He has done a lot of hard work to spread the word about his music over the last weeks – radio and online promo. His strongest and truest fans support him spreading the word. I have talked to Tim Bennett about the first single “Anybody” from his upcoming album “Miseducated” and his further plans …

50K MUSIC: A few days ago you released the „Anybody“ video from your upcoming album „Miseducated“. It’s got more than 1.000 views on YouTube within the first week. How do you feel with all this attention and support from your fans?
Tim: It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience to receive so much attention with the video. It did break the 1000 barrier within 5 days and it’s now over 1247 in the first week! It seems that people are really enjoying the video and are passing the link onto their friends and families to watch also. If this continues then it might just go viral (a term given to youtube videos that grown exponentially through word of mouth) – fingers crossed it will do this. By the way here is the video:

50K MUSIC: Bambi Monroe, aka Taylor Horn, is starring in the video. Please tell us something about the work with her.
Tim: Bambi aka Taylor Horn is a very talented American song-writer and singer and is building a loyal fan-base across UK, Italy and USA. Due to the constraints of the budget available for making the video, I could not afford a crew, camera-person, director, producer or actors. So I asked Bambi Monroe to help with the project. She not only helped me with filming but also co-directed and co-edited the video. She also offered to play the lead role of the ‘Tragic Heroine’ who is questioning her life. She hasn’t really done many acting roles so it was interesting to see how she would cope with the role. As soon as I began filming I knew she had all the attributes of an actress and also a special chemistry with the camera. I was blown away and very very excited with the way she let all her emotions pour out. She felt a kinship with the role and I think it shows.

50K MUSIC: A while ago you have already written songs for Taylor. Please tell us something about this collaboration.
Tim: I met Taylor / Bambi in London 2008 when she was visiting London to shoot with celebrity photographer Alan Strutt ( well know for pics of Madonna and Keith Richards amongst many others). She knew and liked my work with Civilized Tears and was eager to co-write some alt/rock style songs. Although she had worked with a few award winning writers in Nashville she wanted more edge to her sound. We clicked immediately, writing a huge amount of material on acoustic guitars. I introduced her to my industry colleagues including producer Steve Bush (Stereophonics). We spent a couple of days working with Steve in his studio in London on some new material which we still hope to re-work at some point. In 2009 Taylor and I recorded her first EP in England with the help of my band Civilized Tears who played rhythm and guitars. The EP gained the interest of a few publishers and BMI in London and was the beginning of a new writing team. One of the songs we wrote ‘Tears’ previewed on WAFB Television in Louisiana. We are now working on her second EP, to be released early 2011.

50K MUSIC: How did you find the executive producer for your video?
Tim: The Executive Producer, Christian Schuett, has been a great supporter of my music both financially and motivationally, ever since he discovered my music on Sellaband in 2008. The relationship has become a very positive and industrious one and we have plans for more projects together in the near future.

50K MUSIC: What are your further plans with the single?
Tim: I have just released ‘Anybody’ as the first single on Reverbnation which distributes to iTunes and Spotify amongst other on-line stores. The single will be available on iTunes within the next few weeks, perhaps sooner depending on their processing time.

In fact, Black Rain was meant to be the first single but the video for Black Rain has been delayed due to scheduling reasons and so I decided to do a quick video for Anybody in the interim. The video was received with extremely positive feedback, including being picked up by various promotional sites and radio stations including award winning FEEDME MUSIC ( featured video of week) and COLLEGE UNDERGROUND MUSIC (featured artist and video of week). I therefore realised that by default it had become my first single.

50K MUSIC: Let’s talk about your upcoming album „Miseducated“. When will it be released?
Tim: It is now in the printers and manufacturing process. So depending on this it should be available within the next 6 to 8 weeks.

50K MUSIC: What do you plan for the album release?
Tim: At first it will be an on-line release coupled with an intense promo campaign that I will orchestrate from my laptop ! and with the help of my wonderful friends, supporters and fans. However, I am in talks with a company about a full media launch for the album in 2011 and I hope to do a UK and European tour in 2011. Fingers crossed !

50K MUSIC: Most of the songs on the album we know already, I suppose. Or do you have a surprise in store?
Tim: There are ten songs, some that you will know and there are few that will be new to most people.

50K MUSIC: Will we hear Taylor on the album too?
Tim: She won’t be on this album, although we have plans to record a song we wrote in the UK called ‘ Right from the Start’. It’s an acoustic rock song which we’ll probably record in Nashville. She may appear on the next album. Let’s see?

50K MUSIC: What other plans do you have for the next few months – gigs, online activities, …?
Tim: Basically it’s going to be a non stop promotional blitz! This includes daily updates on all my sites, news feed, blogs, (currently getting around 5-6,000 views a week on Myspace – which is meant to be dead but obviously there is a healthy pulse still beating there), social networking, video up-dates and filming new music videos for the album.

