Just One Joey: art

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Wednesday, February 15, 2017

30 Days Of Genius Blog: Caterina Fake

If you are looking for motivation for following your dreams, or finding your path, Caterina Fake may be the last place you will ever need to look. What did following her path accomplish? Oh, I don’t know, how does founding Flickr, running Etsy, and being named one of Time Magazines 100 most influential people on the planet sound? Exactly. Wow is right.

I have taken her interview on 30 Days of Genius with Chase Jarvis, extracted the information, and used it to answer common questions by readers just like you, who are looking to take their lives to the next level, or at least a different level than the one there are on.

Please enjoy.

How Can I Step Out And Be Bold?

It takes conviction of what you are, who you are, what you care about, and what you are going to pursue.

It’s about being ignored for months or years and still pushing.

It’s about knowing who you are, what you want, and not caring about external rewards.

If you can handle all of those things, then you are ready to go for it. These are the markers of passion.

If you have passion, then you will be willing to work hard, teach yourself, learn on your own, and adjust. Why? Because passion is a powerful force to have behind what you do.

When I was first starting out, I offered to work for free just for information. 3 days a week for 2 months. What was my pay? I was able to attend all meetings and spend one hour a week asking questions of my boss. That’s it, and it was totally worth it. If I was not passionate about what I was doing, there is no way I would put in that kind of work.

Would you be willing to do that for your passion?

If yes, then go for it.

If no, then it is probably not your passion.

Is Your Passion Obvious?

If you are able to listen to your inner voice. If you can reflect over your life, remember your childhood and what you wanted to be when you were older, then yes it is. People are the same throughout their lives. Just because you stopped believing in your dreams doesn’t mean they disappeared, it just means you buried them under the responsibilities you took on as you got older.

Reconnect with your inner voice, your childhood.

Give it room.

It not only deserves it, it needs it.

What If I Don’t Have Time?

There are things you need to do, responsibilities you have to take care of, but then there are other things that you can eliminate in order to make time for your passion. Maybe it’s an hour a week at first, maybe its 30 minutes a day, but you have to start somewhere. Once it has space it will grow. How do I know? Because it’s your passion. It is a seed you have been carrying around that just needs a little water to start growing.

Create small, easily managed goals. Write one page a day. Paint 30 minutes a day. Squeeze it in. It doesn’t have to be a huge commitment, but it needs to be committed to. You need to put yourself and your day in a position to be creative. That could look like many different things depending on what your life is like. Some advice that I have received in the past was to move away from big cities. That may be counter-intuitive, but the less expensive it is to live, the more time you can afford to your creativity.

Clean up your time. Don’t check email all day. Productivity is easier without distractions, so you have to remove them. Have specific times during the day that you allocate to emails and phone surfing, and then have specific time for your creativity. Don’t mix the two. Give them their respective times.

Everyone has their own path. It is about finding what works well for you. There is no formula. People tend to focus on what they like, what they are drawn to, and their inner voice. Be sensitive to each of those things. Take advantage of what you are feeling, and always be moving forward.

Don’t Get Lost

The paths to success are clear. Starting as young as elementary school, the rewards are given to those that follow the rules. Conformity is the name of the game. The drive for success kills people. Just because there are paths laid out for you doesn’t mean that they can’t lead you astray.

Stop chasing prizes.

Chase what makes you happy.

And don’t worry, no matter where you are in life, you can always turn around.

Start where you are, with what you’ve got, and the time that you have.

Quotes

No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road turn back.

Stop chasing prizes

Start where you are, with what you’ve got, and the time that you have.

Caterina Fake Links

Website

The Creative Hours (blog)

Findery

Chase Jarvis Links

Joey Links

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

30 Days Of Genius Blog: Tina Roth Eisenberg

Looking for the epitome of a creative entrepreneur? Look no further than Tina Roth Eisenberg. She is an artist herself, she brings artists together, and she creates businesses and apps to help other artists. She is an inspirational woman, surrounding herself with inspirational people, and she shares some of her brilliant insights here.

Please enjoy.

How Do I Become A Professional Creative?

