Producer Roland Lim takes part in 3 month NAC-sponsored attachment programme in UK to help local emerging bands and artistes.

The NAC Youth Arts Overseas Attachment Programme is an initiative that is part of the National Arts Council’s on-going efforts to develop youth arts capacities in Singapore, and is managed in collaboration with Artswork – which is UK’s national youth arts development agency with 25 years of experience. The programme offers the opportunity for participants to embark on an immersive learning experience at a mix of established UK youth arts organisations. Upon return, participants are expected to contribute to the youth arts landscape by developing or facilitating opportunities for young people to be engaged in and through the arts.

Through participation in the attachments hosted by relevant and established youth arts organisations in the UK, there will be opportunities to network with international counterparts and learn from first-hand experience. The aim is to facilitate knowledge transfer for the benefit of Singapore’s arts and youth communities, including those marginalised.

This year’s recipient in the music category is Roland Lim, a young producer/ mix engineer who has produced multiple hits in Australia, Singapore and across Asia. At the age of 26, he produced and mixed his first major label album for Australian metal band Make Them Suffer’s #1 charting (iTunes Australia) debut album 'Neverbloom', which also peaked at #12 on the ARIA Australian Charts and #74 in the Billboard 200 and was released under RoadrunnerRecords/Warner Music (Nickelback, Slipknot, Opeth).

His production work has won numerous awards, including Best Instrumental/World Music Award [In Each Hand A Cutlass] at the VIMA Awards 2011, as well as Noise Singapore Song Of The Year Awards in 2009 [For This Cycle] and 2010 [Run Neon Tiger] and most recently four #1 chart hits with Pop rockers The Summer State, Villes, Tujuh and Gentle Bones in 2013.

MBIA spoke to Roland in an exclusive interview to find out more about his intentions on applying for the internship, what he plans to learn from the programme, how it would benefit other emerging musicians in future, and of course, his own journey as a musician.

Roland Lim, recipient of NAC Youth Arts Overseas Attachment Programme 

I started producing music about 10 years ago in Australia. I fell in love with the craft of making records when I stepped into my first recording studio to record my own band. The place was like my church. I really wanted to helm the console, the board, and help bands create an amazing sound. That’s where I started my journey in music. I didn’t study music. I took a Bachelor’s in Marketing and Media, but I was playing in a band, and when it came to our first demo, our drummer had a contact to a very good studio, so when I first entered the studio it was like a life changing experience for me.

Before Australia, I only played piano for a bit. My parents forced me to learn an instrument, and I didn’t like the piano, so I started playing the guitar in a band instead. We were doing okay, and had some good gigs, and playing with some big bands. And because of my first experience in the studio, I thought that I was suited to be in the studio more than playing the guitar on stage.

Back then, I didn’t know what a producer was, and for me I simply started out as a recording engineer. It was only when bands started labeling me as a producer then I started getting more confident as a producer. In those days, there were more internships. I was in a country where internships were encouraged and I could meet people and work for free, and anyone would welcome an extra hand, just to move stuff or even get coffee. I wouldn’t call myself a coffee boy, but I was probably one of the last few batches of those who made coffee that kind of thing. I don’t think it happens as much these days. That culture kind of died. I was lucky to be able to sit in with producers, and sometimes since they are busy with the big stuff, they would ask me if I wanted to work on the single track of a smaller project, and I was happy to be able to receive these opportunities. From there, I could work with different people and practice a lot on my skills. I spent 80% of my time recording at home and only 20% at university, and was very close to failing sometimes. It was sort of a double life: I was going to school from 10am – 6pm in university, and 8pm – 2am at the studio. I was very lucky to have met a friend’s friend who’d just built a studio in a garage himself for ten months, but did not know how to use the software. He offered my friend’s band to record there, and they asked me to record them using this space.

The further I’ve moved into my career, the more focused I’ve become as a producer’s role; I would have other people record for me, and focus on things like sound effects, song writing and arrangement instead.

I started with Metal, because I was in a heavy rock band. At that point in time, I loved listening to metal a lot, as I was an angry young kid who had to be relocated to a new country due to failing in the Singapore system. My prelims were pretty bad, with 28 points, although I did ok for the finals with 12 points. My teacher in Singapore said I had no hope, so I started studying really hard. My parents also suggested that since I was doing so badly in Singapore, and we’ve some inheritance from my grandma who had passed away, we can chip in some money and send you over to Australia. They probably didn’t think that I can cut it out in Singapore.

Picking up the guitar was easy because I had many friends who were great guitarists and were willing to share tips with me.

When did you have your first break?

That was when I was recording a metal band called Dyscord in Perth. That was also the first time I got to use a recording studio. Getting into the industry or finding a place to work up from was really hard. At that time, I really wanted to carve out something in my music career, but coming from a traditional family, it wasn’t something that I could openly reveal to my parents. So I was just working on whatever I could find on the side and see where it takes me. I think this sort of mentality works better for us rather than declare that I wanted to this and that, pin all your hopes and dreams on it, and if you fail you would get all depressed about it. I honestly think it’s a more realistic way of approaching making your hobby as a career. Some people call it the “Two Trains Theory”. You are doing something already, you can’t just jump across because the other train is way behind. You should work on the second train and get it to speed up to match the speed of the first one, then you can cross over. That was what happened for my career. I was juggling my time in university and in the studio, and only when it started working out then I decided to do this for a living.