I’m currently in talks with my team about the next music video which will be a step up from the Anybody video. It will be more elaborate and I hope to have a proper crew this time I’ve already got the rough script drafted and it’s…….okay, I’m keeping that a secret for now. LOL My other immediate plans include strategic meetings with my entertainment lawyer at Loeb & Loeb, more talks with my advisers and consultants, and this week I have meetings with potential manager/agents. I’m also talking to labels and publishers.

Also, I intend to increase the radio exposure of my music over the next few weeks. I already have quite a lot of radio play going on at the moment both Fm and internet and this is thanks to ‘fan-power’. I can’t afford to pay a radio plugger yet and my fans, friends and supporters have been incredibly pro-active with getting the Tim Bennett name and music out there and I am so very grateful for their support. As I like to say – “there are no individual heroes in the music biz, it’s all about the team effort.” In addition, I’ll be doing a live radio show on Reputation Radio in UK – That is set for December 13th. They usually get a few million listeners so that will be interesting!

50K MUSIC: How can we keep on supporting you?
Tim: Please forward the links to my video “Anybody”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMOroEKExBM and let’s see if we can make it go viral – i.e get it into the ‘thousands-of-views” category with word of mouth and forwarding it to everyone we know! Also, please just keep doing what you are doing and spreading the Tim Bennett name and music. And also please buy the album when it comes out and tell all your friends! Also if you have any friends who are DJ’s on radio tell them about my music and let’s see if they’ll play it. It’s a really old fashioned way to grow an artist’s reputation but it stands the test of time! In addition, please leave requests asking Vicki Blight to play my songs Black Rain & Anybody on Absolute Radio’s facebook page – or their discussion page – http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=17208&uid=43384996273.

50K MUSIC: Do you think fan funding is THE way to finance an album? Would you go this way again?
Tim: Fan Funding was perfect for this album and I’m really thankful to the team at Sellaband – the timing was great for me. I think fan funding could be right for the next album, but let’s see when I get to that point. At the moment I’m thinking I might set up my own platform, rather than go through a third party, although I guess there will be a few twists and turns in the music industry landscape before then.

50K MUSIC: And last question: Anything else people should now about Tim Bennett?
Tim: Ha ha – well I guess the most important thing is that I’m a very dedicated, hard-working musician always looking for the best solution in this minefield of an industry. I believe in team work, I believe in good ethics in business and I believe that ‘good guys’ can win! I also believe in taking chances in life and music and not being too safe with creativity. I am sure that “Inspiration comes from the risks and adventure of life”.

So Tim seems to be unstoppable now. And with the support of his fans his upcoming album will be a huge success, I guess. Keep on spreading the word and keep on listening to his music.

From time to time people have called me a perfectionist. It’s probably an accurate description of my mentality whilst overseeing the completion of my debut album.

After Ted Jensen finished Mastering the tracks in New York, I felt that everybody in the team had done their very best in ensuring that this album was as good as it could possibly be.

I definitely overcame some crazy challenges whilst making the album including losing my house (I ended up sleeping on friends’ sofas for 6 months), suffering from pneumonia and the break up of the original band (something I fought hard to stop). Somehow, music became the focus that helped me overcome these problems.

As we move into the promotional strategy of the album, I have adopted the same mentality as I know only the best will be good enough to ensure some kind of success.

These days there are hundred’s of thousand of artists all flooding the on-line sites. The big question for me is what kind of promotional plan will help us stand out from the crowd. How do we attract the audience to come and give us their time to listen to the new album?

It’s not an easy answer as Duncan (the keyboardist) and I have discovered over the last few months.

The first thing we did was to enter the songs into Market Research to see what the general public thought about the album. Thankfully after 700 reviews the reaction was very positive – all of the songs scored highly but four of the tracks stood out receiving the score of ‘excellent’.

Once we felt confident that we had a great product we began to seek out Radio Pluggers and PR companies. This led us to the marketing consultants and even the Head of Universal records in Germany.

The good news is that everyone likes the album and the words ‘high quality’ have been used several times to describe the album.

We’re finding that DJ’s are really liking the single Black Rain and so far it has been receiving a lot of airplay considering we don’t yet have a professional radio plugger on board. Winning TalentCast Song of the Week in October will also improve our exposure with air time on EDE FM (Netherlands) and the partner radio stations.

In the UK we have been supported by several DJ’s including David at Brooklands and Paul at Bishop FM.

The first single actually debuted to a massive 6.2million listeners worldwide on October 1st on the internet radio Station Reputation Radio run by Pete Ringmaster and DJ’d by Jonny.

The Full Launch for the Album ‘Miseducated’ will be in early 2011. It seems a long way off but there is still a huge amount of work to be done including the raising of funds for the campaign.

