What I learned from interviewing Dillinger Escape Plan and Earth Crisis
Вставка
- Опубліковано 23 сер 2024
- I learned business from doing fanzines in high school. I didn't realize it but I was doing marketing, operations, finance, customer support, sales, etc. I sold thousands of them through the mail and interviewed bands like Dillinger Escape Plan, Earth Crisis, Fall Silent, Dystopia, Apartment 213, Capitalist Casualties and dozens more.
--
▶ SUBSCRIBE: bit.ly/finnsub
--
▶ MAIN CHANNEL: / thepunkrockmba
--
▶ INSTAGRAM: / finnmckenty
▶ TWITTER: / thepunkrockmba
--
▶ MERCH: teespring.com/...
--
Join the PRMBA Facebook group, a 100% positive, spam-free community of awesome people helping each other achieve their goals ▶ / prmbagroup
--
▶ PATREON: / thepunkrockmba
The layout for that Pessimiser article is fire. Some OG zine slickness right there.
You:
Finn: zines
This one hits home. I used to help run an online zine from around 2003-2009 or so. Started out doing albums reviews because the guy managing reviewers found my blog where I occasionally would review albums I was listening to. Having gone to school for computer science and wanting to be a web developer, I convinced the guy who owned and started the site that I could write the next version. Ended up writing a CMS on top of vBulletin forums which was kind of a bad idea, but it worked! As part of being reimbursed for that work, the owner wound up buying me a little Canon Elf point and shoot camera. Eventually, I added concert photography and show reviews to my duties. So while I was there I was a writer, web developer, photographer, and manager. I did all because it brought me closer to the music and I loved it, not for the payday. In hindsight though, I learned a ton of valuable lessons and whole bunch about how the music industry operates. Some of that stuff I still use today.
The best part about the whole thing was the people though. We always had some sort of admin-only forums or back channel. Pretty much all of us became friends and some of those still carry on to this day. A few years back one of the guys got married and 5 of us were able to hang out in person for the first time (after knowing each other online for a decade). It was amazing!
Dude exactly! Amazing how those things that were just a dumb little hobby end up being so useful
We didn't have zines like these here in Italy but now I wish we did! So cool. As always, thanks for the insight. Keep it up!
Thanks for watching!
Dude, it is so cool that you were doing this kind of thing at that young of an age. There's plenty of kids these days that have an entrepreneurial mindset, but back then it took so much more creativity and self study to learn how to do this kind of stuff and was nowhere as easy as it is today. It's awesome that you took the time to do it. Mad respect man.
Tbh i was just born that way, so I can’t pay myself on the back too hard for it, you know?
@@FinnMckentyPRMBA haha I hear ya. I'll go ahead and pat you on the back for you though man. It's pretty inspiring.
"The same way you would DM people, you would write letters back then". For some reason that made me feel old af.
I can't express how right you are about the idea that "kids have it easy" when it comes to creating content like a zine. The resources are readily available to an overwhelming amount. It's not like in the 80s or into the 90s where owning a home computer (especially with internet access) meant that you were "rich." Should someone decide to create a conventional zine today I would bet it would be in a digital format to distribute, and funding it would be a matter of Venmo or even Patreon.
Lol! It’s true, people sell their zines on shopify now. Which is fine, but yeah - definitely a lot easier now
I know this is old now, but to give you another example to prove your point. Years ago, I went to Musician's Institute and completed their Music Business certification. Pretty soon after that, I stopped really being involved with music and had to figure out what to do with my life. I went back to school to learn automotive and diesel. To this day, I leave that school on my resume because it actually taught me a bunch of skills that I still use every day and am regularly thankful for.
Love it man! I think all these little business ventures you do as a kid prepare you to become a successful business owner in the future, when you are a full grown adult and you go “I have to make money but fuck getting a job”. Throughout my teenage years and early 20s I made full length BMX videos before UA-cam existed, organized events, made t-shirts, had a blog. I never thought I would be able to make a living do any of those thingsbut getting a little bit of money was great, at least it wasn’t a complete loss and I had fun doing it. Now that I own a business and I have to do it for real, I feel like all the experience I got from all my failed ventures is paying off.
Thank you Finn, you’ve given me some ideas from this video. Keep up the awesome work man!
Oh man that’s how I discovered a lot of early underground Christian punk and hardcore bands (like Scaterd Few, Strongarm, The Blamed, etc.) was through zines, often times simple xeroxed and hand stapled lol. Remember those times fondly 😊
Fall Silent’s back together and in the studio. I once spent a summer drinking beers and shredding guitar with Danny, haha! #Superstructure
He was into crowbar 20 years before it was cool!
aww I started a zine in high school about anime Sailor Moon. Good times. I'm glad to see someone else who wrote zines in their youth
Hey Finn, I’ve been a sub for the last couple of years. I love both your channels, I’ve been waiting to hear you talk about Dillinger since I saw my first PRMBA video. I’m a bit of a Stan for DEP but it’s mainly because hearing their set at sound wave 2004 in Australia. I’d been a working musician for nearly ten years (so I totally relate to the pre internet zine scene lol) and writing sort of post hardcore pop punk stuff. Once I heard Dillinger I literally couldn’t write anymore, it was like the most creative and explosive music I’d ever heard. I’d never seen a live show like them before and was just super blown out by how intense yet professional they were. Long rant sorry 😣. I know you mentioned them before in your video about adulting as a core kid (something about every hipster barber having a DEP tattoo I think?) but I also have gone totally rabbit hole into their history over the years and I’m sure you would appreciate how a band like that went from 1997 prog hardcore nobodies to doing 3 sold out farewell shows at terminal 5 in NY and everything in between. Self managed, completely uncommercial, lots of bumps in the road, but through hard work and perseverance they were able to go out on top. Sounds like a “how did they get so big?” Video to me haha just kidding, not gonna tell you how to do your job. Just really fun to hear about Dimitri going to the same Starbucks as you, he did all that beautiful album art for the one of is the killer album for DEP. cool guy. Thanks for all the great content, I never miss a video. #ADHD
Thanks for watching!
