They meet in high school and college, respond to ads in the newspaper or get assembled by producers. Bands are forming constantly. Some dream of platinum records and spots on MTV; other just hope to secure that fist gig.

“We took it into our own hands,” says Nick Wellner, former vocalist for After the Burial. “We wanted to play with bigger bands, but it was hard to get shows at first.”

In 2004 five friends from White Bear Lake, Minn., formed the hardcore group. Wellner, a graphic designer, made posters and fliers advertising the band and their shows. Like most bands today, they started a MySpace page and uploaded MP3s of their songs.

“The internet is a tremendous promotion tool,” Wellner says. “Kids around the world-Australia, Germany- know the band.”

After the Burial caught on fast in the Minneapolis hardcore scene, and before long they were traveling around Minnesota and Wisconsin on weekends, playing as many shows as they could between school and work.

Then, in the summer of 2006, they scheduled a three-week tour on the east coast, toting their gear in a trailer behind their van. That summer they also made their first appearance at the Robot Mosh Fest, an annual metal/hardcore festival held in Milwaukee.

Almost a year later they were finishing a national tour with Veil of Maya, when Hatebreed vocalist Jamey Jasta approached them. Just a few months later they were on tour with the metal core veterans, with a management deal with Jasta in the works.

Getting Labeled

The Honeydogs’ story doesn’t start too differently from that of any other band. In the late 1970s, lead vocalist and guitar player Adam Levy was cutting out cardboard guitars, a 12-year-old boy pretending he was a member of KISS or The Who.

He learned to play all his favorites songs, by Elvis Costello, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix. While studying at the University of Minnesota he decided that he wanted to play music for a living.

“I realized that I could play country, blues, soul,” Levy says. “But at that time I was a side guy. I had no song writing aspirations.”

Levy joined the Picadors and played with them for three years in the early 1990s. Just as that band was breaking up he started to develop a desire to write his own music. At the urging of his brother Noah, he formed the Honeydogs.

They went to work, like many others before them, making posters and touring locally, trying to build a following. Budding producer John Fields and his uncle Steve Greenberg (who wrote the disco classic “Funkytown” in Minneapolis) were the first to show interest in the band, and released their first two albums on October Records.

At this time the band was playing about 200 shows a year, and was starting to garner some national attention. Like many bands they made the trip down to Austin for the South By Southwest festival, where hundreds of bands are showcased each spring.

“Sure enough everything fell into place for us,” Levy says.

The Honeydogs landed what every band at the time was hoping for- a publishing deal. By turning over the rights to their music to Polygram Publishing, the band was given an advance payment to start recording an album. “We could quit jobs and concentrate on our music,” Levy explains.

Suddenly the band was in New York and Los Angeles, meeting press members and doing radio promotions. Their first major label album, “Seen a Ghost,” was released by Mercury Records in 1997, followed by a national tour playing with INXS and later Bon Jovi.

But, while recording their next album, “Here’s Luck,” they were bitten by the buyouts and consolidations of the late ‘90s music industry. Both Polygram and Mercury were experiencing major overhauls, and the Honeydogs got lost in the mix.

“The people who had signed us were gone,” Levy says.

The band was soon dropped, and had to search for a new label. It took almost two years before Palm Records finally released “Here’s Luck” in 2000.

“My biggest regret is that we didn’t get “Here’s Luck” out in 1998,” Levy says. “Sonically we were ahead of a lot of bands, but we couldn’t get it out.”

The band was moving away from its earlier alt-country sounds. Critics had thrown them in with the likes of Son Volt, Wilco and the Jayhawks, but Levy says this classification never fully represented the Honeydogs.

“The association didn’t hurt anything,” Levy says. “But when we broke away from the alt-country sound, the label didn’t know what to do with us.”

In 2001 the group’s sound continued to move towards orchestral arrangements and Levy’s piano compositions. While planes were crashing into the World Trade Center, the Honeydogs just happened to be making a dark album, what Levy calls “a war story.”

“At this time people wanted to be entertained, but we recorded the album anyway,” Levy says.

Although the album stood in contrast to what the American public was looking for in the post-9/11 world, Michael Penn and Aimee Mann heard 10,000 Years and became instant fans. Penn put the album out on his United Musicians label, and Mann brought the band out on tour.

While the album was another critical favorite, the band continued to be overlooked in the mainstream. Another album, Amygdala, followed, and was put out on the band’s seventh label, Copycats Entertainment.

The Honeydogs have been changing labels and sounds for over 10 years. During that time Levy has been a social worker, managing youth programs. He also is starting a new job, as a teacher and advisor at the Institute of Production and Recording in Minneapolis.

“The goal is always that you want to reach as many people as you can,” Levy says. “I just want to stay in music anyway I can.”

One way Levy does this is with an alter-ego band, Hookers and Blow. The band does covers at Gluecks on Thursday nights.

“We were worn out, our egos bruised. This was reinvigorating. Not every show has to be the end of the world,” Levy says. “Cynicism sets in over time. If you stick with it the fame and money don’t mean as much anymore. Odds are really slim that you will see that anyway,”

The music industry has changed a lot since the mid-‘90s, Levy says. Label buyouts, competition and the Internet have made the landscape very different.