Did your family support you?

Coming from a traditional Chinese family, they would show their love and support in a different way, like asking if I needed money or help in other things in my life. I didn’t understand their way of love previously, but now that I’m older and maybe not as angry and retarded as I used to be, I’ve really come to appreciate their support, like how they let me use their place to convert into a studio.

I came back in 2007, and experienced quite a bit of a culture shock. I’m pretty sure I rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and pissed off a lot of people in the scene because in Australia, people are really upfront and very blunt. If someone didn’t play well, you’d just tell them it’s pretty bad.

The exposure I had in Australia served as a good base for me, even though I had to start from scratch again in Singapore. People heard my stuff and asked, “Who did this?” I remember posting on S.O.F.T. and the comments asked if this was a local band, so the stuff that I did in Australia helped to convince people of my work.

What are the common issues that new emerging bands and artistes face?

Our local bands don’t do enough to build a fan base from people who are easily impressionable. They try to impress fellow musicians more than potential fans. They must learn to take a step back and see from a consumer’s perspective. For example, some of them may think their one minute guitar part is awesome, but it would be way too long for a normal listener. That’s a classic example of what a producer needs to do. A musician may have a wide range of skills, whether is it playing or programming, but he should not let that overcome the song. All the sounds, instruments and production aspects have to serve the song, which is what a lot of musicians are unable to separate themselves from. One may think his riff is so cool and insists that it must be included in the song, but in fact, it may not be helping the song itself as it is simply making it draggy and boring.

What are the challenges that you face as a producer?

One of the main challenges is to convince bands that production involves a bit of songwriting and arrangement. We also need to convince them that as producers, we can provide musical input that can make the song better. A lot of them may not understand the concept of producing. What I observe is that many of them are worried about being “over-produced”. They think that they need to sound as true to themselves, but the level at which they record that sounds as close to themselves in the jam room does not hold up against a world standard recording. For a long time, I’ve always pondered about this, and finally I realize we always hear comments like “The band sounded great live, but then the recording doesn’t feel as good.” I only cracked it a few months ago to be able to verbalize the reason. When you listen to a band live, the sound is coming to you at a loud volume, it encompasses you into their world and you feel you’re part of the music. When you’re listening to a band on headphones, if you play exactly the same thing and it doesn’t sound phenomenal, it’s because the musician has failed to bring them into their world. So the job of the recording is different from a live set. The recording has to have musical hooks and soundscapes to entice and lure the listener into the musician’s world. When you trap them in there, then they start loving the music.

Similar issues for singer-songwriters. When they play live, they just bring an acoustic guitar or piano with vocal, but the recording will have much fuller arrangement with strings and drums, which may not be possible to recreate during live. The point is, they should not do try to do that. For the same song, there is a radio format, a recording format and a live format, which are all different.  But of course there are artistes who manage to successfully replicate the same thing in the various formats, but musicians need to be aware of the different listening experiences a consumer goes through.

Our bands need to try to reach international standards that, like it or not, are already set by others, and it has to be achieved consistently. So our challenge as a new and growing market is to ensure how our shows and acts are consistently great. That’s how we can build a culture around it – what are the things that can attract people to keep coming back for the experience. The impact is much limited if you only do it once or twice a year.

What made you apply for the NAC Overseas Youth Arts Attachment Programme?

I was already helping a lot of the young bands with regards to marketing, performance and management. They come to me for help and are very willing to learn. I definitely can understand what they are going through because I was once a band too. What was difficult is that I love producing more than anything, and I think that’s my main key skill. When I help them in other aspects, it’s through advice and experience. It’s not well planned out or properly executed. It’s not a solid marketing plan and it’s not integrated or thoroughly thought out because I don’t have enough time.

So when the opportunity came, I thought, “Hey I’m already doing this in my small capacity, but it’s just that I don’t have the time or resources to do it in a more structured way that is more impactful.” Moreover, one of the main things that attracted to me to apply for this was that it provided the opportunity for me to come back and partner NAC to spearhead programmes that can help these young emerging bands. There are so many different aspects of music that I could move into. The three months will give me some time off from recording work and focus on what I can learn from there. I can’t do everything myself whether is it media grooming or singer production or live stage grooming or marketing and branding. I might be able to cover all aspects, maybe poorly, or I could focus on a few. The ideas are not fixed and I have not decided yet. I may just focus on a few aspects and do them myself, or I may take the whole lot and find people when I’m back to collaborate with. In Singapore, the music industry is rather fragmented, and to pull everyone together will be quite a mammoth task.

We understand that your internship focuses on learning project management and music marketing. What do you hope to achieve from the internship?

Planning is one of the most important things that I’m trying to take back. You know with musicians, no one likes to plan. No one likes to do the paper work or admin work, everyone just wants to have fun and be cool. Planning is not cool. (laughs) But that’s one of our strengths as Singaporeans. We are hardworking, we are studious, we pay attention to details. The trick is whether we can incorporate these strengths into music making. With these strengths, we can create a solid plan, and from there, it’s about collaborating with others and we will definitely have a good chance to succeed.