Be self-sufficient. I think that is very important for a professional creative. If you are waiting around for someone to tell you what to do or how to do it, you will be waiting around a lot. For myself, and the people I work with, you need to be self-sufficient. That self-sufficiency comes from a hunger to create, explore, and try new things. Without that, I feel like you will only have a creative hobby.

I work with people with drive, because in the end, that is what is going to allow you to sustain a career. The desire to do good work, that can work well with others, are the people that will make it.

Don’t know if you are a self-starter? A self-motivator? What are your side projects? Self-starters have many interests and side projects. It shows initiative and hustle, two vital things in the creative world. Combine that with humility, and excitement around your craft, and you have a great formula.

Is There A Right Way To Develop A Side Project?

Yes! Don’t look at it as something that needs to develop. Remember, this is your passion. If you look at it as a business right away you will be less willing to experiment, have a greater fear of failure, and will make decisions based on money instead of love. Your decisions should be based around what you want to do, what you want to fix, and what you want to solve. When it comes from an authentic place, it provides a different energy to those that come in contact with it.

That being said, if your side project involves other people, set up a general foundation. For example, if your project involves four people, decide on how to split potential profits. ¼ for each? 20% in to the pot and divide the remaining 80%? Things like that will save headaches down the road, and potentially even relationships.

How Do I Know If It’s The Right Thing To Work On? That I Truly Love It?

That’s easy, you never have to ask yourself that question. If you love something you never have to question if you truly love it.

You need to know what works for you and recognize what you are good at. Once you focus on what you are good at, and love, you will start to develop super-powers around it, and people will react to it differently. There is something about passion and love that changes the way art looks and feels.

An important thing to remember is your passion and love need protection and nourishment. If you are inspired, if you are curious, surround yourself with curious and inspired people. Work with people that are passionate and excited about what they do. You will feed off each other and the product or art will reap the benefits. Enthusiasm is infectious.

Quotes

Enthusiasm is infectious. Confidence is impressive.

Curious people are inspired people.

I want to make something I love for people that love it.

Tina Roth Eisenberg Links

Chase Jarvis Links

Joey Links

Monday, January 9, 2017

30 Days Of Genius Blog: Neil Strauss

When you meet someone at a different level in their perspective, it is best to take notice. Neil Strauss has seen a lot, lived a lot, paid attention, and learned. His wisdom on life and creativity pour out in this interview. Limiting it to an hour is a shame. Good thing he is an introspective, share the dirt kind of an author, so we can delve as deep in to his knowledge as we want through his books. A fascinating guy.

I have taken his interview on 30 Days of Genius with Chase Jarvis, extracted the information, and used it to answer common questions by readers just like you, who are looking to take their lives to the next level, or at least a different level than the one they are on.

Please enjoy.

Forget Zero To One As A Business, How Do I Go Zero To One As An Artist?

If you are struggling even getting started there is a reason. You are allowing your limiting beliefs to keep you at the starting line. I consider “one” being the day you share your art. There are artists that don’t create because they are waiting for everything to be perfect, and there are artists that create, and adjust, and wait, and change, and end up sitting on the project without ever releasing it. If you are in either of those situations, you are allowing your limiting beliefs to get the better of you.

You need to embrace your fears, accept them, and do them anyways.

I think it is extremely important to recognize exactly what your limiting beliefs are, recognize that they are not true and not your voice, accept them, and either deal with them or reprogram yourself to get passed them. That will be vital for you to get to “one.”

Let me address the two different types of “zeros.” I think there is a true zero, an artist that hasn’t really created anything, and there is a 0.9, an artist that just hasn’t shared.

For the true zeros, just create. I love projects where I only know the beginning. Where it goes from there? Who knows? That’s the art. That is creativity. Don’t question it. Whenever you do, you are dampening the actual creativity. Don’t focus on the outcome. Don’t focus on anything outside of the actual creating. Not knowing how something will turn out feels good. It gives you a chance to explore. If you knew the outcome, why would you do it? Give yourself the chance to surprise yourself. Start exploring, go with the path and see where it leads you. Don’t resist where the propulsion is leading you either. You can’t realistically plan out where your art is going to be, who it is going to please, how successful it will be, so don’t focus on it. Everything that takes away from your focus on the creativity is taking away from the creativity.