“More people went to see live shows before the Internet,” he says. “It is a much less engaged process now with iTunes and MySpace. It is so damn competitive now.”

Levy is currently working on a new batch of songs for the band’s eighth album. He is excited to continue exploring new topics and sounds, and hopes that people will continue to listen.

“Each record gets more multiple-meaninged,” he says. “Hopefully people are paying attention to what we are singing about.”

Glimer

Most people have no idea how the music industry works. The journey of a song from the artist’s pen to the audience’s ears is long and sometimes painful. Unfortunately, usually the musicians themselves don’t know what they are getting into as well.

“It makes a lot of sense to hire someone, a lawyer for example, who is familiar with the ins and outs of recording contracts to guide you through some of the realities,” says John Munson, bass player for Semisonic.

The manager’s role can be key in keeping artists from getting into deals that they will later regret.

“I spend a lot of time with clients explaining the industry to them,” Vickie Gilmer says. Gilmer, a former music critic for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune, is the manager for Low and Heiruspecs.

“The music business is tricky,” she says. “It can be hard for artists to make a living.”

Glimer Inc., Gilmer’s artist management business (the name comes from an old editor’s constant mistyping of her last name), started in 2001. While interviewing Mason Jennings, Gilmer found out that he needed a manager. She was burned out from working at newspapers, and decided to change careers.

She ended up managing Jennings for six years, also working with Haley Bonar and Trampled By Turtles during that time. Her job responsibilities cover every aspect of the artist’s business endeavors, including dealing with agents and attorneys, accepting projects, negotiating studio time and contracts, and working on marketing campaigns.

“I spend most of my time day to day figuring out how bands will earn the income they need for the next three to six months,” Gilmer says. “I work on commission, and I only get paid if they get paid.”

And getting paid in the music industry isn’t a simple process.

Twenty years ago bands aimed to land publishing and record deals that included large cash advances. If they could convince a publisher that they would be able to sell a lot of records and get considerable radio play, an up and coming band might get $100,000 even before signing with a major label. Once they divvied this money up among attorneys, managers and themselves, they could use what was left to go into a studio and make a demo to shop to labels.

Labels signed these artists to similar deals. They fronted the money for a band to make a record, promote it and get it on the radio. But for many bands paying that money back wasn’t so easy, and they ended up stuck with their label, unable to earn revenue from their record sales until their debt was paid.

“The music industry is like the mafia- ‘Here’s a bunch of money, now pay us back,” Gilmer says.

Today advances from publishers or labels are hard to come by if you aren’t already selling millions of records. Having a lot of fans on MySpace doesn’t appeal to publishers, Gilmer says. A “hot” band these days might only get $25,000. Gilmer’s advice for is not to sign with publishing companies.

“These days you need a major label deal to get publishing,” Gilmer says. “Plus, do you really want $15,000 to give up the rights to your songs? Publishing can lock you up [financially] until after you are dead.”

One of the main problems is that rates are diminishing across the board. Not only are CD prices dropping, but people aren’t buying CDs much anymore.

“Certainly the fact that music has become something people don’t feel that they need to pay for is hurting recording artists,” Munson says. “And really hurting labels.”

On top of this, the percentage of sales that go to the artist for record sales is going down also.

When money is earned for a recording, it goes to two places: half goes to whoever owns the publishing rights to the song, and half goes to whoever owns the master tapes of the song. If an artist produces an entire record on their own, they receive all of the money from sales. But bands signed to publishers and labels have to split that money up. The publishers own the copyright to the songs, and they take most of the money from royalties until they have recouped the advance they gave the artist to start. The label usually owns the master tapes, and never releases those master tapes so that it can continue getting revenue from the songs.

“The contracts are huge,” Munson says. “Essentially the contract obliges the artist to provide music on a regular basis to the label for the purposes of marketing the band. The label tries to tie the band and the band’s songs to the label.”

Another aspect of this process, related to publishing, is mechanical royalties. These are based on individual songs. Federal legislation determines how much money is paid per song sold. In the past, managers were able to negotiate deals where the artists got 100% returns on mechanical royalties – so that, for example, if an album had 10 songs on it, at a rate of 9¢ per song, they would get 90¢ every time their album sold. Now publishers are offering only 75% returns, or even smaller than that.

Labels can also handcuff artists with rerecord clauses that prohibit bands from taking their songs to other labels, even after they have been dropped. If an artist really wants those songs, they have to be able to buy the masters or pay attorneys to fight the label.

“It’s all about money,” Gilmer says. “The label says, ‘we dropped the band, but we still own their masters. Let’s see if we can make some money.’” That’s when compilations and greatest hits records start coming out, even when an artist is no longer with the label or doesn’t have enough songs to really justify the album.

“If you do it yourself, you can sell less records and retain ownership of your songs,” Gilmer says. “The best bet is to tour, sell tickets, play a show and get paid at the end of the night. Build an audience, then start negotiating.”