An interview with the Black Tigers

  Over the week I had the chance to talk back and forth with the artists from the rising trio    Black Tiger Sex Machine. The members like to hide their identities under their distinctive trademark helmets keeping most knowledge about themselves on the down low. Talking with these artists over the week really showed that they care about their fans, and try their hardest to help them whenever they can, they were delighted to be interviewed and here's what they had to say.

Do you earn your living entirely through music, or do you have other sources of income?

One of the members of our trio has a full-time job. The other two work exclusively on music and label management.

As a musician, what are your most lucrative sources of income? (CD/mp3 sales, ticket sales for shows, lessons, etc)

Revenue from shows accounts for the vast majority of our income, probably over 85%. The rest is a mix of mp3 sales, merchandise sales (t-shirts) and licensing.

Do you use the internet to promote your music? If so, how?

We use the internet almost exclusively for promotion. We are very active on social media, and we try to engage our fans as much as possible through facebook posts, twitter messages and instragram pictures. We also do advertisements and sponsored posts on Facebook to widen our reach. We like doing Facebook ads because we can target our existing and potential fans.

We have relationships with many blogs and youtube channels. We send them promotional material through email blasts, and they regularly post our content.

Physical promotional efforts consist of posters that promote our local events in Montreal. We only do this at the venue we perform at, Le Belmont.

Do you sell your music over the internet? 

We sell our music through all major online music outlets, such as Itunes and Beatport. Our music is also available through streaming services like spotify.

To your knowledge, do fans obtain your music without paying for it - by burning CDs, file sharing, or other means? How do you feel about this? 

Our fans definitely obtain our music without paying for it. Our songs can be easily found on torrents, music forums and file hosting services like mediafire. This doesn't anger us, because this is the reality in which we operate. People download songs for free, and we can't control it. Also, these people may be pirating our songs, but the fact remains that they are listening and becoming fans, so piracy is like a form of promotion that widens our listener base. The more people know us and hear our music, the more will come to our shows, which is where we want to make money.

That said, we do appreciate people who actually buy our songs, because it does provide some revenue to help support our work.

Presumably you want to expose your music to as many potential fans as possible. You probably also want to earn money for the work that you do. Where do you draw the line?

We definitely want to be known as much as possible, but it's true that there are certain things we would not do for exposure. We wouldn't do a Britney Spears remix, for example. because it wouldn't match with our vision for our sound. We also wouldn't appear on TV doing a fake DJ set. I think for us, the line is more something we establish on a case-by-case basis. If one of us isn't comfortable with a potential appearance, promotional activity or partnership, we discuss it and determine if it's something we can be proud of, or if it's something that could be embarassing, against our artistic ideals or something that would upset our existing fanbase.

Source of image here