Now for the 0.9 artists I have a quote, “When you throw a pebble in to the culture you have no idea where the ripples will go.”

Just share.

Please.

When you take too long to release a project you change. When you change, your view on the art changes. It should be a moment in time. It will never be perfect. Do your best, and let it go, see what happens, and start working on the next project.

Your inner critic is a monster, telling you it’s not good enough. Are you strong enough to silence that voice and produce anyways? Don’t fear judgement and criticizing. Do your best and be comfortable with that. Placing yourself in uncertainty is a very confident place to be.

Once you silence the inner dialogue, give yourself a deadline. Nothing crazy, not tomorrow, but a reasonable deadline, and stick with it.

Having that deadline is huge for a creative. You could sit on something for years without one, and how much better would it be? I’ve had stories that I had to write in 2 weeks that were better than stories I had years to write. It pushes you, streamlines your thinking, and will build up your creativity.

Listen, notice, pay attention, and then share.

Don’t plan too much, don’t focus on this style or that style too much. Don’t limit your creativity at all. Just create. Just explore. Then share.

You can spend your whole life trying to get everything just right.

But honestly? What is just right anyways?

Let it go.

Get going.

Quotes

I’m always thinking about the next thing, not where I’ve been.

Storytelling is teaching through metaphor.

The first question in an interview sets the tone: you know something, you are connected, but not too

connected.

Honesty equals a book.

Everything is creative.

If you could just take a helicopter to the top it wouldn’t be as special.

Neil Strauss Links

Website

Books

Chase Jarvis Links

Joey Links

Friday, January 6, 2017

30 Days Of Genius Blog: Austin Kleon

A self-described writer who draws, Austin Kleon is an artists’ artist. Assuming he would have to take on the Bruce Wayne/Batman approach to his life as an artist, he surprisingly found that he could do what he loved for a living. This is his advice on how you can too.

Please enjoy.

My Parents Always Told Me That Being An Artist Is Only A Hobby

I would love to tell you how wrong they are, but I had the same outlook when I was younger. My impressions of being an artist were of the “starving” variety. Like Bruce Wayne and Batman, I assumed my life as an artist would be night and day, literally. Doing something I didn’t love during the day in order to support the thing I did love at night.

What I started to realize was it wasn’t as “night” and “day” as I thought. I wanted day jobs that would inform the art. Learn from the day job, taking jobs that would make me better at my craft, then my growth in the craft would help me land the next day job. It turned out to be a beautiful cycle. What was even more beautiful was having the income to create. If you handcuff yourself by having to use your art for money, you may head down a path that you don’t want to be on. Monetary freedom is creative freedom. Keep your day job until you can support yourself with your art. But use your day job to push the art forward.

Don’t assume that because you can’t make money yet that you will never be able to. What do you need to get better at? Start there. There are so many aspects to being an artist besides the art, especially today. Not only do you need to create the art, but you need to market it and manage it. You are your own business.

Doesn’t sound appealing? That’s fine, just find someone who loves your art more than you do, then they can do all the stuff you don’t want to. Where you going to find that person? Exactly, get to work.

My advice is to decrease the tension between creation and self-promotion by combining the two. Make sharing a part of your creating and vice-versa. Sharing should become a daily practice as much as the actual daily practice of your craft. A great thing I have found is the added perspective of an audience helps create the art you are sharing with them in the first place. You will start to build community and networking around your art. The bigger the community, the more likely you can do what you love for a living. Sharing creates an ecosystem of creativity and connecting.

What Do You Feel Is The Foundation Of Creativity?

Everything around you is your foundation.

Too big?

Try this:

Take bits and pieces from everything, and create something completely new. Extract as you go and save it for later. Look for patterns. Create, study, make, study more, create more, etc. You should study as much as you make, and share as much as you study and make.

Got it?

