About
We've been touring together for five years, have logged over 600 concerts as a duo, and with three successful duo albums under our belt we are ready to record our fourth! We are offering this pre-order campaign as a way for fans to get involved in the process in exchange for us receiving funding up front to help pay our recording, manufacturing, and promotional costs.
In January, we recorded twenty demos which we pitched to a team of fans, family, and friends on our mailing list who had expressed interest in helping us whittle this batch of new songs down to twelve. We've also been test driving the new material on recent tours in Canada, the South, and the West and East Coasts. With many new favorites in the lead, the jury has weighed in and we're ready to do this collection of songs justice in the recording studio, with great mics, sensitive producing, and featuring select studio musicians.
Added to the costs of recording and manufacturing a new album, launching a publicity campaign is expensive and time consuming. We'd love to be able to hire a helper or two to get these songs the attention they deserve! With our third album having received considerable attention in Canada (sitting within the top five on the campus Roots charts for most of the summer of 2016, and 11th overall in Canada for that year) we are confident that this new album and the right campaign team will help launch our career to its next level of establishment.
What We Need
Based on past recording experience, we estimate that we'll need $7,500 to make our fourth release the best it can be - true to the sound and quality we envision for these songs, while remaining practical and frugal.
Here's the breakdown:
-Recording/Mixing/Mastering ~ $2800
-Studio Musicians ~ $550
-Manufacturing 1000 CD's ~ $1250
-CD Graphic Design ~ $150
-Album Photography ~ $250
-Publicity in print and radio for initial US and Canadian CD release tours ~ $2500
Due to the "all or nothing" nature of Kickstarter, we are setting our goal a bit lower than this ($5000) to help ensure we meet it. This more modest amount will cover our basic CD costs, though our hope is for this campaign to exceed this goal and reach the full $7500 target which will allow us to also meet our basic publicity goals.
Should we receive more than our target amount (many artists ask for and receive 15-25K to record a new album), we will be able to splurge a bit more in the studio (hire a producer? take more time for recording and/or mixing?), as well as have a serious budget for marketing and publicity.
Donations of any amount are appreciated!
If we do not reach our fundraising goal, you will not be charged for any of your pledges, we will not receive any funding, and you will not receive any rewards. At that point, we might need to shelve the project for a while as we look for other opportunities to raise the money, or we may choose to record gradually over the next year or more as we have funds available.
We hope you'll take this chance to pre-order the record and help make it possible!
Risks and challenges
We have the studio arranged and all the people required for basic production lined up. We've worked with all these people before and can count on all of them to give their best work.
We'll need to still make decisions about a few choices of studio musicians and hope we can arrange the choices we think will most elevate the recordings. We'll also need to do a bit more pre-production on some of the songs to ensure we are efficient and effective when we hit the studio.
While we are planning to hit the studio in June and have factored in extra time for minor delays should they arise, we'd love to be able to completely focus on preparing to record this album, rather than worrying about whether or not funding will be available when we need to write the checks.
We are highly creative, motivated, and problem solving people, and have released over 30 albums between us in the past, mostly on very low budgets. Should one door close, we are confident that we'd quickly find another to walk through.
Really, the budget is our biggest hurdle and with your help, we will relax, enjoy this process, and really let ourselves dream a bit and create an album to be proud of and that you will truly treasure.
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