(TweelX)
BY PETE PORTER
dmnews@gmail.com
A Nashville company is offering help to unsigned, up-and-coming bands in order to to spread their music via social media in the digital age.
TweelX, which was started by Jeff Tweel and his son Chase, is a music publishing company that provides a way for bands to break the traditional barriers of entry to the industry, and it gives the artists a leg up in the always-competitive music business.
The company starts by building a catalog of songs through a digital publishing agreement, allowing the artists to publish their songs instantly online. Once a song is published, the company converts a portion of the publishing and royalty rights into standardized shares. Next, TweelX uses digital as well as brick-and-mortar marketing strategies to pitch their artists’ songs to TV, radio, labels, management and more. When the song begins to make revenue, TweelX collects the money and takes a small percentage, usually around 25 percent, before distributing the rest to the artist into an account that manages earnings on a song-by-song basis.
Although it’s still in its early stages, the company offers different appealing features to help get the word out about its bands. One feature is a Facebook app the company launched last year, according to marketing coordinator Matt Cameron.
“The app really got going in January,” Cameron said. “So far we have just been getting artists trying to build up the catalog. Now, we will push the artists and really try to get their names out there. These pages should be a great start.”
Another feature the company provides is a digital tip jar, which is a no-strings-attached feature that gives bands a profile for social media sites.
This profile information, including the songs’ stream boxes, will appear in news feeds and gives people the opportunity to give an artist money with the click of a button.
Cameron said the tip jar is a great way to connect with a band.
“If you hear a band but have no way of contacting (them) or seeing them live, it’s a way to reach out to them,” Cameron said. “We do take a small percentage of the earnings, but we’re providing them the platform to be featured on, so it’s a fair trade.”
TweelX relies on the work of interns to do a large part of its work. Although the company has five full-time interns located across the country, it also hires 20 to 30 interns for the summer through a work-study program worth 3 hours of college credit.
Each intern is in charge of spreading the word about the artists in their market, a process that gives them a taste of what it is like to be a band manager.
Though the company is based out of Nashville and features mainly country artists, interns will be located throughout the country trying to bring in new artists of all genres.
Lance Ingram, a marketing associate for TweelX, is in charge of the Tennessee/Mississippi area and says there have been some Oxford bands that have shown interest in the company.
“We’ve spoken to a few Oxford bands, but they either had other commitments or didn’t make a move,” said Ingram, a Brandon native.
Will Freeman, guitarist in the Oxford bands Gunboat and Swampfoot, says he and his bands would be very interested in TweelX.
“I think we would be very interested in the features that TweelX offers,” Freeman said. “With everything going digital, the company seems to help bands like us make that next step and at the same time adjust to the changing music landscape. That’s exactly what we need.”
