My thoughts on Pomplamoose

In high school, my brother and cousin would sometimes fake argue in French. They’d get into very heated yelling matches, but what most people never realized was a lot of the words they were saying, when translated back to English, were fairly basic random and not mean or aggressive at all. One of their favorite words to yell at each other was pomplamoose, which in English is grape fruit. When you angrily yell pomplamoose at someone, it sounds a lot worse than what it truly means. They fooled a lot of people with this little game, until someone who actually spoke French outted them for faking their argument.

This past week an article has been circulating among a handful of my music industry friends about how much a band made/didn’t make on a recent tour. Over the course of the past 3 days this article has taken some interesting turns, so I thought I would walk you through each day since I first read the article and throw in my two cents as we go.

Day 1 – A friend posted the article with the tag line “All independent artists need to read this” which honestly is a tag line that regularly prompts me to read the article. There’s a lot of good and bad advice out there for artists and so I do my best to stay informed with what people are saying, both good and bad. I don’t deny that it’s hard for bands to turn a profit when they’re first starting out. Touring is expensive and after my first read I remember thinking there was some key things being mentioned in the article that a lot of bands might not consider when planning a tour, but at the same time I also had a nagging sense that some points were also missed that countered the arguments. One of the biggest one being like any business starting out, you’re going to have expenses and most business starting out don’t turn a profit in the first year or two…if they ever get to the point of turning a profit. This is no different for any artist. If you want to be a professional musician, you’re starting a business and you’re going to have expenses. If a local business decides to branch out and open new locations in new markets, chances when they first enter the market they will lose money. The same happens to artists performing in new markets for the first time. When I finally finished the article I remember thinking “I’d be curious to see if the band would lose money again if they ventures out and did the exact same tour again in a couple months”…in theory, if they put on good shows and engaged their audiences the first time around, there’s a good chance the second time around the audience would return and bring friends with them.

Day 2 – Criticism begins…the next day I started seeing other industry friends commenting on the article. Some jumping on the band wagon of “Yeah, us artist get screwed all the time” but also some industry professionals, in other words people actually working full time in the music industry, questioning some of the ‘facts’ laid out in the article, questioning the cost of some of the expenses and suggesting alternative cheaper ways to tour as a band. I re-read the article and some of my earlier questions about some of the ‘facts’ started to really jump out. Not only did I now find the article to be fairly one-sided but some of the expenses seemed outlandish and even un-necessary. Here’s some example of some of the comments…

Jesus, I've not been on tour since 2006 (part time)...and I could save them that "loss" in less than a day of work on the budget. Are agents getting 15% nowadays? Did they really take lights out with them....but no LD? Why didn't they get a TM who also does FOH?! They hired pro musicians who don't have road cases for their s..t? Promoters don't pay for the marketing any more? A radio ad?! That's just off the top of my head. – Hugo Burnham

I've toured as both a musician and guitar tech, and doing festival gigs with Iggy & The Stooges often times it was only myself, one other roadie, and a road manager. Occasionally there would be a third roadie. This band had far too big of a crew, and too big of a vehicle. No need to travel with lights. 
Their loss was their own fault! This article is yet another ploy to get attention. Not buying it. -Derek See

At this point a nagging little voice started to yell in the back of my head. “This article is popping up everywhere and getting a lot of traction. Regardless of what the article is about…I wonder how many people have gone to YouTube or iTunes and checked out who Pomplamoose is after reading it…is that the REAL intent of this article”

DAY 3 – The curtain gets pull back and the ‘truth’ gets revealed…maybe. This morning, I saw this comment about the article:

If you read the article carefully, it's a well-designed advertisement that states that you can't make money on tour, but you make more money on this one site Patreon than you can on iTunes and Loudr. Pomplamoose even has a page on this one site Patreon that they provide a link to.

But Jack Conte is a cofounder of Patreon - and in fact - while he's complaining about not making money on tour - his company Patreon has raised over 17 MILLION dollars from angel investors and other investors over the past year. He doesn't disclose this in the article - because the article is facially an article "letting his fans who asked him questions about what its like to have 'made it'" know how his touring expenses are.

Meanwhile, in the article, he's selling a lifestyle of the starving artist - an artist who can make money by producing comics, coding, music and the like - all services that Patreon supplies crowdfunding for.

Pretty devious, eh?

Going back to what I was thinking on Day 2, that this article would have a ripple effect of getting people to check out the band, after reading this comment I started to see that the articles intent may have actually been the ripple effect. Looking around at the various versions of the article being shared, the only link included in most of the postings is to Patreon. Patreon is basically a crowd funding site focused on helping artists raise funds to support their work/projects, etc. I knew Jack Conte was a co-founder and even knew that a lot of what Pamplamoose has done video wise was funded through Patreon, but I had no idea to what extent the rest of it was or that they had over 17 million already raised.

In Pomplamoose’s defense, the comment I read on Day 3 could in itself be exaggerated, based on hearsay, or even twisted to support the commenter’s own criticizing remarks, but let’s consider all this with the factors in play and sum up the basics…Artist sob story about going out on tour but losing money goes viral, in the story the only link is to a website that gives you an opportunity to support said artist through a cash donation…what do you think will happen? Factor in that as the story circulates more and more around the net, ‘non-industry’ people will start reading the article. These are people who won’t see the holes in the story or the over exaggerated possibly inflated by high sense of entitlement expenses listed as ‘facts’. Joe public will just see a story about a band getting screwed over and a link to where you can provide support.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it is a fact that it can be rather expensive for a band to go out on the road and within the current state of the music industry, ticket sales or guarantees don’t often cover the costs associated with touring. More artists need to take the time to look at what the cost of tour will be and keep that in mind when negotiating guarantees or other payment structures. Artists also need to keep in mind that this is a business and whenever you’re starting a new business or expanding into new markets (which touring basically is) you will see some loses, but just like with a business if you continue to work at it and focus on developing a customer/fan base in that market you will start to see a turn around and start making a profit.

The unfortunate bigger issue with this article going viral and the lack of transparency when it came to the expenses that were reported is that it creates a system of distrust and lack of sympathy for the perceived ‘lying’ artist. The music industry is very much like a small town and if you’re telling a story, but holding back some key elements that can impact how you are perceived due to the story, once those elements are discovered that can have a completely negative impact on how you are perceived by those who followed you. No one likes getting tricked. No one likes being lied to. Withdrawing or simply not revealing all the information isn’t lying but it can create an environment of dis-trust when said information is revealed.

When people found out my brother and cousin weren’t really arguing, there were some people who were fairly upset. They thought my brother and cousin were really fighting, to the point where they were genuinely concerned. When they found out it wasn’t actually an argument, they felt cheated and lied to. Their feelings were manipulated. For the band, Pomplamoose as more and more ‘truths’ start to surface about this situation, one way another people may feel that their feeling are being manipulated which could lead to the supposedly planted article having a negative impact, if it hasn’t already.