Winning Advice
Q&A with Knotz's Aswad Mikal on making it in the music business and winning the IAR
By Josh Bashara

Music Phone Book: So how's it feel to be the winner of the 2006 East Coast IAR?

Aswad Mikal: This is big - it will broaden our fan base more than we can imagine. Every credential you earn helps your music career. But it's even better to know that there are people who believe in your music like the IAR did ours. I know there were so many talented musicians whose music passed through that office... and for ours to come out on top is big.

MPB: As unsigned artists, how do you promote yourself and get shows booked?

AM: It's hard, I can tell you that. You have to be persistent and able to formulate your own ideas on how to do things... don't just read a book and do what it tells you. You need to be creative. We started out with the obvious things first, like making music and performing at parties, open-mics, talent shows and clubs. We made our own website, pressed up stickers and cards with our logo and website on them, and handed them out everywhere we ever went for any reason. Then we began introducing ourselves to local college radio stations and asking favors of friends who might worked for show booking, anywhere we could get our name out there.

The Internet was also a big help because we could join things like SonicBids.com, Taxi, and BroadJam.com to help us get our name to the industry and Internet radio. We placed our music for sale on CDBaby.com, iTunes.com and many other sites. One of the biggest boosts of our career came when we met Iz, the owner of Insomniac magazine after the recording of our first store-released album, Download. They really liked us and put a review in their magazine, and invited us to perform in Orlando at one of its shows, where we networked with others.

We try to appear on as many deejays' mix tapes as possible and do collaborations with as many groups as possible, and appear on compilations - it helps build a fan base. You also have to be willing to take shows for little or no money just to get your name out there. We actually sat down and wrote out a complete business and marketing plan. We even got a marketing company to drive our target audience to our website this year and it seems to be working great.

MPB: What's the best advice you can give to up-and-coming artists, regardless of the genre, who are hoping to make it big?

AM: Always be you. Never give up because those are the only people who don't make it - be different and put in the hours, man. Sometimes it feels like it might kill you but in the end it'll pay off. Also, don't sign a deal just because you want one. We did that... bad move. It was a joint venture with [a label] and we lost a lot of money that we could have used in better ways.

MPB: Wanna give a shout-out to anyone who helped you get to where you are today?

AM: We just want to thank all of our fans, Mommy, Daddy, Frenzi, Prez, Sonnie Hash, Raw Text, Glaccius, Bravo, Edvance, Iz and everyone else who supported and helped us along the way.