Well believe it or not.. it’s getting a lot easier now a days. Radio stations are starting to catch on to the MP3 era of the digital age. More and more people are going to their Computer when looking for new music, unlike even as short as 10 years ago when the radio told everyone what you liked and then you would race down to the local music store to spend your hard earned cash on a shiny new disk. It don’t work that way anymore.. kinda. The Billboard is still telling us what we like the most but out side of mainstream media its all about the internet rage. What’s popular on web sites like Pandora, MySpace, and Garage Band is starting to take over. You know what that means.. WE GET TO TELL THE RADIO STATION WHAT WE LIKE instead of following like the nice little sheep we were. Sorry I tend to rant a bit about stuff like this, so let’s get right down to it. How to get your music played on the radio.

Step 1: (this is important) Get a quality sounding demo. I can’t stress this enough, your friends might like to hear your recording through your dads karaoke machine but the general public isn’t going to be as open to it and don’t even think that will play on the radio.. No matter how bad ass the song is. Recording software is getting cheaper everyday and more professional sounding recording are coming from the home and not the studios. The best solution is to take your song to professional to have it recorded *cough cough Fat Rock*. There is loads around that are fair priced and makes some very nice quality recordings *COUGH FAT ROCK*. Excuse me, must be something in my throat.

Step 2: Put together a press kit. It doesn’t have to be fancy just to the point. Something that contains a pic of the band, your demo that you want on the radio, and a few paragraphs about the band/music. Nothing major you can easily do this in an afternoon. If you need help putting together a professional press kit contact Tango or Ben here at Fat Rock. They would be more than happy to help out.

Step 3: Submit your songs the proper way to the radio stations so they can accept it and put it into rotation. Every station has different guide line about doing this. It may take a little bit of research on your part to find out how to do this. Most stations will have a place on their web site telling you how and who to contact about this. If not just give the station a call and let them know who you are and what you are trying to do. They should let you know how to go about doing this. We will let you know how to do this with our two local rock stations.

B-Rock 93.7:

Send your press kit to:
B-Rock Underground
259 S. Willow Ave.
Cookeville, TN 38501 
or
Email: steve@brock937.com

102.9 The Buzz:

If you are in a rock band from Middle Tennessee and would like to get your music heard on 102.9 The Local Buzz please submit a polished press kit including: press clippings, band bio, glossy photos, show dates, venues played and radio suitable CD recordings (mastered preferably NO MP3’s PLEASE) to this address:

102.9 The Local Buzz
c/o The Local Buzz Panel
1824 Murfreesboro Rd.

There ya go, follow those steps and before you know it you and your friends will be headbangin to your tunes on the radio. A few more tips that you should also know, just because you gave them your demo on Monday don’t mean that it will play on Friday. Give them time to get it worked into the schedule. In most cases those are planed a few weeks in advance. After a few weeks and you still haven’t heard your song, send a nice email or phone call. Cussing out the DJ will ensure that your band would never play. Never send them a MP3 of your song, they won’t play it, always use the standard CD format or .WAV files for your demo (besides they are higher quality than MP3 and you will sound better). Keep your songs as close to the 3 min mark as you can, no longer than 4. Any intros should be fairly short ten seconds or less. The album version can be 15 min if you really want it to be, just not the radio cut.