The Paperclips got their start as street musicians, playing every Thursday for spare change. They have since evolved into much more, gaining/losing members and are now accomplished stage performers featured all over the western half of Missouri.

The key to their success is not a complex marketing plan or spending all day on Facebook. They play great music, and they do it well.

On a standard Saturday night at the 400 Club the bar was packed, there was a line to get drinks, and every six inches, there was a different conversation. But, all that changed, almost instantaneously, when The Paperclips took the stage.

The focus in the crowd was something that seemed almost irregular for this particular venue–there wasn’t a single person in the bar whose eyes weren’t fixed forward. Despite the state of the bar minutes before, it seemed the conversation on everyone’s lips was based solely on the band that occupied the stage.

The club was a far-cry from the city streets that, only a couple years prior, the band used to play on.

“I think it’s important to talk about where it started,“ said Jake Briscoe, guitarist and lead vocalist. “We used to get together and jam on the street Thursday nights, before we really had this together as a band.”

At that time, the band was comprised of Briscoe on guitar and vocals, Chris Evans on drums and other percussion, and Nate Caywood playing bass, keyboard and backup vocals.

They ran into one problem.

Briscoe put it best. “It got cold.”

Eventually, the band began playing acoustic sets at the Tea Haus, where they met their current bassist and backup vocalist, Jason Richards.

Richards was, at the time, performing at the Tea Haus as a solo artist, singing and playing acoustic guitar. As they started performing in close proximity more frequently, they began starting to schedule shows together.

Richards played his set immediately before The Paperclips took the stage, and it wasn’t long before they started discussing the possibility of adding Richards to the group. This past March, he became an official member of The Paperclips.

“The Paperclips have been a really good group to me,” said Rafferty. “Before I was in the group, they were giving me projects for school.”

Being devoted to their craft, Briscoe did divulge one difficulty that they run into as a band.

“It’s a long road, figuring out, as a band, how to market yourself,” said Briscoe. “Because you can be a great band, a fantastic band and not have that type of mentality to where you can sell yourself.”

It’s a hurdle The Paperclips must overcome. However, after watching its show Saturday, there is no denying that the band does not lack talent or musicianship.

“Tour: Smart – and Break the Band” by Martin Atkins is a must read for any and all musicians, bands or anyone in a touring industry. It is amazing that someone actually took the time and effort to write such a comprehensive book on the subject – take advantage of the expertise.

This book is chalk full of insight, not only from author Martin Atkins (PIL, Pigface), but also from dozens upon dozens of interviews and stories compiled from touring insiders, musicians, tour managers, club owners, record executives and roadies – just to name a few.

I think Martin Atkin’s introduction to the book really sets up what you should know and will learn while you read this book:

“You should fail because your band is shit or because you don’t have the balls. You shouldn’t fail because of a lack of some basic advice and a bit of planning. Your music, your band, might be important to some people, very important to a few, mildly important to a few others, but it will never be more important to anyone than it is to you. Apply that principle to everything.”

Don’t let the book’s immense size turn you off (over 500 pages.) This is not a book that needs to be read cover to cover (though, that is what I did.) This book is meant to be picked at little by little. Chapters are short and impressively interesting. The book covers everything from the necessities of a tour to why those on tour shouldn’t do drugs or crap in the tour bus toilet. One resounding message is that you have to treat your music as a business and be responsible for that business at every facet.

The highlights of this book are presented in chapter summaries and lists outlining things that bands should do and not do. These smart tips are enough to guide bands in the right direction, but once you start reading the book, you are really going to get drawn into the witty and relevant stories from the industry insiders. The experiences that these people have went through range from the intensely cautionary to the absolutely hilarious.

“Tour: Smart” also goes into some great detail about marketing efforts, especially when the band is getting ready for a tour. These marketing tips will give you a great starting point for any efforts, though. The book tells you how to book shows, advance a show, get radio play before a show date, assemble a street team and actually get them to promote, and keep track of it all. Putting your best song first on the CDs you make, knowing your audience, and keeping track of everyone you meet, are a few of the other essentials Mr. Atkins stresses.

Learning the ropes of touring will never be easy, even if you think you are prepared. This book provides stories that show the highs and the lows of touring, what (and who) to avoid, and overall what you can expect out on the road. It is basically the quintessential textbook on the subject of touring.

“You need one voice for the tour. It has to be a benevolent dictatorship.” – Martin Atkins

Every band should have this book in their possession whether they are just getting ready to tour or are in the midst of one. If you are just starting out, you will learn a whole lot of things to do and expect on a tour. If you are already touring, you will not only enjoy reading the book and comparing your own experiences, you will almost certainly learn something new as well.

“Tour: Smart – and Break the Band” by Martin Atkins can be found at Amazon.com for less than $20 new.

Starting off Barefoot Truth was just two high school friends (Jay Discoll and Will Evans) writing and performing songs for their own enjoyment. When they started playing out they got such a good response that they decided to record an album. By the time they both graduated college Barefoot Truth was no longer just for fun. It was a full band, and it became a career.

Since spring of 2007 the members of Barefoot Truth have been working full time on the band. Recently they have received national attention and an undetermined amount of money from success on Pandora Radio. The internet radio site exposed Barefoot Truth to a much larger audience, and that audience can’t seem to get enough of Barefoot Truth. The band has had more than 4.5 million plays on Pandora.

Although the band had little influence on promoting their music on Pandora, their dedication to making quality music and their professional approaches to the band are key to this success. The band is doing everything right. They made the band into a small business and keep track of all of their money. They even get tax write offs at the end of the year.

