Below you can check out our interview with founding member of the music industry website By The Barricade, Eric Walden. For more info, visit www.bythebarricade.com.
Q: How did By The Barricade get started?
A: I was volunteering for a site called Soudcheck411 in 2014 but their focus wasn’t local bands. Once I noticed my articles were getting some serious traffic, I started my own website to cover the local bands I cared about. Things have changed a lot over the last few years but the team is still really focused on highlighting aspiring artists.
Q: What can readers expect to find when they visit By The Barricade?
A: Most of our articles answer common questions and shed some light on the music industry. We cover things like the differences between a manager and a record label or how to sell song lyrics. Our team may not be experts on every topic but we all do serious research to give solid answers. The site also has some interviews and news but we’ve pivoted pretty heavily towards educational topics for the foreseeable future. I still try to cover news about bands I like but usually when we’re talking to musicians now, it’s to get expert quotes to verify our research and answers.
Q: Has your extensive marketing background influenced By The Barricade’s development?
A: Absolutely! Google & email newsletters are way more powerful than most people realize. We used to completely rely on social media algorithms to get readers and that’s completely changed now. Working on marketing teams for larger organizations let me experiment with expensive tactics like influencer marketing, paid ads, and top-of-funnel campaigns. Those insights made me much more confident in our current strategy and really helped the site grow.
Q: You’ve also founded a record label – Awfully Good Records. What has that experience been like?
A: AGR let us put our money where our mouth was. The team had been promoting bands for years and we saw great local artists grow like crazy. We wanted to financially support bands we believed in and give them a shot to tour nationally. We met a ton of awesome people along the way but paused releases during covid and put all of our resources back to growing ByTheBarricade.com. Our goal has always been to help people and it’s been really fun seeing such a great response to the site’s educational articles.
Q: What does the future look like for you and By The Barricade?
A: Our next big goal is to start a YouTube channel. People always tell me how they’d rather watch a video instead of reading an article. We don’t have an exact launch date yet but I’m excited to see what people think once they see the team’s faces on camera.
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For more information on Eric Walden and By The Barricade, visit www.bythebarricade.com.
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