Pick a name you won’t hate in 5 years.
While members of Coyaba were in Jamaica, their travel guide introduced them to the Arawak word for paradise: Coyaba. “It means a place of infinite feasting and dancing,” keyboard player Justin McKinney says. “It is always sunny all day. It’s a relaxing place to be. We kind of try to put people there, bring them to Coyaba.”
And once you find the perfect group name, rule number one is getting along. “It’s a marriage without any sex,” says Michael David Hall, lead vocalist of South Jordan, “and you have to be with people you really respect and love.”
But just because you’re all in a band doesn’t mean you should put a ring on it. “It becomes a business if you want to take it seriously and do something with it,” Clayton Anderson of Clayton Anderson Band says. “There’s been a couple times when I’ve had to let somebody go and it stinks, and it’s a big regret because he’s such a great guy. But if you don’t, then you’re holding everybody back.”
Don’t force it, just love it.
The technical aspects will happen on their own, so let it flow. “These things happen organically,” says Matt Margeson, Jip Jop drummer. “They are supposed to happen organically.”
If it’s not fun, it’s not worth it, says Jip Jop vocalist Benny Gershman.
“Above all else, you still have to enjoy what you’re doing and have some sort of pleasure and satisfaction in it,” Gershman says. “At the end of the show, it’s pretty obvious that we’re enjoying the show because we’re all beaming.”
Get out of the basement.
Perform anywhere and everywhere, even if it’s for a crowd of 10.
“Even if a couple of people liked you and will listen to you again, then it was worth it,” says Brett Holcomb, Coyaba guitarist and vocalist.
To break away from the cellar scene, be a go-getter, not a come-get-me, even if things don’t quite work out.
After winning a contest to open for Kenny Chesney in Cincinnati, Clayton Anderson Band’s Anderson took a trip to Nashville and started knocking on company doors ... where he was promptly laughed at.
Build a fan base and work the crowd.
Get online. South Jordan’s Facebook fan base has passed the 12,000 mark, and they have fans across the globe, including in Malaysia, France, Germany, and the U.K.
“We released a music video sometime after Christmas, and within 12 hours, there were over 1,000 views from all around the world,” guitarist Mike Chan says. “We didn’t expect that.”
To keep your fans around, get out and mingle with the people who paid to see you play before or after the show. “Figure out who they are how, why they’re there, and how you can get them back at the next show,” Ryan Imboden, Jip Jop trumpet player, says.
Make it big.
After a performance in Florida, South Jordan was offered a management contract.
“The best moment for our band was this guy bringing us back to his hotel room telling us all of the good and the bad parts about us,” Hall says. “And then he goes, I would like to hand you a contract, and we walked out of that hotel room so high off of life. We were prancing around the Orlando streets.”
South Jordan, with the help of its management team, has gained quite the following of loyal fans. Anita Johnson, a romance novelist, features South Jordan as the band performing in the wedding scene of her upcoming book. Johnson says she is hoping to turn her book into a movie and if all turns out well, South Jordan members will act as themselves.
“If you told us a year ago that people would be freaking out or if you told us a year ago that we would have 13,000 fans on Facebook, we would be like, ‘Oh, it’s so cool,’” Hall says. “But now, it’s like we don’t care. We are just regular guys doing what we love to do.”