Being a creative is as much about the community as it is the individual artist. The best artists in their respective generations are always products of their environment. Being that person that is connected to many different things allows you to create things that no one else can. The more input, the more output. Look at what you are doing, what other people are doing, and more importantly what they are NOT doing. Once you start recognizing that, you can take it on and create your own niche.

Time is also a huge foundation of creativity. You need to spend time every day sitting in your art. Visit it, listen to it, absorb it, and practice it. Schedules and routines free you. Knowing when you have time for the thing you want to be doing every day is liberating. If this is something you really want to do, you need to make sure you are actually doing it.

Never get caught up in the FOMO (fear of missing out), because you are not missing out. You are doing your thing. Let go of what you think you should be doing, or what everyone else is doing. You are an individual with their own goals and dreams. Following what other people are doing will pull you away from them.

If you need to refocus yourself, if you feel like you are not doing the thing you should be, ask yourself: what would I do if no one was paying attention? Or if no one was looking? That will usually be the thing that seems boring, or not cool, and not what everyone else is doing. That is also the best part. The time you are putting in the effort to reach your goals is the same time that will keep everyone else from reaching theirs.

One day you won’t be here, but you get today. What are you going to do with it?

Quotes

The artist welds their theft in to something completely new.

Don’t flatter through imitation, flatter through transformation.

It’s about content.

Make sharing a part of your daily practice as much as the daily practice on your craft.

Austin Kleon Links

Website

Newspaper Blackout

Books

Chase Jarvis Links

Joey Links

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

30 Days Of Genius Blog: Jared Leto

A multi-hyphenate, artist, actor, musician, and entrepreneur, Jared Leto has been a leader in all endeavors he tackles. A true artist.

Please enjoy.

How Do I Decide What To Do? Photography or Music?

Everything works together. It is all the same thing, an all-encompassing creative path. You don’t need to choose, you have already chosen art. It is a better time than ever to be on this path. You no longer have to ask permission to be an artist, you just create. Technology has given us all the permission we need. The “gatekeepers” are obsolete.

So create.

Experiment.

Experimenting is the foundation of art.

Andy Warhol said, “keep making art, let others decide if it is good or not. And while they are deciding, create more art.”

We all have the right to succeed or fail gloriously. Don’t pigeon-hole yourself to one medium, they all work together. My approach to acting is the same as it was with photography, sculpting, and painting.

It is all about the immersion. You need to figure out all of the aspects in order to dive deeper. The reward, contribution, and authenticity all exponentially increase the deeper you go. You never know where you are going to find the bit of information that will take you over the top, which is why you look everywhere, even in other artistic mediums.

You can express yourself in a lot of different ways, even failure. I have had mistakes that turned out to be great art. If I had known the error in my ways while creating I never would have uncovered the greatness, or as I like to call it, the Holy Mistake. I will take it a step further and say that I only have a little success because I have made a lot of mistakes. Failure leads to success which then leads to more failure. It’s a beautiful, tortuous cycle.

You have to put yourself out there, stretch yourself, your art, your learning, and your creating. It all works together for the collective good: Art.

Can I Just Create, Or Do I Need To Learn The Business?

Whether you like it or not, you will learn the business. It’s inevitable.

You will learn as you go through the process. From starting, to sharing, selling, repeating, then making a living, making it sustainable, who can help you, connecting with them, etc. It is self-fulfilling. Unless you want to create for creations sake, the business aspect will come. You might as well embrace it so you can get the most benefit out of it and not have to rely on others as much.

Quotes

“We all have the right to succeed or fail gloriously.”

“I only have a little success because I make a lot of mistakes.”

“Failure leads to success which inevitably leads to more failure.”

Jared Leto Links

Website

30 Seconds To Mars

Twitter

Chase Jarvis Links

Joey Links

Sunday, August 7, 2016

30 Days Of Genius Blog: Stefan Sagmeister

If you clicked the link to this blog you are probably a creative, and you are familiar with Sagmeister. Either that, or you are curious about who this person is and what advice he can offer. If it’s the latter, you are in for a treat. I admit that I did not know who this was before the interview, but he absolutely blew my mind with insights in to being successful and developing your creative abilities throughout a career.

Please enjoy.

