General Question for Ari

[brucedickinson]

First of all, I apologize that I couldn't find another means of contact other than this forum. I was wondering what the radio campaign was looking like for this release. I felt the means under which the Tarantula campaign was conducted was extremely lacking to say the least. I will assume that this was the fault of the label. Are they with Idol again for this record? What is the story with the master/performance control issues from Idol (length of term for clauses, etc.--if you can disclose)? That is pretty aweful that they can't feature material from their sophmore effort in a live showcase to help new potential fans to become acquainted with older material. Live records a lot of times can help to boost catalog sales if they are the catalog titles featuring the studio versions, etc. Again, just some things I was wondering.

[Idol]

Hey Glen, as I mentioned in the "4 week from today" Post. Idol promoted the Tarantula album heavily at radio, and our efforts were anything but "lacking", and the promotions companies that were used were decided on by the band and their management. We did have a good amount of success hitting the FMQB radio charts but many stations resisted this album due to the reality show stigma and the fact that they just didn't fit the palylists of what most modern rock stations were playing at the time which was mostly Nu-Metal. Idol has had major success at radio with our artists including bands like Sponge, The Fags and Black Tie Dynasty among others.

[degymngmt]

Erv from Idol and his team worked the Tarantula album as hard as they could. What's hard to understand is that radio is not as proactive as we'd like. These days, getting a song spun on a commercial radio station is more difficult that getting a record deal -- really! There are people called "indies" who are the gatekeepers to getting songs added, and as you can imagine, they are under enormouse pressure to make their own money while pleasing the station. The PDs (program directors) at the station also have various pressures from major labels, major radio promoters, and on the other side, from their business owners. They need to make money and get giveaways (ever hear those "win a trip to see dave matthews in europe" promotions?), and still stay ahead of the curve with what they program. So, even many major label bands are shut out if the radio budgets aren't big enough to compete.

At the same time, it's still about the "music" as much as it is the business. Sometimes, a song just doesn't get the traction. Normally, they'll test it out on late night shows or what we call "specialty shows". You've heard these things like your local "Home Grown" hour or a "Battle of the Singles", where they compete to see who gets more calls? That's a way for a station to creatively test a song.

In short, it's a very tough game to play!!! And, you often need to have someone with great radio relationships along with a budget of money to compete. It was in Idol's best interest (as was ours) to get TDF played as much as possible -- and everyone tried! While I wasn't managing the band at the time, I watched from the outside and saw everyone (Troy, Erv, the band, etc.) trying to do what they could to score airplay. We had some success up in Grand Rapids at their rock station, along with a bunch of college stations and some other specialty shows. Perhaps they didn't love the tune? Perhaps, as Erv suggests, they were scared off by the "reality show"? Who knows. In the end, we will try to play the game again with Helicopter, and may (or may not!) have success. But, the more phone call requests that our fans can make and the more buzz we can create, then the more likely the shot for airplay. In the end, it's a guessing game.

Hope that helps a little bit.