We need to have the best people in the key positions if we are to have any chance of success. It’s such a competitive music landscape these days and we need to work very hard to bring a ‘giant spotlight’ to the Tim Bennett name.

In addition I am delighted to have been taken on by one of the most prestigious Entertainment Law Firms Loeb & Loeb in the USA and they will be handling my legal work from now on.

I am very grateful to all those who have generously given such good advice up till now.

The artwork for the album is now completed and we should have the physical album in the next few weeks. A huge thank you also to album designer Mary Ann Rounseville. She persuaded me to create the main artwork for the front and back cover of the CD myself. After she saw some of my artwork work online she was convinced that I would be the best person to articulate the artistic and emotional dimension of the album. So far I’m really pleased with our collaboration and I think it accurately reflects the nature of the music. I hope you’ll agree.

I was hoping for an October release, but that now looks a little optimistic. However I will make sure that Sellaband Believers are the first to receive their personal copies.

Also thank you for everyone who has been voting in the various contests to get the Tim Bennett name out there. You have been amazing!

please join me on FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/civilizedtears

Tim x

I am sad to leave the CT name behind but I feel it is the right decision to make.

The continuous revolving door of musicians led me to realise that CT had become more of a solo project than a band.

I am deeply grateful to all the musicians who have joined me in the journey and would like to note that Duncan Haynes (Keyboards) will remain with me as a band member. In fact Duncan has helped tremendously behind the scenes and will be joining me in the US in the next month. I will still be performing with a band and will announce the new members once we have the line up arranged.

I would like to say a special thank you to Ed for his support and time. Thank you also to Ollie, Rytch, Henry, Dave, Ben, Jonty and Max and I wish them the very best with their careers.

I will keep my Civilized Tears URLs for the time being (myspace, reverbnation, facebook) although I have now purchased www.TimBennettMusic.com which will become the main website.

The brand new album ‘Miseducated’ will be released under the name Tim Bennett.

We have just finished the artwork and design for the album and I am very excited with the outcome. We will be sending to the manufactures via Sellaband this week.Currently we are looking at an October on-line release for the album through iTunes,Spotify and the other usual suspects.We intend to release a music video around this time or before.

We still hope to have a full campaign launch for the album ( including press and plugging) early next year. Although we are going to rely heavily upon our fans and supporters to spread the word via their friends and associates in the meantime.I dream of touring Europe in 2011 and maybe if I’m really really lucky an Asian mini tour might happen.

I appreciate everyone who has supported me and Civilized Tears over the last 3 years and I am deeply grateful to everyone who has helped me reach this point. Fingers crossed we can take the music forward to the next level.

Many thanks for your continued support.
Tim Bennett

source: Tim Bennett on Facebook

It’s been a very busy last few weeks for Civilized Tears. Duncan (keyboards) and I have been having meetings with marketing consultants, radio pluggers and various music industry executives. We are finding out what the potential potholes are with the Album Launch and it’s promotion. We’ve discovered that it’s a bit more complex than we thought and we’re on a steep but interesting ‘learning curve’.

The on-line release for the album will be in September 2010, whilst the full Launch for the Album will be in January 2011. It seems a long way off but there is still a huge amount of work to be done and we need to have the best people in the key positions if we are to have any chance of success. It’s such a competitive music landscape these days and we need to work very hard to bring a ‘giant spotlight’ to the CT name.

I suppose the best and most important news is that we are almost completely fully funded with the Music video budget. This is due to the incredible support and generosity of one of our private backers. The single will be ‘Black Rain’ and we have a wonderful director Kyle Walling from New York on board. He is currently constructing the story board for the video, which will filmed in Florida in August. This video will launch the CT single and hopefully our career.

We still have a couple of hundred of dollars to go to make our target so if you would like to invest in the video please go to: CT’s video project on Kickstarter.

Thank you so much for following our progress.”

There are already the Dream Team and Wolfman’s Pack for supporting and promoting artists in- and outside of SAB. I’ve thought about starting another team of artists who get my special support and superior promotion on 50K MUSIC.

50K MUSIC Squad combines a wide range of music styles. It represents my favourite music and therefore it’s a very subjective choice I have to admit.

And this is what I have in mind supporting the Squad members:
- focussing on Squad members when investing on SAB, aka music, STP,…
- special promo activities on 50K MUSIC, Facebook, …
- own profile for Squad members on 50K MUSIC,
… more to come.

These are the members of 50K MUSIC Squad so far:

Al Highton

BOA

Civilized Tears

Fleur Jack

Stay tuned for more ….

Ted did a stellar job in creating a beautiful ‘gloss and shine’ for the tunes and we feel confident that we have created something that fulfils the vision that we initially had and in many ways exceeds our expectations.

