Eric Jensen

In Part Two of my con­ver­sa­tion with indie singer-songwriter Chi McClean we dis­cuss the impor­tance of build­ing per­sonal rela­tion­ships with fans and indus­try part­ners and the chal­lenges of doing it all your­self…Chi is cur­rently record­ing his sec­ond record. You can find out more about Chi on his web­site: www.chimcclean.com and pick up his music at CD Baby, Amazon.com, and the iTunes Store. Read Part One of our con­ver­sa­tion here… You are han­dling PR and mar­ket­ing your­self. What’s work­ing for you? How do you decide the best ways to invest your time? CM: I pick my bat­tles. If I’m going out on a tour, I’ll look at those mar­kets, fig­ure out what the week­lies are (and) tar­get the music writ­ers who have been writ­ing stuff I gen­uinely like. You have to show that you are inter­ested in them. For exam­ple, I got this great review in the San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle. I liked this guy’s style of writ­ing. I liked the artists that he cov­ered. In my email to him I told him, “I really enjoyed (your) arti­cle about so and so, I heard him on KFOG, but this other guy (you) rec­om­mended I’d never heard of. I checked out his music and it’s awe­some, a great find. What other artists could you rec­om­mend? Inci­den­tally I just came out with a new CD (laughs). Do you ever write about inde­pen­dent musi­cians?” Within ten min­utes I got an email back. I know that’s a total excep­tion to the rule, because it’s so much about luck, but I think that…

Photo by Andrew Keller This is Part 1 of an inter­view with indie artist, Chi McClean, the lat­est install­ment in the occa­sional Career Tracks series of inter­views. You can read Part Two of our con­ver­sa­tion here. Chi McClean is a singer-songwriter with an inti­mate, down-home style and clas­sic Cal­i­for­nia good looks. Orig­i­nally from New York, Chi moved to Cal­i­for­nia to sam­ple the surf and take a shot at the music busi­ness. With the release of his 2009 debut record­ing, Some­thing Out There, (co-produced by Chi and Boone Spooner) he dove full-time into the indie DIY life, tour­ing exten­sively across the United States. Chi has per­formed live on national tele­vi­sion (The Early Show) and earned sev­eral song­writ­ing and per­for­mance awards. He is spon­sored by Tay­lor Gui­tars and Elixir Strings, is tour­ing con­tin­u­ally, and in pre-production for his next record. On a recent stop in Los Ange­les we had a chance to talk about music, the impor­tance of build­ing rela­tion­ships, mar­ket­ing your­self, and the power of the national media.  You can find out more about Chi on his web­site: www.chimcclean.com and pick up his music at Amazon.com, CD Baby, and the iTunes Store. Your songs have been described in the media as “South­ern Rock” or “Clas­sic Rock”. What do you think is unique about your music and the way it con­nects with peo­ple? CM: Peo­ple say that the record­ings and the live per­for­mances, par­tic­u­larly when it’s just me and a percussionist…it’s an hon­est and true per­for­mance. Peo­ple like the fact that you can hear the squeak in…