Peeking Behind The Curtain: All-Amerakin

One of the worst kept secrets is that I have been working with the band Amerakin Overdose, which is comprised of five young men from the Portland area of Oregon. With an almost overzealous drive in social media, and a crushing album, "The Great Amerakin Dream", the band is poised to go to the "next level", and my job is to help them reach that pinnacle.

Cody, Pito, The Human, Brick, and Cameron have put up their personal funds up and invested in the band to deliver a national radio campaign (so call and start requesting their music!), their outfits, quality merchandise for fans, high quality music videos, their instruments, and much more while also bridging relationships with some of the biggest companies in the business (more on that at a later date) to help the five of them to realize their musical dream. They will embark on a tour in July that will cover the midwest with notable stops on the Vans Warped Tour in Salt Lake City, UT and Rockfest in Cadott, WI.

This brings me to why I am writing today...

The band, as anxious as children who can't wait until Christmas to open their presents, discussed with me the possibilities of helping out a few of the promoters who were on board from the beginning to "leak" their headlining shows. As we get closer to our "true" announce date of April 1st, we wanted to show off the skeleton of the route, and allow these promoters to get a jumpstart on the hype and ticket sales.

Before I go any further, I want everyone to know that what I am about to say is my advice to the band, and they have accepted it. They understand that certain things have to be followed so that all things are handled correctly. In short, if you have an issue with this, contact me and not them, because they will contact me about it anyways, and then you have pissed me off further. They know my suggestions are motivated in protecting them, their brand, and their careers above all else.

I wanted to create a list of steps for the promoters and the band to follow so that everything has equal footing:

• Make sure your event's contract is completely in order and agreed to by both parties. There will be delays if not.
• Make sure you have your flyer and ticket information ready to go before the announcement. This IS NOT the band's job to do for you. We will send you a blank flyer to put your own stuff in, but there is not enough time in the day with limited manpower to hold your hand through the process. I have a great graphics guy if you need help in a pinch that I couldn't recommend more. He is fairly priced, and really enjoys what he does. Hit me up if you need help.
• Make sure your deposit is in. No deposit, no leak, no exceptions.
• If you leak your own show without our approval, know that we will then have the right to cancel, and I will strongly suggest to the band that they do. We will contact you about being "leaked" or you can contact us. Once things are in place, we will time it out.
• Have your support bands ready REGARDLESS of your leak/release date with tickets in hand. We fully expect tickets to sell quickly, and none of us want any delays or issues.
• We are only releasing a few at a time. If for some reason, you aren't ready, you will have to wait until the next weekend if there is space. These are strategically planned out and spaced out to maximize impact.

We want all shows to be incredibly successful, and to use what knowledge we have as tools to ensure it is a great time had by all.

Pito, Cody, and I handle this end of the band business, and if you need help or would like some guidance, don't hesitate to contact any of us. I will suggest that if you decide to not listen to us, don't ask again. We will think you are wasting our time.

Where's Cameron?

Now, let's get into some fun shit that fans of the band can get in to...

On this tour, we have a bunch of stuff happening.

We want the Street Team to help promoters when they can to get the word out for the dates in their areas and reach. We want to be the biggest paty happening when we roll into to town. We are discussing what to do for these people helping as I write this as a "thank you".

We are also working on new merchandise (including Street Team shirts) and contests around the tour and the radio campaign (request... request... request!). Keep your eyes peeled for this.

We want a lot of video footage! Video record everything you can (that venues will allow) of the band. We would like to collect all of this and release a video of it in the future, so your footage might be used. Tag us and give us a link of them so that we can share them as well.

We ask that you also tag your band posts #SpreadingTheDream so that we can keep track and possibly share them as they are deemed appropriate. If we miss one, hit us up. It may have just been lost while we were working.

On that note, some venues will allow us to have a few backstage passes. We suggest you get your GA tickets first, just in case, because we will not know until the week of each particular show how many, if any, are available. Also, for those asking, we will not have ANY passes for Vans Warped Tour or Rockfest. We will, however, announce places if you want to get a pic, an autograph, or just want to chill and have a beer. Each of these will most likely have a "pre-party", so I suggest to not miss them if they are in your area.

There is more stuff, like announcing our business partnerships, coming soon, but we will save that stuff until later.

In the meantime, keep checking up on the band through social media and the website. All kinds of things may pop up unannounced as a "surprise".

Did I mention "Cyber Superstar" is available to your requests at your local rock stations now?

Until next time...