Credit: Vincent Quinn and Less Than Jake
Vincent Quinn has had some experience in the groupie scene. It all began in 2008 when three pieces, Less Than Jake, brought him onstage during a gig in his hometown of Dublin. He then formed a friendship with the members when invited backstage after they dragged him on stage again at another gig in Dublin in 2011. Since then, he’s toured with the band across America, Europe, and the UK.
Here are his top tips on how to grow your fan base.
Show interaction
“I would describe a Less Than Jake show as controlled anarchy. “There are crazy props on stage, people brought up to do crazy things, but it goes down a storm with the audience.
“You aren’t just watching 20 songs and thinking that was great, let’s go home now; you leave feeling thrilled. You are wanting more of that feeling when you are there.
“I’d say try to replicate this to an extent as it creates memories. “It works, it’ll keep them coming back, it kept me coming back even before I was friends with Less Than Jake.
“This isn’t the universal prescription though. “Of course, this isn’t for everyone but interaction and being truly organic is a huge aspect of building your audience (…) Less Than Jake is a perfect example for building that relationship.”
Communication
“It’s something you must get to grips with, and I don’t just mean putting things on Facebook. “Communication is using your website or other forms of social media properly and responding to queries, which lays the groundwork.
“I have been on so many websites that just feel they are place holders offering no information or even worse out of date gigs and other bits. Build your website properly, get all that information you think people would like to know on there with email addresses and phone numbers as it will come in useful for them.
“If you don’t , well, you really risk losing them as they’ll have to work harder to find out information, when realistically your fan base should just be able to find it on your website or social media.
“Then when face-to-face, if someone approaches you, even if they are a little star-struck in a sense, just treat them as a normal person and be natural.
“I’ve seen those types who have walked up to the members of Less Than Jake and been struck and all over the place but they handled it very well, very polite and friendly, just do the same.”
Marketing
“A band called Alkaline Trio did this clever marketing trick once (…) it’s something I wish to see more of.
“I bought one of their records and they made a Myspace where they put up a template and a cypher. “When you did the cypher, by decoding it against the inlay of the album, it gave a username, a password, and a web address.
“Once logging in, it gives access to a free album called ‘Scraps’. “It’s one of their most sort after releases. Obviously they could afford to do this, but it’s that type of thinking which boosts those relations with fans, makes it intermate almost.”
For Vincent though, the easiest way to grow you fan base is simple. “Just write good music. I know its trivial but its true.”
Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Tiktok for more content!
