Seeing as today's youth exist almost exclusively in a virtual, social media world, it was only a matter of time before a truly 21st century band would step forward to define the new era and utilise available technology, abandoning a traditional approach.
One band making a bold leap forward is Australian rock band [Me]. The almost un-Google-able band (try it out) came to the UK a few months ago and were approached immediately by A&R Martin Heath who has worked with the trio on devising a new way to reach fans. Their recently launched FanDist platform offers fans a way to interact with the band, share content and claim that all important 'I was there first' badge, while promoting music via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google, Digg, Stumble Upon, Messenger and Email options.
Once you've registered with the band on their website, you can tell your friends about [Me] via your social network of choice, online groups or email, and the band reward you with exclusive content. Once five of your friends have shared some [Me] content using your original links, the band send you further content, and once ten friends have shared those links, you're sent even more. From your My Account section on FanDist, you can see how well your links are performing and how many friends took your recommendation.
It's an incredible reward scheme for early supporters of the band - not only are you gaining free audio content, but you're also placing yourself on a great spider diagram of promotion. FanDist can track all fans back to source, assuming original links are used, and see who the most influential supporters have been, and who the first to respond were. Rewards will be offered to those at the top end of this system, which could be access to secret gigs, free merchandise, and further down the line could result in profit share of the band.
Martin Heath says, "After 20 years of profit shares starting with Rough Trade, Mute, Rhythm King, Warp and Lizard King, we come from a long tradition of partnerships with the artist..."
Heath, who signed The Killers, continues, "...post The Killers and working in the US, I thought that what mattered most was the artist and fan in a tight relationship, and so we designed FanDist to allow music fans to share in their adopted band's success, both culturally and materially, through profit shares, donations to causes, or just recognition."
Although working with Heath, the band are remaining unsigned. Having complete and utter control over their music allows them to offer free assets to fans as rewards, making the structure of their "label" just them and you. Your involvement with the band is solely down to you.
Heath closes, "The last 30 years have distorted the relationship that artists have with their fans. Fans were numbers, consumer commodities, and in this commoditisation of music as a product the music and artists became commoditised too, to the detriment of music as a transformational art form. We think they're not music consumers, but participants in music, and that each relationship from fan to artist, and from artist to fan, is a dynamic feedback loop that enhances each part of the chain."
They aim to capitalise on this share mechanism to raise the band's profile and form a wide reaching fan base. In the past few months, they have played shows alongside Death From Above 1979, Evanescence and Kasabian, have a full tour with Panic At The Disco confirmed for January 2012 and will feature in February's HMV Next Big Thing.