Zines were pretty rad back then. Loved hitting shows and picking them up.
Sorry Finn, I just thought of another thing: zines have been making a comeback recently. My librarian friend advocates for them and there have been zine fests throughout the country since at least the early 2010s. I don't know if that interests you. I think I participated in two zine fests and hosted a workshop about zines before I became really busy as a working mom.
I would like to read that Fall Silent interview! You ever think of digitizing and uploading some of these?
People making zines back in the day reminds of the whole startup environment. Building something from scratch and just trying to make it grow! Videos like these are awesome!
Yes! Exactly
A++ use of the Starcraft font
Great video! Tons of insight. These principles you laid out are applicable outside of zines. Interesting what you can learn outside of the classroom.
Thank you!
Finn I absolutely love this channel. You are very inspirational.
Thanks man!
Literally love all your videos idc what they're about
OMG...Home Grown? I admit, i still love them. Especially the late stuff.
I used to make a zine.
Nicked my mum's word processor and worked as a photocopier (repographics).
Burned off cd's of local bands to give away with it at gigs. Really good memories
Here in New Orleans, there is a record shop run by the singer of thou and we have zines but most of them are artsy or political activism there is one I know that talks about local bands. He will take anything that will support the local community like zines and gives them to everybody or they cost like 2 or 3 bucks. It's definitely its own little community but now I have a collection of zines he gave me or that came with my records about smashing the patriarchy and going vegan from him. Thanks to him for getting me into the scene at like 13/14 because I stumbled in asking for bands that sounded like black flag. He showed me trustkill records and ebullition record and nothing has been the same.
You don’t hear Ebullition come up nearly enough these days! They were a big influence on me too
Finn Mckenty as im typing this I’m wearing my bootlegged ebullition t shirt 😂 and they totally are for me I go to them for mail order since my favorite bands are on that label and in NOLA all those screamo bands they had are still worship down here
I'm trying to read that Home Grown review! I loved them when I was a teenager.
I'm a 90s kid in the UK. I don't remember zines really. I think there were some free magazines distributed at galleries and local venues but I think that was it
Zines have definitely morphed into blogs/vlogs which is cool. I've been debating whether to talk about some bands I like and their recent output and how people don't appreciate it. And I this has made me think it'll be good for me (if nothing else it'll keep me productive). Just debating whether to post it on a community page/forum or my facebook page.
What are your thoughts on TDEPs final album?
Shout out to Nitro on the front cover.
OUT FUCKIN RAGEOUS
Downset had that one song that was killer. 'Holding Hands'. Amazing live song.
I think I've asked this before, but seriously, what happened to Candiria? Around the era of this zine they were the most incredible band. I remember going to see them with friend's who'd join the next wave of HXC bands and we were all just blown away and trying to figure out how the guitarist got to where he was. fast forward to 2010 and I'm checking out all the stuff that happened while I was away and I listened to a Candiria record and it wasn't even the same band. Not even Atreyu Butterfly to Bull by the Horns type shift. It sounded like a completely different band. Does anyone know what happened there?
The downside of it being so it easy everyone can do it is more competition
I feel like the biggest shithead for not knowing about this channel. Father, please forgive me. I swear to like every video from now on! 😩🙏🙏🙏
Thank you!
If you ever scan that zine I would kill to read the Deeds of Flesh interview
I remember those days very well - and people nowadays seem to kind of forget the reality of it. All the money, effort and time ... like you send out a letter to someone: even in a pretty small country like Germany bacl then it usually took 2-3 days to even get there. When I graduated High School (late 80ies) it was accepted standard to hand write a letter - typed personal letters i.e. to the opposite sex in anything other than handwriting were considered at least rude if not borderline stalking behavior. Even all the way into the 90ies I was told that a job application should be hand written. Not something I wish to go back to ...
Lol, same here!
RIP Erik Lindmark
🙏🏼
i've never heard of zeens(sorry, i don't how it's spelled) (if you spell it a different way) this is interesting, wish i knew about this growing up ('96)
Deeds of Flesh 🙌🏻
I just started my own local record label, and I was wondering if following people is a good marketing technique? Like should I follow others to see if they follow back, or does that fall under the category of spam?
Follow them if you actually want to follow them, and plan on engaging with their content
Finn Mckenty thank you!!
Also yes, it was just zines, all just zines, and the kids who put them out became the "influencers"
I wonder how many people that subbed to your zine also sub to PRMBA
I can think of a few actually!
Thats bad ass.
Why is Nitro on the cover of your zine? 😂😂
Because i love them and they look ridiculous!
Omg i have a pageninetynine zine
Are you selling these?
I was selling them in 1999! That’s the only copy I have now
;)