Most musicians started making music as a hobby, simply because they love music. But if they want to take it to the next level as a professional, that’s where planning and management skills come in. That is also where I want to hone myself. If you want to lead or convince people or influence the scene, then you have to be good at planning, good at managing people, and good at communicating.

The programme hasn’t been planned in concrete yet. It’s still quite flexible. The two main takeaways I want to achieve are project management and music marketing, because that’s what the organization is good at, and it’s also what I lack. But along the way, I would want to also pick up other skills like production and songwriting. I’m supposed to come up with a list of areas that I want to focus on after meeting all the mentors within the first two weeks.

Why music marketing?

That’s what a lot of bands lack. They do not know how to market themselves, because no one is comfortable marketing themselves. But if someone gives you ideas, or gives you concrete imagery to show you how you can brand yourself, and if you’re agreeable with it, then it’s doable. Many bands here when I ask them what they think of themselves, they would hold a self-defeatist attitude and think they are not good enough. But if you can tell them that they have the potential to head in a certain greater direction, like Singapore’s next Jason Mraz or something, at least we can give them some confidence and ideas to work their image towards. It could be something as simple as not wearing that boring T-shirt when performing on stage. Be creative. You’re selling art and entertainment. You’re selling fun. So be fun. Give people a reason to be happy, because making music is making people happy, even if it was metal or angry stuff, because it’s an outlet of expression and to feel good.

Another aspect that I would like to focus on is mentoring. It’s different from a job, where people pay me to push them really hard to deliver a product. Mentoring is about inspiring people and encouraging them. NAC wants me to co-develop a few youth-centric programmes with them. The purpose is to foster the growth of the music scene.

How would you achieve scalability and sustainability?

To be honest, those are questions that I don’t have good answers to now. I would have to think hard about these two issues. Sustainability is always hard. Everyone has their own way of achieving sustainability. Like how Eric Ng was saying, you can make a sustainable career in music, but you might have to be prepared to do this and that. And that’s how I would probably approach it too. If you want to make it sustainable, then you have to factor all these things. You must be prepared to work with other people, to be an artist to sell your music. As for scalability, it involves many other organizations such as SGMUSO, or even the labels, to see if we can have more dialogue and discussion with them.

What’s the first thing you need to do after your UK stint?

The first thing I need to do when I’m back is to meet up with NAC and share with them my findings, and discuss with them what is the best steps forward. If all else fails, I’m also prepared to do this on my own anyway. I hope to spend some time to hold talks and master classes to help these artistes, with the help of experts in the industry. Getting this grant is like a statement of intent, so that people know that I have managed to convince NAC to provide some support, so there is some backing or elevation of what I hope to do.

Also, it goes back to planning. You can have the best intentions but if there’s no proper structure or framework to follow, the results will be limited. So creating a framework will help to fasten the process to avoid past mistakes or pitfalls that earlier generations face.

So are there any existing bands that you want to help immediately?

There’s definitely some conflict of interest  as there are bands that I manage personally and I would need to sit down with NAC to work that out. But of course, it’s not just helping the bands that I’m handling, which will be too myopic, but to be able to reach out and encourage more young people to learn the skills faster. When they learn these skills at a younger age, they would have more confidence to stick to it longer.

Do you think we have enough good potential artistes out there?

There is talent in Singapore, but the problem is craft. A mastery of craft takes at least ten years of your work. So even if an artiste is talented, you must keep perfecting your craft to apply your talent. What makes me sad is when I see talent unfulfilled as well. Like you said, scalability and sustainability is important, so the job is to provide these emerging artistes ample opportunities for them to maximize their talents.

What do you think are some of the biggest challenges that new artistes face?

I would think the biggest challenge would be to convince their target audience to support them.  To achieve this, it’s all about craft. Craft in presenting yourself, craft in songwriting - writing songs that are relatable. I’m not a talented person myself, but I work a lot on tweaking everything to get it right. I usually only start at 60-70% and I tweak a lot to get to 80-90%, and it’s a painful process. But there’s a saying, hard work will always be talent when talent doesn’t work hard. The day that I don’t work hard and start lazing off, I would start feeling the pressure knowing that someone is going to beat me. This sort of unnecessary pressure works for me, and for some artistes, they will need to feel this way too to continually push themselves and their craft.

Do they not work hard enough?

It’s not only about working hard, but also working smart. Some people work really hard, but they don’t understand the craft, and it’s no point. They also need to understand the market by conducting market research. Google is a good starting place. Building a fan base is another. Asking your friends. Asking third parties. Working with a producer helps. Working with a manager or publicist helps.

Are you confident of getting people to join you on a long term basis?

Whether it’s long term depends on NAC’s funding and support as well. So one thing is to learn how to write self-evaluation reports, so that you can convince the funding to continue. These are the skills that musicians lack in general. I’ve already spoken to a lot of people, and the response that I got when I announced the internship was quite good. The people I meet at gigs have been very encouraging, and people from SGMUSO are also doing very good things on their own.

It’s great that NAC is willing to support programmes like that. But how do you think that eventually these initiatives could be self-sustaining?

