Episode 8: Michael Walker's Tour Hacking Technique and Advice on How Having the Right Producer can Make or Break your Music Career Part 1 of 2

Joining us in our podcast today is Michael Walker, founder of Modern Musician, a successful and highly renowned musician and entrepreneur. He is a husband, father, and keyboardist for the band Paradise Fears, who made headlines years ago for a technique he started called “tour hacking.” He spent around 10 years touring full time and during those years, their band released an album that hit number 2 on iTunes as an Alternative Rock Album. They got about 24 million streams on Spotify and toured around the world, playing music full-time, independently without a record label. He also coached thousands of independent musicians and paved the way for them to be successful musicians. What You’ll Learn In this episode, Michael recounts how he was transformed from a socially awkward kid in High School to signing autographs and taking pictures for fans and overcoming the fear of rejection. He also shares how they deferred their full-ride scholarships to college to focus on their music and realizing how huge of an impact working with the right producer can make on the quality of your music. He believes that even if it's a super talented artist, but a horrible production of amateur quality then it's not it's going to sound awful. He also highlights his “tour hacking” technique and how connecting with real people, and having core relationships with them, helps you build a solid fanbase. Things We Discussed Modern Musician - a team made up of highly-talented musicians who understand what it takes to be an independent artist in today’s industry. Paradise Fears Gold Artist Academy™ All-Time Low, Mayday Parade, Blink 182 - some bands they looked up to Mastermind Trips Tour hacking - a marketing technique where they walk up to people and introduce themselves, share some of their music and just build a relationship, connect with as many people as possible and if they liked it, they would offer a CD Warped Tour - a festival where there's a ton of pop-punk, pop-rock, kind of emo scene bands who were  playing Connect with Michael Walker Website LinkedIn Instagram Twitter Facebook Connect with Jason Website Facebook YouTube Instagram Spotify Pandora Amazon Music Apple Music