Indy DC Area Teen Band Plans to be First to Issue Million-Seller Song Online

Independent teenage rockers want to score the first iTunes Music Store million-selling song, proceeds to go to the Future of Music Coalition.

(PRWEB) February 10, 2004 --Indy DC Area Teen Band Plans to be First to Issue Million-Seller Song Online.

"To me, this is more than just about our group getting attention -- if we succeed at this -- a high school rock group who ordinarily sells a few CDs at live shows -- then we'll be putting hope in the hearts of thousands of independent musicians and bands that they don't need to be with a major record label to make it! There's a revolution in the way people find out about and buy music, and we're in on the ground floor!

"There's no reason an unsigned band can't sell a million copies of a song online. We reach the same potential audience via the iTunes Music Store as all the major labels!" declared Derek Evry, lead singer and guitarist from the rock band Self-Titled when announcing his band's daring mission to get a million people to download their song Equinox for 99 cents each.

Evry feels that the big record companies' strategy to sell records online by threatening people with lawsuits and jail time if they don't buy is not a particularly positive message. They're not selling the artists and the convenience of legal downloads in their advertising yet. They really don't know what to make of online sales and Self-Titled would like to show them how it's done.

The guys in Self-Titled, Derek Evry, bassist Will Huberdeau, guitarist Ryan Gibbons, and drummer Jay Rodriguez, were pretty amazed when their self-published album Metro was among the first truly independent records to be picked up for online distribution via the iTunes Music Store at the beginning of the year. They want to make the song Equinox from that album the first to sell a million copies totally online.

iTunes, the brainchild of Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs, has had over thirty million Macintosh and Windows users purchasing downloadable music at ninety-nine cents a song in the last few months, and many more are expected to do so as the service catches on. Additonally, Pepsi-Cola has announced it is giving away up to 100 million free iTunes songs with specially marked bottle caps. "Nobody has sold a million copies of a single song online yet," Evry says."It seems like very soon somone will, and why couldn't it be us? Getting our music in the iTunes Music Store is like getting our records in every single record store in the country!"

Can this be done? Certainly, the song itself is catchy, and full of the requisite hooks that goes into most successful pop tunes. But without a major record label behind it, getting publicity and airplay is difficult - especially in these days when most radio stations' playlists are controlled by one or two mega-corporations who have no vested interest in the success of independent artists. Still, Self-Titled is going for a groundswell of publicity on internet review sites, chatrooms and forums, word of mouth, and yes, even sending out press releases.

To show that the band's interest in accomplishing this goal is not totally driven by the bottom line, they have also announced that one hundred percent of after-taxed royalties from online sales of their song Equinox, whether from the iTunes Music Store, or any other downloadable song distributor between now and the end of summer will be donated to the Future of Music Coalition (http://www.futureofmusic.org). The Coalition has been working for musicians' rights, embracing new distribution technologies, and help independent musicians in their struggle to reach the public without relying on the major record labels.

Self-Titled's web sites will offer banners, buttons, and ads for other musicians and interested parties to put on their own web pages. These can be found at http://www.self-titled.com/future.

Musicians and web site admins, please note -- help Self-Titled put the Big Record Companies in their place! Grab a banner from http://www.self-titled.com/future to put on your site. All after-tax proceeds go to the Future of Music Coalition! Adding a banner will automatically enter you in the Self-Titled contest where a $10 iTunes Music Store Gift Certificate will be given away every other week, and free links will be posted on the Self-Titled links page to everyone who enters!

For further information, please come by the band's web site at http://www.self-titled.com. Emails from musicians, reviewers and the press are welcome at selftitledcontact@yahoo.com.

Reproducible photographs and other goodies can be found in the Press Section (http://www.self-titled.com/press).