How Do I Stand Out?

In order to truly stand out you need to have your own style, and that takes time. Personal style is something that sounds intimidating at the beginning, something you are striving for from day one, but it is not something you can force. As much as we push for it, it is something that will slowly develop over time. The more you create, work, re-think, re-do, and experiment, the sooner your style will develop. I truly believe it is easier to develop your style today than it ever has before. With so many outlets to display your work, you are able to receive enormous amounts of feedback in a very short period of time. Being critiqued, seeing your work through others’ eyes, and having the ability to create consistently will help you zero in on your style. You will develop what makes you art different from everyone else’s, but you won’t get that without creating. The more the better.

Do not allow artistic “rules” to box you in. There are techniques and strategies that have been used for decades that are irrational and even dumb, yet no one wants to question them. If you want to avoid blending in avoid following the rules. Create for you, create for your audience, but don’t create for the rules. The heart of an artist is to be different, stand out in society, but so many times they fall in line when it comes to the thing they should be most creative about. They may not sit in a cubicle, work from 9–5, and wear a tie, but there are many artists that will confine their creations just as much as if they had an office job. It’s a shame.

I can see it in their faces. They want to be different, they know it is the right thing to do, and they just won’t allow themselves to do it. I received so much support for the things that I did differently, like taking year-long sabbaticals, because even if they didn’t allow themselves to be different, they wanted to see it done, and they appreciated it.

How Do I Maximize My Creativity?

There is no clear path for anything in life. Similar destinations, varying paths. Even for becoming a professional artists. Some do school, some don’t. Some bounce around jobs, some stay in one. You must find what works best for you, then make sure you do it.

I maximize my creativity by exposing myself to as much as possible. Different cities, jobs, techniques, perspectives, everything. For a while I was even trying to come up with something completely new and different with every project, but that is impossible. The artists I see that push that as their focus are the ones that are either taking decades-old techniques and passing them off as new, or are stealing from their contemporaries. You can’t come up with something brand new every single time, but do not take that statement as an excuse to stop growing.

There are two things that I do to help stretch my creativity regularly.

1. I think about the project from the point of view that has nothing to do with the project itself. Through the eyes of someone completely disconnected, or through an object that is completely disconnected. What does a shoe look like through a Coke bottle? How would a bee see a book cover? It really helps get out of creative funks and start looking for the “different.”

2. Taking time off, but with a plan. I make a list of things I want to explore, rank them in order of interest, then set up a schedule to learn, dissect, and create. It is vital for me to set up a schedule. I tried it without a schedule at first and I found myself being pulled in any and every direction the wind blew. Clients would call me up and I was working again! I had to stop it completely, and the schedule saved me. I use it until I am working on so many new projects I don’t need it any more. If I get stuck on one project, I have a handful of other ones I can jump to, so I never get frustrated. What usually happens is working on one project will trigger something for the project was stuck on. After the sabbatical, I can approach my old work and clients with fresh eyes, fresh ideas, and new strategies. It has been amazing for my career and my creativity.

Figure out the tricks that allow you to create the best, then use them. Develop a pattern and a habit that gives you the greatest creative production, then repeat it.

Misconceptions

Artists feel like we are so different, when really, we are not. Our outlet may be different, the type of job, but we are all very similar. Things that make us happy, sad, and scared, are things that make most people feel those same emotions. Embrace your feelings, recognize them as something that is not unique, and then create art around those feelings, knowing that they are for you AND someone else.

There are people out there that are feeling the same way you are, let them see.

Recognize that money will not make you as happy as creating quality work. The years I have been most financially successful, I have not felt as good as the years I felt we created the best work.

Quotes

“If we can, we design something that helps somebody or delights somebody”

“All of the stuff I looked good in was boring. All the stuff I looked shitty in was interesting.”

“Think about the project from the point of view that has nothing to do with the project itself.”

Stefen Sagmeister Links

Website — this is one of the coolest websites I have ever seen!

The Happy Show

The Happy Film

Chase Jarvis Links

Joey Links

Monday, August 1, 2016

30 Days Of Genius Blog: LeVar Burton

Roots. Reading Rainbow. Star Trek The Next Generation.