I think once you groom up a good amount of talent, you form templates. The key thing to make it sustainable is to build future stars who will understand the skill sets and they go places, and they can help bring up the next generation of talent. Just like how Usher discovered Justin Beiber. I hope the people like your Sun Yan Zis and JJ Lins and Tanya Chuas who are doing well out of the country – when they have some time, they can share their experience or groom the next generation. We do need more financially sustainable stars, then we can study how they did it and try to replicate that. What we always lack is some form of guidance. We have phenomenal talents like Charlie Lim, Inch Chua, Monstercat, Caracal, Great Spy Experiment, and many others, they still have their day jobs or they do not have the time or skill sets to pass down yet. But their time will come, and I hope they all do well. We also have mentors like those from Noise Singapore. It is happening already, but from what I notice is that there is a gap to fill in from one generation to another.  The infrastructure is there, but if each generation can help support the next, then the impact can be self-sustaining and extended.

This interview was conducted and transcribed by Emily Haw. Reach out to her on Twitter @emilyhaw

Ex-NUS undergraduate receives $10,000 seed money in entrepreneurship grant scheme to set up local music discovery website.

It all started when Danny W., back then a National University of Singapore (NUS) undergraduate, saw an advertisement while waiting for a shuttle bus on campus and saw the poster ad of the NUS Innovation and Entrepreneurship Practicum Grant.

Back in college, Danny had several musician friends who aspired to become full time musicians, but they struggled and finally decided to follow the "normal" graduate path and find a stable job. Danny wanted to make a difference, and his vision was to create a digital music platform that focused on local musicians as a means for them to be more easily discovered. By coming in together as a grassroots movement and having a concentrated platform for local musicians, he hoped that aspiring musicians will then be able to reach out to a lot more people than just their friends-zone.

Danny W., creator of iamLOCALIZED.sg

However, putting ideas into action naturally required a financial investment and it had been a tough start for him.

“I was still a student in my final semester and without a penny in my pocket. How will I fund this social project?” Danny asked himself.

So when the opportunity came, he jumped on it and submitted his proposal to set up iamLOCALIZED.sg. After weeks of waiting, he was finally notified that his business plan was selected to receive the $10,000 worth of funding.

He immediately looked for reputable website developers to create a prototype, The Alpha version came out for test drive in January 2012, and then on April 2012, the Beta version finally went online.

Screen shot of the website www.iamLOCALIZED.sg

How did you think your proposal stood out?

I believe the reason for being selected for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Practicum Grant was because iamLOCALIZED's main element is that I identified it as an online grassroots movement, where iamLOCALIZED will bring together local musicians and listeners to promote local music. Online grassroots movement is undoubtedly the most happening thing at the moment, and my idea consists of that element. The area I chose, local music, is probably also the reason why my proposal stood out. There have been so many efforts by the organizations and musicians themselves to promote local music. Every time when they are asked what is lacking in the local music scene, their answers have always been more-less the same: "there is no platform that brings local musicians and listeners together". Hence I came up with an idea of having an online music platform specifically just for the local musicians.

It seems that currently there are no revenue streams in your model. How do you plan to be sustainable?

We do know that we need to be able to sustain the website, and most importantly to keep on developing the website for better user experience. Thanks to the grant, the website will still run for the next 2 years and this gives us ample time to experiment a few business models, may it be something that already exists or a totally new innovation. As of now, we are trying out different revenue generation models that would fit well with Singapore market. Music is consumed differently in different countries, and hence we see the importance of not sticking with just one business model. We believe there must be few trials-and-errors, and analyze to figure out what fits well with Singapore market. One revenue stream is through our IALiveSHOW. We have tried it, and currently we are in talks with few prominent venues to hold future IALiveSHOWs.

How can artists be discovered on your website?

At the moment, it's actually just a normal simple search algorithm; no rocket science implemented. Users search band name that they already know. Type the band name or genre, and then it displays the results. 

Discovery can be done through the following features:
- Music Charts: Most Loved Chart, and Most Played Chart of the month
- New Releases: Recent uploaded songs on iamLOCALIZED

- Welcome Playlist: Mix of random playlist upon login
- Artists section: Manually look for artists from A-Z
- Search bar: Type in name of band or music genre 
- IALiveSHOW: Discovery through the live show, or via recorded video of the live show on iamLOCALIZED homepage, or YouTube
- Social Media posts: daily posts on Facebook and Twitter.


We found out from our survey that most of the local listeners have the tendency of not looking for new local acts themselves, but they tend to discover accidentally or they have seen the artists performed somewhere or through recommendation. Not only in Singapore, but this is also happening all over the world in these days. Through the discovery features that we have, especially with the Music Charts, New Releases, Welcome Playlist, and IALiveSHOW, we are actually recommending local music that our local listeners would like hear. We believe in equal promotion, so the amount of promotion each artist get on iamLOCALIZED is more or less equally the same.

Music charts: how does it work? One vote per person? Or multiple votes per person? Is it a weekly or monthly chart?

The music charts is a feature that we hope to bring the competitive spirit into the local music scene. Users can give one vote per song. It is a monthly chart where the Most Played Chart will reset at the end of the month. Most Loved Chart is where you give your votes (showing some loves as we call it) to the song that you like, and it will reset at the end of the year.

