[avatar =”Mosh” size=”50″ align=”left” /]Links to Music is a new website which aims to help bands and staff related to the music industry make connections. Rather than me blab on about it and get things wrong, I spent a little time with the site’s creator, Jason, who answered some questions for us…
What is Links to Music?
Links to Music is a music community website set up to bring musicians and music industry businesses together.
Set up originally as a music directory website but with thoughts of quickly expanding with great extra features as suggested by people in the music industry. Sounds cheesy but it is a one stop shop for everyone to use.
How do people get involved? Who can get involved? Bands, fans…?
Well for businesses such as recording studios, printers, record labels etc. they just need to create a free on the website and add their business listing. They can add website and social links, phone and email and a full description.
Same thing goes for the bands and artists but they get a few extras such as ing music to the servers for radio stations and magazines to listen to.
What does it cost? If it’s free, what’s the catch? People will always assume there is one!
When we say free we do mean free! Its hard sometimes for people to believe free does mean that but we are not putting any costs on the site for listing your music or your business. There will be added features soon that you can purchase such as electronic press kits and businesses can purchase advertising on the main page of the website for a very small fee which will go towards the running of the website.
Is it only for rock/metal or can anyone sign up?
The main background of the team at Links to Music is rock and metal but we want to make the site more universal, so although some features may favour the rock and metal bands, any band or solo artist, covers and tributes as well as originals can all for free. At a later date some of the features will be opened up for use to all genres.
UK only or worldwide?
The team is based in the UK and the USA and as the internet is worldwide, we will push for companies far and wide to . The bigger the community, the better the reach for everyone.
How did you get the idea?
A few of us were chatting in 2013 about putting a music community website together so bands could everyone from one website. Personally, I pushed for this to get launched during 2013 because I started managing bands and had no easy way of finding tour managers, recording studios, venues and promoters around the UK. Thinking how others may struggle too we got to work on everything we wanted from a community site and here we are today!
How’s it going so far? Is it fully operational or still in beta?
We have been on a dry launch since October 2014 and in 2 months we have had over 200 businesses up and over 14,000 visitors. The site is now officially open but some features will be launched over the course of the next 2-6 weeks so I believe the site will be fully launched by the start of February 2015.
Have you had any success stories as yet?
After just 2 days of the dry launch in October a band had signed up to the site and a band management company approached them and signed them within 7 days. We were really surprised and delighted that the website had helped someone so quickly. There have also been bands getting record label offers and we have had good from companies selling merchandise as a direct link from the website.
Are there any future aims / things you’d like to add but may consider in the future?
As mentioned earlier there are some features we are still working on and testing but most are now live. We are looking to launch an EPK service for bands. This will be for a nominal one off fee but will be such a great help to bands who want to labels, reviewers, radio stations, festivals etc as it can show them to be a lot more professional.
The radio iPool has just launched where bands can their music to our servers and radio stations, reviewers and magazine editors all get to check the music out. If they then it the band get an email informing them. With the radio stations already signed up to the service the bands could have their music listened to by over 1/2 million people just from ing to one place. Over 100 radio stations worldwide and 20 magazines/blog sites are waiting for their music.
Another feature we hope to launch soon is yet again for the bands/artists but also for the public. Bands often give away free music so we are setting up a section where people can come and free tracks that bands have allowed us to host on our server. The public can sign up to a free email service to be told when new music is online for them to free and they can also then review the tracks on the website.
How can people get in touch with queries, questions and so on?
The website has all the information and a page at http://www.linkstomusic.com. We also have a Facebook page too at http://www.facebook.com/linkstomusic
Thank you for ing Links to Music with this interview and showing your for the independent music scene.
You’re welcome, and thanks for coming up with the idea and making such a resource available for free!