Does anyone NOT know who LeVar Burton is? Starring in three iconic roles, Mr. Burton has solidified himself as one of the icons of the last two generations of television and cinema. He shares his keys to survival and success over 4 decades in one of the world’s most tumultuous job markets, Los Angeles.

Please enjoy.

How Do You Deal With Life’s Ups and Downs?

This is something that I struggled with early in my career. Keep in mind, Roots was my first featured role. I went from 0 to 100, basically overnight. The fame, the notoriety. It was great, but overwhelming. I had to ask myself, where do you go when you start at the top?

What saved me was the fact that I was passionate about acting. I didn’t get in to it to be famous. I wasn’t drawn by the glitz and glam of Hollywood. I was drawn to the art. I loved it. I still love it.

My advice, follow your passion.

Not only is it the key to your happiness, it will also give you a place to return to when you feel lost, when you need to reconnect with yourself, recalibrate.

Once you are locked in to your passion, you are headed in the right direction.

Now that you are headed in the right direction, you need to be open and aware to what comes next, recognize your opportunities, and then maximize them. Find a way to do your best work with each opportunity you come across. Identify where you can be most effective, and attack. You can never predict the end of a book in the first chapter, so you keep pushing, keep grinding, and keep hustling.

Passion allows you to be capable of things you didn’t think you were capable of.

Listen to yourself, ask yourself, what am I passionate about? What would I do for free?

To have success in the long term, you need to be on the right path and be honest with yourself.

We can be very disingenuous with ourselves. We lie to ourselves all the time. We are our own worst enemies. Be brutally honest with yourself. Ask yourself the tough questions: are you doing everything you say you are? Are you doing everything you should? If not, you need to adjust, you need to change. Give yourself time in the mirror and go deep.

Besides self-talk and introspection, I surrounded myself with a group of friends that I really trusted. They gave me feedback and allowed for my personal insights to go even deeper. It is vital to surround yourself with people that can also do that for you.

There were periods in my career when I was having a difficult time getting jobs. If it wasn’t for introspection, if it weren’t for my friends, I am not sure how long it would have taken me to reconnect with my passion, gain the proper perspective, and start working consistently again. I can honestly tell you that the second I reconnected with my passion, the art, and I stopped looking at myself, and what I had done, the doors flew wide open. It all started with a shift in mindset. That shift allowed me to get out of my own way, and maximize who I really was.

Getting through the tough times, or the downs, is possible because of your passion. If you are not passionate about your craft, when it gets hard, and it will get hard, it is difficult to keep going. It takes energy and presence to make things happen. I don’t see how you can be either of those things without passion.

Quotes

“I feel like I have learned more from my failures in life than my successes.”

“I became my own advocate.”

“Your hustle is a sign of the degree of your passion.”

“That which we imagine, we create.”

LeVar Burton Links

Chase Jarvis Links

Joey Links

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Marketing Metallica's New Metal Masterpiece

disclaimer. I want Metallica to read this and hire me to work with their social media group. Just being honest.

Yes, Metallica has an album coming out towards the end of the year.

No, I haven’t heard it, but I am going to go out on a limb and say it is going to be awesome.

Why? Because it is f’ing Metallica, and even on their “worst” albums, they are better than 99% of what everyone else is doing.

They are willing to experiment, to stretch the genre, to explore outside their comfort zone and try new things. I love AC/DC. I love Pennywise. But if you bought one album, you have them all. I like an artist that makes me think, and Metallica makes me think. (I am still thinking about the snare sound on St. Anger and Lulu.)

What They Are Doing Right

Honestly, they are Metallica. They could do ZERO promo for this next album, except say, “Hey, we have a new album,” and it will still be #1 on charts all over the world (and they might not even have to do that). They have 3.3 million Twitter followers, 2.3 million Instagram followers, 37 million Facebook followers, 1.5 million YouTube subscribers, who knows how many Snapchat followers, and can sell out stadiums all over the world.

They are a juggernaut, and have been for 30 years.

