucky if they even give you 35 cents a record where as if you sell your own CD, whatever it costs you to make the CD above and beyond that you will put in your pocket. (note: CDs cost less than a dollar to manufacture and can be sold for 10-20$ still)
So get smart. Forget about trying to be the big man and be “famous”, as one calls it, on the cover of the rolling stone, become a business person and market your product
the proper way and you will make a hundred times more money and you will be powerful and strong within yourself ...PLUS you will OWN everything.
You will own your music forever to give to your children.
And that’s why I have started my own company, i own everything, my own publishing company and they all deal straight through me and i don´t pay anybody anything.
Save up and pay for a magazine called Pollstar and go through the pollstar and book yourself across the United States
in other words you can go right into these places, chromecast windows 10 go in there and play for nothing at first and if you start drawing people work out a deal to get paid
and then you know, don´t be so egotistical that you don´t want to do free gigs, do the free gigs so that you will build up a following and i mean once you get going
you can do a 1000$ a night just in t-shirts and records.
[…]
and that´s the reason why the system hates Dick Dale
[divider top=”0″]
I hope you enjoyed the Dick Dale Interview and find it as inspiring as we did. Dick knows his stuff and has been doing his thing for decades, watched people rise and fall while he steadily built up his empire. Probably the best example of someone living the dream without ever selling out and still making more than all those who went with major label deals. Being 76 years old this turns Dick into the veritable master yoga of indie music – so listen to him …wise he is.