Local bands find fame abroad

In Japan, they're bigger than Godzilla. In Germany, they're bigger than house music. They play to thousands in Europe, and their records are on racks in Asia.

But here in the States, they can't fill small clubs.

Sting, Metallica and U2 can tour anywhere that has electricity because of their popularity, but we're talking about local indie, punk and rock groups.

Take, for example, the JV Allstars. The Lincoln pop-punk group doesn't have a record deal in this country. They do have one in Japan. They've sold thousands of records there, and not nearly as many here.

How did they do it? A little thing called the Internet.

When the band was featured on the music site Purevolume.com, the power of the Web became apparent.

“That week, we got an e-mail from a Japanese label about releasing a CD over there,” said Allstars bassist Eric Mellow. “Initially, we all thought it was a joke — just one of our friends playing a prank — until we got another offer from a different label. That's when we started searching for information on the labels and found out that we were getting legitimate offers.”

The group hasn't made it to Japan for a tour yet, but the band's label, Trolley Bus, probably will bring the band members to that country when they sell more albums.

“Apparently live shows work a little different there. (Concerts) are less a medium for gaining new fans and more a special event for existing fans, so we need to gain a little larger fanbase before it makes sense financially for the label to bring us over,” Mellow said.

There's no doubt that current indie bands enjoy success overseas because of the availability and accessibility of music through MySpace, iTunes and other online avenues, said Scott Anderson, associate professor of music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“Music is just ubiquitous now,” said Anderson, who teaches a class on the regional history of American rock ‘n' roll. “You dial it up on YouTube and you can go to iTunes and get a glimpse of what's going on. With the exception of China and maybe North Korea, everyone has access to everything. Even Russia, they have access to all of this stuff.”

And touring overseas is a way for bands to make money among increasingly dwindling options for revenue, another factor in the increasing popularity of American bands off American soil.

“Bands going over to Asia and Europe don't have much of a choice. Other than publishing, how do you make your money? You make it by touring,” Anderson said. “Once you make that connection, you don't have to be there touring all the time because — through iTunes and everything else — the media is available.”

Omahan Dan Casin has traveled to Europe on several occasions as manager of the Saddle Creek Records band Two Gallants.

The indie group has performed all over Europe and Japan, gaining a following in the United Kingdom and Germany. It has played several at some of the largest music festivals on the continent, including Reading and Leeds in the U.K., Roskilde in Germany and Pukkelpop in Belgium.

“There are a lot of American bands that come over (to Europe) and they go once and don't come back. They don't want to or it's too expensive,” said Casin, who also helps manage indie bands Spoon and Mates of State. “The Gallants kept coming back. That made people want to spend their time and work with them ... They made a connection with people in Europe.”

Two Gallants have always sold far more records in the U.K. and Europe than they have in the United States, which Saddle Creek executive Jason Kulbel called “an anomaly” among bands on the Saddle Creek roster.

Saddle Creek artists are popular enough overseas that the label opened an office in London a few years ago. The office has two employees that work on promotions, getting CDs into stores and European merchandise orders.

Now, Saddle Creek releases music simultaneously in North America and Europe. That started with Cursive's “The Ugly Organ” in 2003, Kulbel said.

Saddle Creek representatives declined to release sales figures. Still, as you might expect, the label sells fewer albums in Europe than it does in the United States. And even with label support, navigating European music scenes can be tough.

It can be expensive for bands to tour in Europe and Asia. Many bands lose money. Some groups save on costs with fewer band and crew members.

Others just keep after it and build a following. Two Gallants has toured in Europe a few times a year since about 2005.

“They took a big interest in being over in Europe,” Casin said. “They had a thirst for seeing that. They kind of kept after it. It grew.”

Music promotion in Europe also is completely different than it is here, Saddle Creek's Kulbel said.

“They just have different ways of how they advertise things,” he said. “Going into different (countries), you have a separate distributor and press setup. It's a pretty complex system. It's not like the U.S. having different states, if you will. There are country lines, and they all have different tastes.”

Kulbel said that records released in Asia and Europe have the same music and packaging as their domestic counterparts, but sometimes will include an extra insert with lyrics translated to the native language. Kulbel recently received a copy of a Korean lyrics insert, for instance.

“We actually just had a label in Korea license the Azure Ray record ‘Hold On Love' from 2003. It's part of (the Korean label's) ‘Greatest Albums of All Time' series,” Kulbel said. “Someone over there really likes that album. It's an honor, right?”

In Japan, too, said Anderson, “they're very interested in our pop music after we seem to be done with it.

“It would be nice to say they're only interested in the really good stuff. That's just not the case. They're interested in all of it. They'll take the good and the bad — anything they can get.”

That said, many artists think American audiences should take a cue from their foreign counterparts. Many times, they say, Japanese or German audiences are listening to music that Americans should be more aware of.

“For some reason, our culture doesn't always embrace what it ought to, in my estimation,” Anderson said. “When the Ramones should have been the biggest band in the country, they couldn't even get on the radio in the United States. Yet they're huge in South America and huge in the U.K.”

In some European countries, American independent music is “basically mainstream culture,” said Eli Mardock of Lincoln band Eagle Seagull. Mardock's band has sold about four times as many albums in Europe as in the United States, which has led his band to tour there three times.

For a lot of bands — Eagle Seagull included — it boils down to artists going where there is more buzz about in their music, even if that leads them to Europe or Asia.

“They have more of an interest in our indiginous art form than we do. I hate to sound cynical about our music industry, but they haven't left (fans and artists) much choice,” Anderson said. “I think there's a lot of talent out there, but we're looking for it in all the wrong places. ‘American Idol' is not where you're going to find it.”

Contact the writer:

444-1557, kevin.coffey@owh.com

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