Devin Townsend says “90 percent” of the job for modern musicians is being a content creator
Being a musician in the 21st century often requires you to be a wearer of multiple hats. With the rise of social media and digital platforms, artists are no longer just makers of music; they must also be savvy marketers, brand managers and perhaps most importantly, content creators.
In fact, as Devin Townsend points out, “90 percent” of the job for modern musicians revolves around content creation — a realisation he admittedly found “very jarring” early in his career.
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Speaking in a new interview with Metal Blast, Townsend notes how the romanticised vision he had of the music business quickly gave way to the realities of the industry.
“I love and loved music so much that I assume that clearly the foundation for being involved with the music industry is art and emotions and music,” says the musician. “It was naive, you know, as a kid. And then when I get down, I realise, ‘oh no, it’s an industry. It’s like anything else’”.
Speaking of the “cutthroat” nature of the business, Townsend shares that much of what professional musicians do has very little to do with making music.
“Now, more than ever, I realise that 90% of the job is to be a content creator rather than write any music,” he says. “And these are the sorts of realisations that I found to be very jarring when I was a kid. I found that within the first year, less than that, within the first six months, I was made painfully aware of what the nature of the industry is.”
“I don’t resent it, or think of it as being something that needs to change. It’s just what it is,” he continues. “It’s like any industry, I just didn’t know. The transition between the idealistic version of what I thought it was versus the practicalities of what it takes to be a musician was, I guess, upsetting as a kid.”
And while some musicians, particularly those who didn’t grow up in the age of Instagram reels and TikTok trends, may resist these demands, Townsend concedes that content creation is now essential to maintaining audience engagement.
“It’s simply what it takes at this point to create engagement with an audience that is so distracted,” he says.
That said, the pressures of maintaining a constant online presence are not for everyone, as 30-year-old Mateus Asato illustrates. One of the biggest stars of the Instagram guitar community, Asato quit social media in January 2021, explaining that he “got lost inside the boxes of the 15s-60s videos.”
As bleak as that sounds, embracing social media can actually offer musicians significant perks besides just ‘staying relevant’. According to Dragonforce guitarist Herman Li, getting personally involved in content creation gives artists greater creative freedom and a whole lot more power to negotiate deals with record labels.
“Understanding the business [lets you] control your music and your art,” says Li. “Or else someone else is going to come in and do it for you, and they always know better than you because their percentage is really what they care about the most.”
For the modern musician, striking the right balance between artistic expression and content creation is an ongoing challenge, and it’s one that’s unlikely to go away anytime soon. As artists continue to adapt to the demands of the digital age, they’ll need to find ways to engage their audience without losing sight of their artistry.
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