Reissues/Album Birthdays: Awesome. I especially love the re-tweets and shares of their favorite fan photos. That’s what fans love. A little recognition from a group that should be too big to pay attention to the “little guy.” I don’t even know if they understand what that means to fans. If any of the guys in the band even read this I would s*** my pants. If they contacted me because they liked it, my head would explode. I saw James at the Nutcracker a few years ago and couldn’t get 2 sentences out to explain how important his band has been to me since I was 11. So what did I do instead? Just looked at him like a weirdo psychopath. Yay me! My wife still makes fun of me about that. The word p***y comes up a lot. So sad.

Live Streaming: The Night Before concert at AT&T Park in SF, and the Record Store Day in Berkeley. Both of which my friend was in the front row (kiss my a** Brett), but both I could enjoy from the comforts of my own home. Not in person, but better than nothing. Live is live. We were experiencing the same thing at the same time. There is a lot to be said for that.

MetallicaTV: Their YouTube channel, in case you guys were not aware. They put out a ton of content on this medium. Pieces of old concerts, clips from the MetClub video catalogue, behind the scenes at the Brioni shoot. Access is so important to fans, and they do it well with YouTube.

Marketing The New Album

If we are pointing out things they do right, we need to also point out where they need improvement. Everything they are doing above, they need to keep doing. My suggestions are for places to expand and be better.

Fan Retweets/Shares/Etc: For every announcement between now and the album release, they should share the fan experience. The same way they are retweeting and sharing the fan photos with Kill Em All and Ride The Lightning, they should do with album news, concert announcements, etc.

They basically have tens of thousands of people at their disposal that would love to share their experiences with the band. Put requests out there for alternative concert poster designs, what they think the new album will be named, after they release the name of the album, what they think the cover will look like, designs for the individual song titles, etc. It’s is all about interaction, sharing, etc.

Giving the fans a chance to share their “Metallica” vision with the group.

They share the good ones, they re-tweet the ones they like, those individual fans s*** their pants, and the community as a whole gets closer to each other because they are sharing each others’ work, pushing each other to come up with better ideas, and more creative displays in the hopes of being “chosen.”

#Metallica and #whateverthealbumnameis should be trending on all the “socials” between the announcement of the release date and the actual release date. Fan interaction is how you do that.

The foundation of the idea is to take all of the aspects of the Metallica “experience,” anything where a fan can share their perspective, their vision, their love, and give them a voice.

Daily Tour Vlog: Just like Casey Neistat. 8–15 minute daily video of life on the road. They would obviously need a full time videographer/editor to crank these out, but I am sure people would kill to have that position (I would!). They can tease the “show” with a few days around the Minnesota show, again around the Global Citizen concert, then launch the full show a few days before their world tour starts. It is only a tour show, so when the tour stops, so do the videos. The fan interaction, combined with my other ideas would be off the charts. Such an amazing fan experience.

Snapchat: Metallica’s Snapchat sucks. Hands down, terrible. They need to really focus on this social because the transferable consumption on Snapchat is better than any other social platform. People actually consume on Snapchat. They don’t just glance and “like” or “heart,” they actually watch and listen. They act and react. SC is VERY powerful right now.

They can use Snapchat, at least, to drive viewers to things they are posting on other media. Use Snapchat to drive views to Metallica.com, or to join the Metclub (which is awesome and FREE). Tweet when they have a big announcement on Snapchat, get people locked in, then use Snapchat as the main gateway to release new info about the album, concerts, etc. With screen shots, they can post on Snapchat, request people to share it on their socials and BOOM, the Metallica wild fire begins. (Tip: the snap before the one you want them to screen shot you should tell them to get ready to screen shot. It will help the fans A LOT).

“Snap” 5 seconds of each song on the new album, tease it before it comes out, have days for a Metallica member “takeover.” James, Lars, Kirk, Rob, one day, or better yet, one week. Have them share things they think are cool, playing jokes on each other, or just talk about stuff that is on their mind. It doesn’t matter, it’s Metallica, and it’s access. It will be great no matter what they do.