How are you working out the licensing issues?

We are currently in touch with COMPASS in how do we stand and go about in terms of music licensing matter. Copyright is a big issue for us because after all, we are promoting original local music. We are also helping aspiring musicians to know about the importance of copyright and protecting their original music, because it is part of the music business element that the aspiring musicians themselves need to know about.

As a new platform, how do you intend to get artists and publishers to join your website?

The main challenge is to convince the musicians that putting their music on iamLOCALIZED is safe, and is beneficial for their exposure. We have realized that, and we are able to convince the musicians that the website is safe. As mentioned before also, we are currently in touch with COMPASS in protecting the musicians’ music.

As for their exposure, IALiveSHOW is definitely the main feature we have. Musicians are able to perform live in venues where people are watching them perform. It is good for the aspiring musicians to be exposed to such atmosphere, and for the existing musicians, it is always good for them to have the opportunity to perform live. From there onwards, it is the musicians’ duty to impress using their music talent.

How is the response so far? Any future targets?

The long term target for iamLOCALIZED is to become the one-stop-shop music channel for local Singapore music. Since the beta went online, we have 70 registered artists and 165 registered listeners. That sum up to a total of 235 registered users. Through those 70 registered artists, there are a total of 101 songs, made in Singapore. By the end of the year, we are targeting to round up the number to 300 registered users. Not so ambitious as one might see, but starting next year we will be going "full force" in promoting the artists and their music through innovative collaborations with various parties.



Music sales/distribution definitely plays a big role as an indicator for the musicians’ existence in the music industry. But for iamLOCALIZED, discovery is the most important factor at the moment. If we are able to engage high numbers of audience to play songs on iamLOCALIZED, we can promote the musicians further and enable them to generate income from music sales/distribution, playing live/tour, royalties, etc. This would empower the musicians to keep doing music, and aspiring musicians to follow the footstep of those successful ones. From here, we can eventually start to have a healthy music scene where you will be able to see local musicians can live from doing music. For iamLOCALIZED, this would be our tipping point where iamLOCALIZED will be able to generate income along with the musicians.

Since your site only focuses on local music, do you think the market supply and demand is big enough for your model to be sustainable?

I believe that the local market supply and demand is not enough for iamLOCALIZED to be sustainable. Other than being able to sustain itself, iamLOCALIZED also needs to grow. Hence we believe there is a need to venture out of Singapore as well. What we are trying to do is to grow along with the musicians. We are also working toward getting collaboration and partnership outside of Singapore. This would open the door for the musicians to showcase themselves outside of Singapore and empower them in bringing good music representing Singapore.

To sustain the interests of listeners, the golden rule for all musicians is to keep challenging themselves to create new music. The same goes to our local musicians. It is not about quantity, but quality, and as a matter of fact considering the population we have, we actually do have quality materials to sustain the interest of users. For musicians, it is a matter of keeping the standard high and create even more quality material.

What is your view on shifting the role of taste making from mainstream media to the average listener?



With the power of social media, the opinion leaders are none other than ourselves. All of us now are giving comments or opinions to almost everything that we're being exposed to on social media platforms.

From what I discovered through research is that what shifted the decision-making in this case is the medium that the consumers use. Consumers have moved from listening to radios, to watching music videos on TV, and they now are able to consume both via the Internet, and more specifically via social media platforms. Consumers are however mostly still influenced by what others recommend. If they used to get recommendations from the DJs on the radio, or the music channels on TV, now most music consumers get recommendations from their Facebook newsfeed, or Tweets, or YouTube recommendation list. Your friends on Facebook are mostly friends you have similar interests. The same goes for the Twitter accounts that you follow. Hence you would likely to get hooked with what your peers are listening/watching. To figure out whether you would like it or now, it is now just a click away.

IALiveShow: how do you intend to bring audiences to the shows? Any plans to monetize this area?

We started IALiveSHOW as part of the discovery feature, and as mentioned before, we are currently in talks with few prominent venues to collaborate with us. We definitely have plans to monetize in this area that would benefit the musicians, venue, and iamLOCALIZED. As this is a grassroots movement, one strategy is revenue sharing with the venue, depending on how many people actually come to the venue to attend IALiveSHOW and watch the artist perform. We have seen this done before in Singapore, and we are definitely going into this direction for IALiveSHOW.

Multi-level marketing: A new radical online distribution model to Tell Your Friends

Social media is the way to go, it seems, as a tool to promote and market one’s music. With streaming platforms such as Youtube, many artistes have found fame online, with close to a million hits or subscribers on their Youtube channel. Most of them, however, have yet to have found fortune, or are still unable to monetize the strong support from social media. A proportion of these artistes still depend on performance fees to generate the bulk of their income, and not through the sales of their music. Tell My Friends (TMF), a new online music distribution model, aims to change all that, says CEO Mr Ben Looi, by providing tools for artistes to get people to go from interest to conversion.

