I’ve never worked so fucking hard in my life.
On Monday, I had one cup of tea. That was it. All day. I was so parched.
I’ve been working non-stop for the last few days on Sons Of Admirals promotion. The woman who interviewed us for the Guardian called me a ‘marketing strategist’ because I’ve been setting everyone to work doing everything I can possibly think of.
My strategy is to assume that nothing will work. As soon as something happens, assume it won’t work. That way I’m constantly motivated. Cos I’m thinking “shit, nothing I’ve done so far has worked!”
I’ve been burning CDs. I bought a printer so I could print out press releases and CD labels. I registered the song for the charts. I sent out a mailing list, updated this blog, made a YouTube video, fielded interview questions for a couple local papers. I gave a copy of the song to Scott Mills yesterday. I was up till two this morning filling out envelopes to mail to producers and DJs, and then up again at eight to hand-deliver them. (But, as we’ve established, none of this will work.)
Now I’m in the rehearsal room all day with the band, we’re working out four-part arrangements of our songs, which is a lot of fun; but the internet’s been failing on us all day. We were mentioned on Radio 2′s Steve Wright Show, but we couldn’t listen. And I wasn’t able to tell people about Greg James’ Ten Minute Takeover on Radio 1 because I couldn’t access the stream. (Ten Minute Takeover happens Mondays to Thursdays at 3:45 on Radio 1, where people text in song requests to 81199 and the last three songs requested before the cut-off get played.)
I’m of the firm belief (preached by Tim Ferriss) that unrealistic goals are far easier to obtain than realistic ones, because nobody else is trying them. If my goal is “I want to get a song on the radio”, I’ll have a lot of competition. If my goal is “I want to be Number 1 by next Sunday”, I’m instantly eliminating all of the competition. Thus making it easier. (And also, most people who want to get a song on the radio won’t ever make the proper effort, because they get scared by the competition and talk themselves into thinking it’s pointless before they’ve even tried. You can never do too much. That’s my lesson of this week.)
I haven’t done this with my music before because I don’t think any of it’s been good enough. But I love what we’ve done with Sons Of Admirals and I think it could be huge, and I know I’ll end up regretting it forever if I don’t push it with everything I have.
Anyway, I’m gonna keep working, so I apologise if you don’t hear from me for a few days. It’ll be worth it, promise – so long as I’m still alive at the end of this, not laying broken amongst a pile of Here Comes My Baby CD-Rs, dehydrated and sad.
x
