Garfunkel and Oates is an LA-based comedy/folk duo made up of actresses Riki Lindhome (Last House on the Left, Changeling, My Best Friend’s Girl) and Kate Micucci (Scrubs, When in Rome). We asked Garfunkel and Oates a few questions about the keys to their success (besides having THE greatest band name ever!) and here is what they said:
1) What is the one thing you’ve done that has had the biggest impact on CD sales?
For us, it’s definitely our YouTube videos. We have about 20 videos on there and lot of them have over 100,000 hits. We do these very basic, live videos from our couch and luckily, people have responded to them.
2) What kind of promotions/publicity/marketing have you done for this release?
We have used Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter and we have a news feed on our website. We also tell people about the album at our shows and in interviews.
3) Do you have a business plan or are you just “taking it as it comes”? If so, what is your plan?
I don’t think we have a specific business plan. That said, we do our best to be as productive as possible and to be consistently putting out good work. We aim to put out a new music video every month.
4) Do you tour? What effect has that had on your sales?
We just starting touring a few months ago and it has definitely had a positive effect on our sales. If people get one of our songs stuck in their heads after a show, that’s a good thing.
5) What elements of your career have you enlisted help on? What elements have you kept strict control of?
We recently signed with a booking agency and they’ve helped us tremendously. They’ve gotten us gigs in several cities, they’ve upped our profile in the comedy community and they’ve been great with career advice and guidance. But the thing that we’re very protective of is our content. We’ve never solicited advice from anyone on the songwriting aspect of things and it will probably stay that way. We know what we like and what we think is funny.
6) What mistakes have you made along the way and what did you learn from them?
When we started, we said yes to everything. One month, we had 21 gigs, while we were recording our album during the day and auditioning for acting roles full time. We also made 3 videos that month. After that, we just burnt out. Although it was productive, we like to pace ourselves a bit more now and not take on more shows than we can handle.
Find Garfunkel and Oates in the following places:
CD Baby: http://www.cdbaby.com/artist/garfunkelandoates
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/rikilind
Website: http://garfunkelandoates.com/