At first, this writer thought that TMF was an online music store like iTunes, but on closer look, we couldn’t find anything that resembles a store on its website. So how is the music sold? Apparently, after an artiste or publisher inks the distribution deal with TMF, they are given unique links for each song that is being sold, and the client would have to market the link themselves by posting it on their own social networks such as blogs, websites and Facebook pages. Their fans will get to purchase the track by clicking on the link, and payment can be done via paypal or credit card. Buyers of the track will in turn, be given another unique link of their own, and if they share it on their social media networks and someone else buys the track from their link, the buyer now also earns a commission for sharing that link. 



Sounds like MLM (Multi-level marketing)? Yes it is. Then is it a scam? Well, during the interview, Ben openly admitted that he knows that MLM has had a bad name, and so he did his due diligence to ensure that his model is legal, and to clarify things further, he even went through the effort to state the distinction between a fraudulent MLM model and a legal one on his website. He also explains that TMF is simple, as you do not have to hit a minimum number of levels in order to get your credits.

We drilled into the ex-SAF officer on how he executed his mantra: “Consume digital products responsibly and get rewarded for it.”

Ben Looi, CEO of Tell My Friends Pte Ltd

Q: What exactly is the business model of Tell-My-Friends? How much does your company make from each sale of a song copy?

The business model is network marketing, also known by other terms such as direct selling and multi-level marketing. The twist is that it is integrated with social networking, hence a more appropriate term is social network marketing. Tell My Friends make 20% from each sale of a song copy.

Q: Who is your core target audience?

As a platform, we are targeting those who currently download stuff for free, either via torrents or illegal file-sharing. As for content, there really isn't a core target audience, because practically anyone, whether you are a social network user or a smartphone user, can be an audience. Tell My Friends is a platform to augment content owners' sales and marketing, so the core audience of our clients differ. For example, if an artiste that sings pop ballads, then the core audience for us would be working young adults. If it's Mandarin oldies, then the core audience will be retirees, housewives etc. If it's Christian worship songs, it would be Christians. The core audience depends on the content, not Tell My Friends.  We also target young people like teenagers and students by facilitating cash payment using prepaid cards.

Q: How did this concept come about? Why the MLM model? What is your company's vision and mission?

I've always enjoyed music, and I have great respect for those who chose to make music their livelihood. Believe me, it's not a very well-paying job, but the passion for the craft is what keeps most musicians going. I was wondering how can I help musicians make a living AND keep the passion, and a big pain point most musicians face is that of online piracy. It's a very pragmatic view if you ask any consumer  "Why would you pay for something when you can get it for free?" and the answer is obvious. The industry has tried to beat piracy using technology like DRM and we know that doesn't work, because anything that is encrypted can be decrypted. It then tried to fight based on price and convenience, driving prices down to the ground at $0.99 plus minimal clicks. That has some positive outcomes, but musicians aren't the ones making money - it's the megastores that does. Then they tried to use legislation and enforcement such as SOPA, which is totally against what the Internet is all about - freedom of choice and expression. Hence, I reframed the problem of piracy - not as a technological or enforcement issue - but as a behavioral problem. Working as a military psychologist for the past 2 years gave me the experience and insight that positive reinforcement of a desired behavior is more effective than punishing or negative reinforcement of an undesired behaviour. With that, I then needed to think of a way to sustain a reward system. After much research of various business models and laws, the solution was found in network marketing or MLM.  My company's vision is summed up as such: Help People. Save Music. Be Rewarded.

Q: How long has TMF started? What is the response so far? What kind of investment costs did you incur in setting up such a business? How long do you expect to break even?

We've started full-time for about 7 months, and we have broken even. The response is good, judging from the interest generated, and conversion is slowly happening. We are still in beat testing, and already we have 210 users and 394 paid downloads - and we haven't even started marketing yet. We will expect a spike in both numbers soon, as we begin our marketing efforts. The investment costs is confidential, but suffice to say we have been very prudent in getting things done with a limited budget and lots of innovation. And of course, goodwill from supporters of our vision.

Q: What is your current catalogue like? Are you working with major and independent labels?

We know we are very new, and no one has an idea of what we are doing! We have met up with a major label as well as industry bodies, and while the local HQ is interested, the inherent legacy corporate structure may not allow major labels to use us at the moment. The independent labels, however, have more autonomy, and are very keen to be on board. We now have mainly independent artistes, both local and overseas, mainly friends, and friends of friends, like Chen Huisi, Matthew Quek, Ko Sherman, Eric Chiryoku, Jai, Jessica Irawan, The Glad Stones, Phoebee Ong, Gilbert Baldoza, Nat Ho and Thomas Ong. The catalogue includes Chinese pop, New Age, English pop, Christian worship, classical, jazz, musicals, Malay pop, Japanese. We also have ebooks lined up.

Q: Could you explain more about the partnership with Music Galaxy Records and Music Publishers Singapore? How does the one-year blanket license work?

Music Galaxy Records is a subsidiary of Tell My Friends. We had to start a content creation arm so that there are songs to sell on Tell My Friends! When we started TMF, we spoke to local industry bodies and societies to understand about royalties and industrial practices. Music Publishers Singapore (MPS) is a society formed by music publishers like Sony ATV, Universal Music Publishers Group, EMI, Warner-Chappell, Touch Music and many more. We know that there are many local artistes who do very good covers of popular songs, but they do not know how to clear the rights to sell them online. Many pop songs on radio today are also covers, thanks to successful shows like Glee, American Idol, The Voice etc. There's always a fresh and new way to interpret the same song. We have made an arrangement through a license from MPS that any cover song submitted by independent artistes and labels will automatically be cleared for mechanical rights licensing as we will apportion the royalties due to publishers have claims to those songs.

