So I realized I forgot to credit the music in the previous chapter:
Middle Fingers-MISSIO
Attica '71-Olivver the kid (mentioned)
Halfway to Nowhere-Chelou (mentioned)
10,000 plays.
The song had 10,000 plays in only 4 days.
Sure, 10,000 may not seem overly impressive to a mainstream artist, but for their first song ever? That was extremely rare. And there were nothing but positive comments. "Lyrics are killer !" "I love the chorus, it's so loud!". Nick had no clue how to react.
"Do we keep writing or do we keep uploading ?" Nick asked the tiny fox sitting next to him. Finnick shrugged.
"Before we do anything, let me show you something". Finnick pulled up safari and typed in " .com".
"You set up a website ?"
"Indeed I did. And I put the song up on there AND hooked it up to the paypaw that was connected to both of our bank accounts".
Nick was impressed. "How much are you selling it for ?" he asked.
"69 cents. First song, no reason to charge big".
"And how many downloads ?"
Finnick pulled up the stats. "See for yourself". Nick couldn't believe it. 650 downloads. Added up, that was nearly 450 dollars. "Holy shit".
"Yeah, and I also set up some social media. 750 instagram followers, 812 twitter followers, we might even be able to pull a couple of our own fans to the show".
"Speaking of which, has your uncle found out who we are opening for yet ?"
"Yeah, go ahead and look them up, they're called Mating Ritual".
"Nice, what's our cut ?"
"All of our merchandise, and 15% of ticket sales after venue costs. That's 650 dollars, so if we hypothetically sold out, the tickets are $14 each, 350 times 14, then minus 650, multiply that sucker by .15" Finnick had his calculator pulled out, trying to crunch numbers. "That's 637 dollars and fifty cents without any merchandise sales, which I'm thinking we could get around 100 dollars out of. So for each of us, that's 368 dollars and seventy five cents".
"Sweet jesus, that's fucking insane!" Nick couldn't believe it. Added on to the download money, they were making bank. Well, for a pair of 17 year-olds anyways.
"Yeah, it is". The fennec replied. "We could boost that by recording another song, you know.
Nick replied. "Yeah, Halfway to Nowhere sounds good whenever, we might be able to get it in one take even. Let's go through it one more time".
Finnick cued up the electronics. The beginning, as was the rest of song, was quiet and calming, the initial wavering synth resembling a pining radar, sort of. He then grabbed a drumstick and beginning tapping the drum pad. Nick began a simple, flowing guitar melody.
How do you get out of bed in the morning?
How do you wake to carry the day?
Yeah I sing for pleasure
I've sung for pain
I'm still halfway to nowhere
I'm still nothing today
They tell me good things come to those who wait
Despite the process along that came from fame
Yeah I sing for pleasure
I've sung for pain
I'm still halfway to nowhere
I'm still nothing today
Yeah I sing for pleasure
I've sung for pain
I'm still halfway to nowhere
I'm still nothing today
The song wasn't overly complex. Easy to play, most of the song was looped patterns, but the emotion was raw, even if quiet.
"Alright, so we can upload this, and..oh shit, we never uploaded Swoon" Nick realized.
No worries, I'm on it. Let me mix this a bit first so none of the sound levels are fighting each other" Finnick replied.
Within an hour, Finnick was done, and uploaded the two songs to their soundcloud and bandcamp pages. He then snuck a picture of Nick toasting waffles in his kitchen and posted it to twitter and instagram with the caption "hard at work, check out our new songs" with the links on the posts.
Finnick looked back at Nick. He began thinking a bit to himself, watching Nick dance around the kitchen whilst drenching the waffles in syrup. "God, what a goofball. Kinda adorable really"...Finnick snapped out of it immediately. He muttered to himself "...the hell was that ?" No reason to dwell however, he had music business to attend to.
Songs used:
Halfway to Nowhere-Chelou