Allow the people that work at the MetClub to “takeover.” Show people around HQ, tell people what they do, what it’s like to work for the metal icons. There is so much space for different types of information to get out there. Two or three crappy snaps from Record Store Day? Really? With all the s*** that was going on that day, and that’s all we got? For shame.

Remember the Black Album tour? Before and after they showed the History of Metallica video instead of an opener they had live video of the guys backstage. Why not do that for every show, but through Snapchat? Only 30,000 people get to be there in person. Why not let 10 million be there vicariously? One person (hopefully me) walks around “snapping” things that fans would enjoy. They will know what is off limits and what is allowed, and they will add an experience that no one has gotten before. Live, in real time, clips of Metallica backstage at a show. How awesome would that be? Snapchat would go berserk!

Podcasts: The Tim Ferriss Show, The Gary Vee Show, The Joe Rogan Experience, WTF w Marc Maron, The Art Of Charm, The James Altucher Show, etc. These guys do phenomenal interviews and have a s***load of listeners. Magazines? Poop. Maybe find some popular bloggers (me!!) TV?

Besides the late night shows, who cares? Podcasts are where it is at.

Live Streaming: They have done this so well over the last 12 months. What I am going to suggest is to take aspects of what they have been doing and squish them together with what they did with the release of the St. Anger album. For those of you that are unfamiliar, the release of the St. Anger album came with a DVD of the guys playing every song from the album, recorded at HQ. I might have watched that more than I listened to the album the first few weeks. We would be partying with friends, and it would be on a loop in the background. It was f***ing awesome!!

Why not do that live?

The day before the album comes out? The day the album comes out? Doesn’t matter, just do it.

It could be live from anywhere: HQ, The Fillmore, The Warfield, my house, wherever!

The options for live streaming are getting bigger and bigger by the minute: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter/Periscope. Not that they need the money, but there could be a nice little bidding/technology war for who could provide the best live stream. I would think Twitter would be all over this. New NFL and NBA contracts? This album is due sometime in the Fall? It would be perfect for them. Hell, maybe by then Snapchat will get in on live streaming and Metallica can double-down on SC. Who knows?

Technology advances pretty quick. Anything could happen. The important thing is the live “concert” of the new album. It would be amazing!

Musical.ly: Get on it, officially. Between now and the release of the new album, release an old album for fans to lip-sync to for a couple weeks at a time. It is VERY easy to share across the socials, on YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, etc. Make a competition out of it. This is a great place to find younger listeners, and a ton of them. This app is exploding, especially during the summer months.

Maybe they don’t know anything other than the Black Album? Maybe they only know a couple songs. Expose them to the rest of the catalogue. This is where kids are finding new music to listen to.

Give them the gift of Metallica!

This band is so popular, as soon as an album is released for people to use with their videos, it will blow up. Popularity with the older crowd will draw attention and bring in the younger crowd. Metallica + Musical.ly = a match made in music heaven!

Netflix: Get every single Metallica video up on Netflix a month before the album comes out. Cliff Em All, A Year And A Half.., Cunning Stunts, Binge and Purge, Through The Never, all of them. I know they are up on YouTube for the most part (illegally), but it’s about interacting with all fans, and potential fans. People watch the s*** out of Netflix. Let people binge watch Binge and Purge!

Let people fall in love all over again.

Find new fans.

It’s perfect.

They have a growing catalogue of videos and Netflix is the perfect place to relaunch them. Make it happen.

The New Album

It is going to be great. I know it. Death Magnetic was great.

I can’t wait to see what they do next.

How heavy will the heavy songs be?

What topics are they going to cover?

Any ballads?

Any acoustic?

It is all so exciting, the anticipation of new material.

I would go line up at Tower Records at 12:00am for it, but there is no more Tower Records.

I love that Metallica isn’t fighting technology. The record companies are still trying to figure it out, and margins keep decreasing year after year. Obviously Napster was a gut punch to the industry, but you either adjust or you die. Metallica adjusts, and I love them for it.

“You rise, you fall.

You’re down, then you rise again.

What don’t kill you makes you more strong.”

Push the envelope again Metallica.

We need it.

With the music and with the promotion.

Do what you do.