Q: How can artists and writers benefit from this? 

Artistes can go ahead and record their songs, whether it's original or a cover version, and sell it via TMF as a one-stop service. The artistes will have the sound recording royalties if it is a cover song, and both sound recording and mechanical royalties if it's an original. Artistes and composers/writers can also collaborate to do a song, and work out an agreement between themselves what portion of the royalties they share, and let TMF know who to pay when the song is sold. It's that simple.

For a cover song, out of a dollar for royalties, a certain percentage goes to the owner of the sound recording, while the remaining is paid to MPS for the song royalty. This is a blanket rate, so the recording artiste will simply have to decide how much they want per song to set the final price of the track. Each song is uploaded by Tell My Friends so that we would have control and this is why we are taking the 20% commission to manage all this for the client. The distributor contact will have a list of songs that they want to sell as a client, and from there the tracking will be done by Tell My Friends to pay MPS. They would have to sign to declare that they are not the composer in the distribution contact. In this way, all administration is taken off artistes’ backs and settled by TMF.

Q: How do you compare yourself with other major online music stores like iTunes? How is your business model different? Ultimately, what does it mean for labels, publishers, artists and writers?

We are different from major online music stores in that we give buyers something that online music stores don't give - cash rewards. Online stores are very much single level market models built with convenience and low price as the selling point. For artistes, there is a fee involved in putting our music on those stores, and will be catalogued in a large, virtual store together with thousands of other artistes and products. Consumers can choose to go spend $0.99 on your song at the major store, or get it for free somewhere, somehow via torrents, or even via USB or email. 

Tell My Friends is not a store, as we do not sell music directly on our platform. We do, however, send out weekly newsletters as a catalogue of songs, and members can buy them. Now, here's where TMF makes the difference. Anyone who buys any song, ebook etc will have a unique link for each product, and you can share the link with your friends, via social networks, email, and even SMS and Whatsapp if you have a smartphone. For those who have a blog, you can even insert the link within your blog, and even create your own music store. Each time anyone buys the song from your link, you get a reward. Even if the person who bought from your link copies what you do and set up his own store, you will still get a reward when someone buys from his link - for up to 10 tiers. You can't do that with iTunes, can you?

What it means for labels is that, while labels generally own the sound recording rights to the song, the artistes under the label will also get a commission each time the song is sold, provided the first link is given to the artistes to seed the market. For example, if MGR paid for and produces a song, and therefore owns the rights of a song sung by Ben Looi, and because the first people to buy the song would be Ben's fans (assuming he has fans...hahaha), Ben earns a steam of commission, while the label earns royalties. It's a win-win for both.

Q: Are there any listing fees in the distribution contract?

TMF does not act like a retailer, so there are no upfront fees to list songs, but clients are required to take a consignment of at least 50 prepaid TopUp cards with a downpayment of 10% of RSP to be sold for a period of 3 months. The artistes can make $0.50 per card. They can also customize the Topup card with an additional $300 for the mould.

TopUp cards are priced at S$8 for 600 credits. 1 credit = US$0.01. Users can cash out via paypal or cheque. Clients would however have to accumulate a minimum of $15 before cashing out, and can only cash out commissions earned and not topped up.

TopUp Cards from Tell My Friends

Q: What if the artistes’ fanbase does not use Facebook?

TMF has put in a total of 320 social media platforms on which the links can be shared on, so even in a country like China which does not use Facebook, artistes are still able to reach out to that market through other popular local platforms like Weibo.

Q: According to your website, each song is selling for US$1.84. How did you arrive at this price?

No, the song price is not fixed for every song. It depends on what our clients set

as royalties. The principle is nothing less than 50% of retail price goes to royalties, so we first determine what our clients want as royalties for sound and mechanical rights.  Supposing our clients want $1. This would then form 50% of selling price before taxes and transaction fees. 30% or $0.60 will be allocated as commissions for buyers, spread over 10 tiers. The amount per tier is shown on every purchase page you land on selling each song. The remaining 20% goes to TMF for admin costs. So, in this example, the retail price, inclusive of taxes and transaction costs of about 13-15%, will be close to $2.30. Most of our clients set their royalties at about $0.90 to keep the final selling price inclusive of taxes and transaction costs below $2.

Q: Tell us more about the Secret Angel function in your website. Is it a direct donation? Why would consumers choose to donate in this way instead of directly to the charity of their choice? Will the donation be tax deductible for consumers? Do you charge any administrative fees for the donations? How is the charity cause increased the affiliation between the consumer and the artist? Is there supposed to be any deliberate connection?

