Pick Seven Cities: Tommy Sims on Independent Artist Marketing and Songwriting (Episode 7)

Make Music Your Business.

If you don't know Tommy Sims by name, you know his music. Nomad's intro credits him with writing "Change the World," recorded by Eric Clapton, which won Song of the Year at the Grammys, and with working alongside Bruce Springsteen on "Streets of Philadelphia." Producer, songwriter, bassist, guitarist, artist. And, as Nomad puts it, one of the most humble and generous people he has ever worked with.

In Episode 7 of The Career Musician, the two reconnect on a session at Israel Houghton's house in Los Angeles. Tommy is producing and playing bass, Nomad is on guitar, and the band is tracking live, old school. Between takes they get into independent artist marketing, switching lanes, songwriting, the click track and the one thing Tommy wishes he had stopped doing years ago.

The seven city plan

Tommy looks at the artist as a business, with a real business model. And everything starts with the song. Make convincing recordings. Nobody expects your first record to be Sgt. Pepper's, but work hard on the tunes, because a song that connects will push through even if the production is a little lackluster.

Then build. With ads on Facebook and Instagram available to the average person, it would be crazy not to use them. But here is the plan he laid out: pick seven cities. Not fifty. Seven, so it isn't overwhelming. Commit to them for three years, and play each one at least twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall.

The first time through, maybe a hundred people know about you, mostly die-hards and friends. Next time it's 350, because those hundred bring people with them out of pure enthusiasm and personal connection. Then you fan out: seven cities becomes 14, then 23. Play 23 cities twice a year and that is 46 dates, a proper run where you actually earn some money. Keep going and it snowballs.

"That's really still the most foundational way to build. Even still, with the information technology age... I still believe that connection."

Tommy Sims

Social media works the same way, he said. It is all about connection. Fans want to feel connected. They aren't really fans, they're more like family, an extended group of supporters. Nomad's reaction: this is not easy, but if this is you, resolve to do it and go get it.

How to switch lanes

Nomad raised the question that keeps coming up with everyone he talks to. In this business you get pigeonholed. "Oh, he does that." So how do you change lanes, from sideman or producer to artist?

Tommy's answer: you transition. And how you transition depends on your personality. Some people rip the bandage off: "I'm no longer a sideman. I'm an artist." They stop taking those gigs, even if it means going through the desert for three or four years. Others ease it off bit by bit, methodical and tactical.

His view is that the best way is a combination of the two. One spirit that won't procrastinate, and one that properly weighs it all, looking at it from where you want to end up and from every angle. And don't overwhelm yourself. Start where you are so you can get some movement.

Songwriting as journaling

Tommy's perspective on songwriting has changed over 25 years. These days it is life journaling. Whatever is pent up, whatever storm he has been through, the song is how he gets it out. Someone else might paint or keep a diary. He writes.

He also said that well over half the songs he has written, he never particularly expected anybody to hear. That is worth sitting with if you only write when you think it's for a cut.

When he writes, he almost always hears the finished record in his head: this guitar doing this, the cabasa doing that, the kick pattern, the bass line sitting on top, something ringing in the far corner with a tape delay. That is when he knows it's a song. And a laptop won't cut it for him. He wants a room with guitars, amps, drums and synths.

Feel, machines and the click

Funny thing: Tommy used to be the techie. In his early years doing Nashville and LA sessions, he was the guy they called for programming and sampling. Then he hit a wall during his first collaboration with Michael McDonald, and swore off machines. He kept going back to Michael's first record, made with a handful of legendary players in a room, and the feel nobody can replicate with a machine.

He still loves the tech and is blown away by where it is now. But on the click, he is clear: some forms of music will never work with a click, and on this very session some things only worked when the click was off. As a producer it is a tug of war, because a grid makes it far easier to fly 32 vocal tracks across four choruses. He came up when there was no grid and you had to do it anyway.

He also caught the tail end of analog, when there was no undo button. You either nailed your punch or you wrecked that section of the song. Engineers had to understand time, pickups and exactly where the downbeat sits. Plenty didn't, and he would end up re-recording whole sections rather than fixing bits and pieces. That is Reliability beats virtuosity from the other side of the glass.

What you do in the closet

All of this, engineering, production, songwriting, marketing, the techniques on each instrument, is work nobody sees. Tommy put it this way:

"It's what you do in the closet that informs what they see in the light... You could not have gotten to the spotlight without that closet time."

Tommy Sims

There are a few savants who sit down and play perfectly without knowing why. Most of us need the hours. Nomad remembered having no social life from 10 to 20, the bedroom as his shed, and not knowing how to talk to people at his first steady club gig. Tommy's balance was sports, which taught him the team perspective. That shed time is how Luck = preparation + opportunity actually works.

Don't discount what you do

In a quick lightning round, Tommy's desert island instrument was acoustic guitar, and his one record would be Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder: the cliche that is just true. Then Nomad asked what he would tell the next generation.

"Do not discount what you do. Don't discount what you do, because I did that for years."

Tommy Sims

He would look at the pitch sheets and think nobody was checking for the soul records he loved to make. Then, in the years after his own album, he heard artist after artist come out with exactly that sound. He had been doing it ten or fifteen years earlier, and so had a few other soldiers, but they discounted themselves because the companies didn't seem interested.

Nomad said he was one of those soldiers too, with funk as his private muse while his sessions leaned toward a modern pop sound.

The takeaway

Pick your seven cities and commit. Transition with both courage and a plan. Put in the closet time. And if you believe in what you're doing, even when it isn't popular right now, do it anyway. As Nomad closed: stay genuine, be sincere and be authentic to yourself. If you are working on that next call while you build your own thing, grab the free Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

Watch on YouTube or find every episode on the TCM Podcast page.