We asked the LoCash Cowboys about keys to their success. Here’s what they said:
1) What is the one thing you’ve done that has had the biggest impact on CD sales?
LoCash Cowboys got the amazing opportunity to perform live on New Years Eve on Fox News Live in New York City! We did 3 full songs live and an interview with Bill Hemmer & Megyn Kelly live from Times Square that night. Within 1 hour, our sales skyrocketed. The power of TV is unreal!
2) What kind of promotions/publicity/marketing have you done for this release?
As we were pulling into NYC on Dec 30th, we got this idea of changing the price of our CD to $2.09 in honor of the New Year’s Celebration. The economy had taken a hit and everyone in America was already talking about the black cloud looming over our country’s economy. So we decided to embrace our name, “LoCash” and make our CD available for $2.09. Fox News Live loved the idea, CD Baby helped us change our price at the last second to $2.09, Fox News Live helped us announce our idea on TV and the rest is history. A few hours later we were the top seller of all genres on CD Baby! It was awesome!
3) Do you have a business plan or are you just “taking it as it comes”? If so, what is your plan?
Everything we do is well thought out and part of a business plan. It feels out of control and crazy, but in reality, I don’t know two other guys who put this kind of time, effort, passion, drive, determination, creativity and initiative into making our ideas, music & dreams become reality!
4) Do you tour? What effect has that had on your sales?
Touring has been the key to our overall success! LoCash signed with Buddy Lee Attractions/Tony Conway about 6 years ago and gradually grew into one of the hardest working acts on the road. We spent months knocking on the doors of producers and labels but then one day it hit us. We realized we could only control what we could control and that was getting out there on the road and making LoCash Cowboys a household name. It wasn’t easy though; we started out in our cars pulling U-Hauls behind us. Then we moved to renting vans, then jumped to buying a van, and then all at once we grew into an old White Eagle Bus we called Ghetto One! It had dark tinted windows and no license plate, and we wrecked it our first night on it. But we toured on it for a year, wrecked it a few more times and moved into our 1st Prevost. This year, we feel like we died and went to heaven…..we’re rollin in a 2005 Prevost courtesy of hard work and Night Train Coach in Nashville, TN! Touring is everything. It’s how we pay the bills, it’s how we created the buzz, it’s how we became the show we are today. It’s how we made the cover of Pollstar Magazine in Feb of 2009! Unbelievable! We rock over 200 shows a year, and when you look at the sales statistics that CD Baby provides in the accounting section of the CD Baby website, it’s easy to see that folks are visiting CD Baby to buy our CD everytime we perform. So we just keep on performing as much as possible!
5) What elements of your career have you enlisted help on? What elements have you kept strict control of?
We keep strict control of every aspect of our career. It’s easy to get lazy when you suddenly have a publicist, a label, a booking agency, a producer, a manager, a publisher, a road manager, a tour manager, a driver & a business manager! We like to be involved in every decision pertaining LoCash. Our producer, Jeffrey Steele has really taught us to stay involved and keep our ideas in the forefront with dreams. He’s taught us to follow that feeling in our gut and trust it. Tony Conway & our Manager Ari Graham love the way we dream and the way we believe anything and everything is possible! Our label, Stroudavarious Records & our label head, James Stroud is dedicated to putting together a LoCash Cowboys debut album in 2009 that will be unprecedented and amazing. Our Attorney, Duff Bershback stills makes us read every line of every 30 page contract and summarize it back to him before we sign anything so we completely understand what we’re signing! Troy Tomlinson & Sony ATV, our publishing company encourages our crazy ideas in our music because that’s what makes us LoCash! Last but not least, Duane Clark, our business manager, just told us the other day that his favorite thing about LoCash is the fact that we decide and know where every dollar is made, spent & saved. So many artists just let the “powers that be” handle everything and then wonder where it all went when they wanna see a bank statement! We’ve definitely designed a dream team of veterans who want to see LoCash become veterans as well.
6) What mistakes have you made along the way and what did you learn from them?
It took us forever to get our music online. I don’t know what we were thinking! CD Baby makes it so easy to get your music to the masses and our attorney, Duff Bershback kept telling us to get online and check out CD Baby, but we never did. Finally, in 2008 we decided to face our computer deficiencies and visit the CD Baby site. Seriously, like 10 minutes later we were online and selling music. It was so cool and so easy! Then in December of 2008 we became the top seller on CD Baby! We should’ve listened to Duff sooner, so it’s easy to say our biggest mistake was not doing CD Baby sooner!
You can find the LoCash Cowboys on CD Baby!