“Pay What You Want” EP Prerelease Announcement: A Trust Fall – From The Mind of McFarland music blog.
I’m about to try something that may end up being a terrible idea. I’ve decided to, at least for the moment, price digital prerelease orders of my next EP using a “Pay What You Want” structure starting at just $1. Why, might you ask? A trust fall.
First, an admission: I have trust issues. I’ve always found it difficult to put my fate in the hands of others. That’s the reason that up until now, I’ve always produced, engineered, mixed and mastered my own records. In fact, it’s the reason that I learned audio engineering in the first place – after a few bad early experiences, I wasn’t willing to place my music in the hands of someone else and believe that they would treat it with the same kind of attention and care as I would give it myself.
Over the past year, I’ve tried to make a point to have more faith in people. I concluded when I started booking my first national tour that if I had to pay for a hotel every night, touring would not be financially feasible. I booked the dates anyway, and threw myself on the tender mercies of the Internet, humbly asking for a place to stay on my usual social media networks and on Couchsurfing.com. I was astounded and humbled by the number of people, most of them complete strangers, that offered up their couches, spare bedrooms, and floors to me. That was step number one.
When it came time to record my next album, I decided that doing all the audio engineering work no longer made sense, and so I reached out to Jason Rubal, who I’d met at the Singer-Songwriter Cape May conference last year. After a few conversations over the phone in January I felt confident that he was someone who understood where I was coming from creatively, and someone with whom I could entrust my music, so I made the decision that he would be my creative partner in this process. That was step number two.
So now pre-production is complete, and in two weeks I’ll be heading to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to spend two weeks in the studio with Jason. We’ll be recording two five-song EPs, one for release in the spring, another in the winter. And without having begun recording, I have complete confidence that once finished, these will be the best things I’ve ever recorded. As someone who’s always a been a seeing is believing kind of guy, that’s a big statement.
Which is why I decided to make the first of these two EPs, “A Failed Breakup”, available for pre-purchase now. Before a single note has been played, a single drum head has been struck, or a single melody sung. And since your purchase would be, in itself, an act of faith, I thought it was a good opportunity to once more put my trust in others, and let you pay what you think the music’s worth. To that end, you can pre-order now for just $1, or pay as much extra as you’d like.
This is a trust fall. I hope you’ll catch me, and it won’t end up like this:
Hey Michael,
That is a beautiful post. Love that you are on such an adventure of love and trust. i am excited to pre-order your CD and I trust that it will just be beautiful. There is no way it cannot be because you are involved in it! How awesome!!!
all the best on your tour. have fun and load of success.
Cheers,
Sophia