We are finalising the MOU with a major charity entity who will be partnering us in this Secret Angel function, so the details can't be discussed at the moment, but suffice to say we are doing this as part of our vision - Help People. There will not be any affiliation between the consumer and the artiste under normal circumstances because the artiste is just selling his/her song. Whoever buys that song can choose to direct all future commissions from that purchase to the charity of choice, so it's not the artistes' call or decision to support the charity, but that of the consumer. However, if an artiste DOES want to support a charity through the sale of the song, he can direct TMF to apportion a certain percentage of royalties accrued to the beneficiary, and consumers who buy the song can choose to still keep their share of commissions for own use, or direct their portion of commission to ANOTHER charity. As to the other questions about whether it is tax-deductible and admin fees, we will have to wait till the MOU is signed, as these points are covered in the MOU.

Q: Your site claims that at least 50% of revenue goes back to royalties and about 30% of revenue to go back to consumers in the form of commissions. How do you intend to ensure transparency in reporting in terms of sales and donations?

Each purchase landing page has the breakdown of commissions at each tier. Each time you buy a song, it goes on to your Purchase History. When your link you share generates referral purchases, the commission earned is displayed for each song. Clicking on it will show the breakdown of commissions, i.e., how many and who bought the song that earned you $0.21, $0.11 $0.05 etc etc. The identities of the buyers are partially masked for confidentiality. As for donations, whenever someone donates HIS level to charity, the purchase landing page will highlight the respective tier of commission with an indication of which charity is receiving that share. On the Secret Angel list of charities, it will also show the amount raised and how many "secret Angels" each charity has.

In terms of accounting, we can arrange to have a credit note be given every three months or even every month to the artiste or publisher.

Q: Tell us more about yourself and who makes up the team at TMF. How did you get yourself involved into the music business and why?

I served in the Singapore Armed Forces for 13 years before calling it a day to start Tell My Friends. In my 13 years as an Army officer I've served in various capacities, ranging from direct command in the Infantry, law enforcement as a Military Police, doctrine and capability development for homeland defence, training officer cadets in OCS, and as a defence psychologist. I'm currently the Ops Officer of an Infantry Brigade in NS. The prospect of doing something totally different, challenging and never attempted before was the change I needed, because the notion of staying on for another 13 years in the same environment is not for me. The TMF team is growing day to day, and I guess it's the vision that attracts the right people to my team. We are entirely self-funded at the moment, and we are able to sustain the business to profitability because everyone in the team contributes and value adds. Pearly, my sister, takes care of business development for TMF and our subsidiary music label, Music Galaxy Records (MGR). Huisi manages the production of music that MGR produces, Chris takes care of the technical development, overseeing and coordinating with my vendors who do the programming. Andy markets Tell My Friends to international artistes to put their content with us, and a few friends who are helping out with the user experience design and other stuff to make us look pretty. Justin is taking care of the PR, and we work with an IP lawyer as well as a patent lawyer for the legal mumbo jumbo stuff. We are currently developing an arrangement with a music marketing manager in the Netherlands to cover Europe and a few potential partners to bring Tell My Friends to the Philippines, Malaysia, and Taiwan.  We got involved in the music business because music is very important to everyone - it represents the soul of life, and we all need music to be with us all the time - to celebrate life's finest moments, and to comfort and sooth the pain and sorrows. We need to keep music alive.

Q: How much do you think digital sales would make up the music market in the next three to five years in Singapore? How about in Asia?

Increasingly with smartphones, personal media devices and other gadgets converging, products will be consumed in the digital form - videos, books, music. Singapore is a small market with high computer literacy, online banking and credit card subscription, which is not representative of other Asian markets. Digital sales will increase at least 10 to 20% year on year in Singapore if piracy wasn't so rampant. That said, there isn't really a music industry in Singapore today, although there is a vibrant music scene. Most major labels have moved operations to Malaysia as the local market is many times bigger than Singapore. Digital sales in countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines still has not been significant as credit card subscription is low. For example, 70% of mobile phone users in Malaysia and Indonesia are on prepaid plans, unlike Singapore where most are on postpaid plans. Cash will continue to be the preferred payment method regionally, and unless you have a complementary system other than just Paypal and online banking, people will continue to buy music in its physical form of a CD, go home and rip it to digital format, and since it's already ripped, they might as well share it with friends.

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Ben is optimistic on the potential success of this model. His target is to have five major artistes to be on the catalogue by the end of the year, and as long as he has some success stories, he’s confident that the floodgates will open.

“It’s a chicken and egg thing, currently I have no customer base, and no content, it’s just a platform. So now it’s a matter of building content and getting buy in from artistes. It’s a challenge but I love the challenge because it’s something so new. So far the response has been positive, and people have been keen in coming in, like Nat Ho, who recorded the song with us. I need content. I tried talking to some labels, but because I’m so new, so nobody wants to bother with me, so I created a label to create content. We actually commission songs for private investors. Songs are intellectual property and we sell the intellectual property. We, as a label, get the singer, band, audio engineer and producer to create the recording. Because the investor bears the financial risk of paying everything upfront, they own the intellectual property for 70 years. They are actually creating jobs. Roughly we are selling the package for about $15,000, and the royalties generated will all be returned to the investor. MPS still gets paid if it’s a cover song.

Eventually, how I measure the success of TMF would be to enable at least one artist from Singapore to make it big overseas.”

This entrepreneur has big dreams for local artistes, and we hope that he makes it big too.