Frequently Askes Questions:

Everything stated below needs to be read when in a healthy, yet preferrably ironic state of mind. It is in no way intended to pee anyone off. It is in no way intended to come across like you are reading last Sunday’s sermon. However, it is meant to get a few points across, because we do get these kinds of questions.

Hey! Our album is done. Can you release it?

Most likely: no. Deity Down Records is a small label. There is no way we can yank contracts off of the shelf upon impuse or upon request. Spots on the roster are quite limited. Furthermore, to negotiate an agreement takes time. To plan a release takes time. To execute those plans takes time. To promote a release that has just come out takes time. And if it takes time it will cost energy and money.

Oh, come on! To have a CD pressed, surely that isn’t expensive, is it?

Correct. To order a lot of albums at a factory is not all that expensive. But when the albums are delivered, our job isn’t done, far from it. It’s only just beginning.

Since your album won’t sell without promotion, that’s our next step. First of all by sending stuff out to magazines, fanzines, ezines, radio stations, etcetera. The albums sent, are considered to be a loss (we cannot sell those anymore, right?). The postal services aren’t operating out of the kindness of their hearts either; those are costs that weigh quite heavily (and perhaps we’ll simply turn to promoting your release digitally in the future).

Once that enough reviews have come in, we may decide to advertise you or to put one of your tracks on a sampler CD that comes for free with your favorite magazine. Don’t expect us to buy the back page of your trusted glossy mag for months in a row. In fact, we don’t do glossy back pages at all. That kind of full-blown scale campaigns is strictly for the majors, not for us. Advertising, even on our fairly modest level will cost deerly, as do samplers. In short: promotion alone may turn out to be more expensive than recording, mixing, mastering and factory costs combined.

But then we’ll sell big time and be rock stars?

You’ll sell, but wether it’ll be the big time instant millionaire kind of sales remains to be seen. Actually: stay on the safe side and don’t quit your daytime jobs yet. Ask yourself two questions:

1. How many Deity Down Records releases do I own myself (original ones, not the downloaded and burnt onto CDr kind), and

2. If I don’t have any Deity Down Records albums shelved, then why would anyone else buy my album once it has been released through the label?

In other words: if you haven’t supported our bands in the past, why would you even begin to assume that others are going to support yours by buying your album?

Seriously now. In spite of Deity Down Records’ promotional efforts, to play live and reach your potential new fans is imperative. One good show does more for you than 10 ads or sampler tracks can do. Period. Your album faces so many competitors from its release date on that you will have to battle for the attention of the people by spilling your guts on stage. And most of that responsibility will be yours. Keep in mind that no one can spend his money twice, so you better grab that fan that you’ve won over during your show tonight, hold him tight and hug him to death. Or her ;-). Which brings us to what probably will be your next question…

Deity Down Records will put us on a world tour with Slayer, right?

Ehh…no. We kindly leave that kind of thing to the majors. They have the money to do so and we most certainly do not. If the time is right and if the opportunity presents itself, we might put you on a tour though. But before we do, you’ll have to have worked your way up to a certain extent already. Do not expect to be on the nightliner with a really big name when you’ve emerged fresh out of the demo age.

Okay, that’s clear. So what if we’re not on Deity Down Records and we’re in the neighbourhood. Can you book us a show?

Most likely: no. It says ‘Deity Down Records’, not ‘Deity Down Records and Bookings’. The booking business is a completely different kind of ballgame. And to be perfectly honest: if we were in the booking business, then we’d first and foremost see to it that the bands on our roster would fome first, simple because that would make sense. Theirs are the releases we’d like to sell above anything else.

To be continued….

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