BLØF shares creative process with fans

BLØF was ‘most played’ artist on Dutch radio three times in the last 4 years, and your concert tours are fully booked. Can you give an idea what role internet has played in your popularity?

"We started the band in 1992, and I think we’ve had a website up and running since 1995. In the beginning it just contained a biography, a discography, some news-facts, some pictures and a guestbook. It had this impossible URL with a lot of slashes and even a ‘~’ in the name. A friend of ours built it and kept it running. Internet wasn’t such a big deal those days, but it was a new way for fans to approach a band. For us it was a way to get to know these people who call themselves ‘fans’ and how they thought about us, mainly through the guestbook."

When did you start to consider your online presence as a serious project?

"When we had our break-through in 1998 we changed the website URL to BLOF.nl and with every new album we face-lifted the website, using the new album’s artwork. The amount of hits increased steadily over the following years, with huge peaks around special events like album-releases or big concerts.

We had merchandisingdirect.com open a webshop on our site and we started selling tickets as well. Nowadays we’re also on Youtube and Hyves, though we see that our fans don’t find their way to those new phenomena as quickly as you might expect."

What is your fanbase like?

"Surprisingly, and luckily, the majority of our fan-base still prefers to go and buy a CD instead of being all over the internet and download music. We have not suffered as badly as some other acts. And we do sell a lot of our music digitally, mainly via the Itunes musicstore. But the core revenue still comes from the sales of physical CDs.

I think the reason for this is that the people that buy our music are not only teenagers, we sell albums in all age-classes. The problems around illegal downloads touch us less because our fans have the will and the money to go and buy a ‘real one’. "

The revenue streams for a band like BLØF come from cd sales, concerts, online sales perhaps also merchandise?

"For us ticket-sales is the biggest part of our revenue. And it is getting more and more important since the revenue of all music-sales is steadily dropping, and music sold digitally doesn’t generate as much revenue as music sold physically. Actually I think it should, but at this moment it appears to be very difficult as an artist to earn the same amount of money when selling a CD digitally compared to selling it physically.

Digital sales are pretty new and, as with everything new on the net, administration is a big hassle. It takes a long time for record-companies, providers and digital music-stores to find a decent way to handle the money-streams. Many artists that signed their record deals a couple of years ago haven’t covered digital sales in their contracts at all. It takes time to adapt.""

Your fans are awaiting the release of your new CD ‘Oktober’. At PICNIC we will have a scoop – you will showcase an interactive project connected to this new release. Can you tell us a bit more about it?

"With our new release 'Oktober' we tried two things. First of all, we wanted to use the internet and all of its new possibilities to offer our fans more than just 13 new tracks. We wanted to give the people the possibility to visit the recording-process of the album, in a way that has never been done before. Secondly, we didn’t want to abandon the physical CD for the reasons mentioned. We re-created the Irish mansion in which we recorded the album in 3 dimensions, and transformed that environment it into a huge interface for fans who can ‘wander around’ the location and get access to extra content.

We use the 'Opendisc' technology for this, which is the key to get access to additional online content. So you need to buy the CD to get access to the 'Pickering Player', named after the Pickering House in Dublin where our CD was recorded.

We also recorded the whole recording-process in multi-angle-video. We put the video-content in a special interface, so that people can be literally part of the recording-process. It’s possible to look over the shoulder of our lead-singer while he is singing the very song (and that very same take) that you hear on the album. This whole new project is web based, updateable and accessable only by inserting the physical CD in you computer and log in. The CD acts as a physical key."

Who developed this project?

"The developing-process was great because we worked with people from Streamline Studios and Paladin Studios: companies that normally develop 3D-worlds for games. For them it was great to get to know the music-business."

What online music services do you use yourself?

"I use the internet mostly for exchanging data. Before, when a new album was being mixed we went to the studio all the time to check out the new mixes. Nowadays we just log on to the server of the studio and download the work-in-progress. It has never been so easy!"

Bas Kennis will present the "Pickering Player" on Thursday 25 September at 14.30 in the PICNIC Conference.
He will also contribute to the PICNIC Special A new music eco-system on 25 September.
More info on the new release also at BLØF.