Our first port of call, once the music was finished in April, was to place the tracks on a market research site where independent reviewers can voice their opinions on the music.

We really did not know what the response would be and were prepared for the worst.
Making an album and liking it yourself is great, but the answer is always, ‘will the reviewers and public like it?’

Fortunately the first hurdle has been navigated with very positive results and after seven hundred reviews,  seven of the ten songs scored the highest possible grade of ‘ Excellent’.

However, we understand that this may not accurately reflect the general public’s response and realise that having a top level PR/ Marketing/ Distribution plan in place is going to be hugely influential on the success of this album and hence the rest of our career.

Having a high quality video is part of this plan and currently we are interviewing Video production teams in New York and creating concepts that are in-keeping with our musical content and vision.

I am only now realising that making an album is only the tip of the iceberg. The hidden part is the business, funding and strategy, that will support the music. I am on a steep learning curve, but one that I am enjoying and embracing.

The current release date for the album is set for late September. This may seem like a long way off, but it is quite normal to have a several month delay after album completion as this allows the adequate time for the promotion.

In the meantime we continue to feed our creative side and are now writing new songs for a follow up album.

Thank you for reading, Tim and CT

50K MM: Please tell us something about what has happened the day you reached the goal of 31k.
Tim: For a split second there was a sense of anxiety, “Is this real or is there a catch?”. But this was quickly overcome with the stark reality that I needed to make the budget, sort out the production, mixing, mastering and all the business sides of the music. I also had a sense of urgency to make the best album I could for all the wonderful people who’ve believed in and stuck by me during this bumpy but adventurous ride.

50K MM: You immediately returned for a second run on SellaBand funding your project Civilized Tears remixed. What is your plan in detail?
Tim: Basically I want to see how other musicians interpret the CT songs. I have no intention of changing the ‘Civilzed Tears’ sound, but the idea of giving the music to DJs and remixers is one that has always intrigued me. I think this has artistic merit as well as marketing viability. Some tracks will be mixed by DJs who will then get Civilized Tears’ music into clubs and bars. Others will mould Civilized Tears into Electronica, some will use classical instruments like cellos and violins. This is extremely exciting and interesting for me and I hope for fans of CT as well. It is also a way for my musical message to reach a completely new audience who may in turn then come to listen to the real Civilized Tears album!

50K MM: How are you going to convince people to believe (and invest) in Civilized Tears this time? What makes this project so special?
Tim: I think people who understand the concept of remixing will be naturally interested, but I may have to find a wfole new group of investors, as this is not a project for CT purists. This is an album with other musicians interpreting the music of CT which is a different concept. I suppose it’s a bit of an ego trip on my behalf as well as a risk, but sometimes life is no fun without sticking your neck out and taking a gamble! All my favourite modern day artists and bands do remix albums and they are often extremely interesting to hear and sometimes very successful comercially. The incentives I am giving are good. 35% of revenue, free downloads, CDs and much more, plus believers who invest 50 parts or more will be invited to come to the studio to experience a track being remixed!

50K MM: You have raised 1% of your budget so far, the goal is still far away. Nevertheless, have you thought about the time after reaching 10k yet? What are your plans then?
Tim: Yes, I already have DJs and remixers from USA and Europe who are very excited to work on this project. And I’m considering having a competition for unknown DJs and remixers to put forward a track for the album. Also, due to the previous project, I have been able to set up the budget quickly and the incentives are already published on the site. I think with a little patience people will begin to understand this remix album idea and join up. Hopefully from here on forwards the projects will snowball towards the 10k target. Then the music will be promoted through the many avenues available on-line, live in clubs and on radio. In the meantime I will be busy having fun working on the first official CT album!

50K MM: Talking about your first project, what are your plans for album production … what kind of album can we expect, who will be the producer, …?
Tim: Firstly, I want to thank Adam, Johan, Chris and the SellaBand team for their guidance and helping me with my plans. The producers are Jeff Thall and Mike Cozzi. They’re both former guitar players turned producers and both very high calibre musicians. Mike is going to be working on Sting’s new project and Jeff has worked with Brian Ferry and John Cale (former Velvet Underground). A lot of the material for the album is aready written and even recorded. I couldn’t wait forever whilst waiting to reach the SAB fund target! I used my own funds to begin the recording process and lived like a starving artist just biting my nails till I reached the target. I was actually homeless for 9 months, sleeping on friends’ sofas and floors whilst I waited for the investments to come in. The music is all about overcoming the fear and inertia that stops us reaching our dreams and goals. I think you will hear desperation in my voice which turns into hope and uplifting realisations. I truly believe that we can turn the chaos of life into beauty with music and I have faith that this album will reflect this.

50K MM: May we accompany CT during the album production process with a monthly feature?
Tim: YES