Discoll took the time to help answer some our questions about Barefoot Truth’s success.

How do they afford to be professional musicians?

“We have a pretty good situation, we all live together. So a lot of the money we make as a band stays in the band going towards our own rent…it really just cuts down on costs.”

“When there is downtime…we’ll have our own little things going. Odd jobs and things are always coming up.”

What was the first step to becoming a regional band and getting shows in different areas?

“Show swapping is defiantly a big thing for us. It has been for breaking into new places…We’ve also been lucky to have interest from a lot of colleges and high school students [then we] go to their student activities board and tell them [the students] would like us to play at their school. It’s been cool to break into new markets. From there we try to get into local clubs.”

How does Barefoot Truth handle management responsibilities?

“Right now it’s pretty much mainly handled by the band. We’ve been though management a little bit and had booking agents and had some help with different tours…but beyond that we are constantly booking shows ourselves. We do a lot of the admin stuff ourselves which definitely gets tedious.”

Barefoot Truth’s first recording was produced by a Grammy nominated producer and has worked with the band Dispatch, how did that come about?

“We’ve always looked up to [Dispatch] and we went to what was planed to be their final show back in 2004. We happened to meet them, and we actually had a cassette tape. We played it for them in our car. They were really cool to us, and they said if we were really serious about making a CD we can hook you up with our producer Jack Gauthier. We said yes. We got to record our first few CDs where they recorded their CDs.

We’re never afraid to talk to people. We love meeting new people in the industry and learn how other people have gone about their career.”

The band has gotten a lot of exposure from Pandora, but how much has it helped Barefoot Truth?

“We started getting requests from different parts of the country to play, then we started seeing CD Baby sales from all different parts of the country. When someone buys your CD on CD Baby they get a chance to tell you how they have heard of you. About 80 percent was coming from Pandora, and we thought wow this is cool. Then our music got on iTunes, and we were making way more digital sales than physical sales…It’s grown exponentially.”

What advice does Barefoot Truth have for young bands?

“The biggest thing for us has been to put all the money back into the band. You can’t grow without putting money into recording, gas, graphic design or publicity. There is so much to put into the band you need to have a money flow. Just don’t get greedy with the money you make at gigs.

And don’t be afraid to play anywhere. One example that I remember we played a very small bar gig we were hesitant to play. We were pretty sure no one was going to come hear us who knew of us, but it ended up meeting a kid there who is an IT guy. He was able to do an internship for us, and he was able to build us an entire website and graphic design and get credit for it…you never who you are gonna meet and what each gig is going to bring to you.

And don’t drive in the snow…We got into an accident, and that sucked.”

Learn more about how to get your music onto Pandora, advice from Pandora’s founder and getting royalties from internet and satellite radio.

Musicians don’t gets performance royalties for music played on the radio, so performance royalties from SoundExchange must be a scam. It’s a logical train of thought, and it’s completely false.

SoundExchange is legit and has money waiting for musicians.

Fifteen years ago the U.S. Congress started changing the laws to create performance royalties for artist. Now, in some situations, not only do the people that write and own songs get royalties, but so do all the individuals involved in the recording of a song.

For over 80 years American radio stations have convinced musicians that radio does not have to pay performance royalties. They found a loophole, and they have made sure to keep it a loophole. Yet, it’s not the same story around the world. In many countries artist do get performance royalties.

Lately things have gotten better in the U.S. You, and your copy write holder, can now collect performance royalties for digital performances. This would be when music is played on satellite or Internet radio. The non-profit company SoundExchange was created to handle the payments music providers would pay to musicians from government licenses. There has been hundreds of millions of dollars collected on musicians’ behalf.

The only problem is that the concept of performance royalties is so unknown in the U.S. that many artist don’t collect the money they are due. It’s why soundExchange is holding more than $10 million dollars in royalties for musicians who they have contacted six times or more. It’s why SoundExchange has sent out 14,000 checks to artists, yet these artist have never cashed the checks.

Musicians are afraid it’s a scam. But the money is legit. SoundExchange has collected over $350 million dollars in performance royalties. Now you need to collect it.

It’s not too complicated, at it is never too late. SoundExchange has royalty payments that date back to 1996.

To start with, you need to go to SoundExchange.com or their registration site. The money is taxable. Don’t forget that Congress created this, so you will need to fill out tax forms. If you are in a band, this is a great reason to turn the band into a small business. You will be able to keep all the money together, and not have to register each member individually. (Also, turning your band into a small business has lots of other advantages and is fairly common among successful bands Detone8.com has interviewed.)

You will need a bank account that they can deposit the money into. You can wait for them to send you a check., but direct deposit is much faster.

The form mostly keeps track of where you live, what music you are involved in and how to pay you. They do have a large, 42 person staff that would be happy to help you figure everything out. You can e-mail them, or even call them during normal business hours. But even with all these people trying to give money to musicians, not all of the money can be given to the rightful owners.

Bryan Calhoun, Vice President of New Media at SoundExchange, warns why you need to properly fill out submissions to SoundExchange and digital music providers like Pandora.

Digital music providers have to submit their play lists to SoundExchange, so the proper artists get paid. But because these providers can only share information that was submitted to them, some musicians will never get paid. Why? Because someone filled out the form as BAND UNKNOWN or DEMO. Calhoun said that SoundExchange has a lot of money for BAND UNKNOWN.

With all this money SoundExchange is trying to give away you would think they would have their hands full. Yet, they are fighting hard to get even more money. If digital performance royalties are bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars, what SoundExchange and the Music First Coalition are working on could dramatically change the music industry. They are trying to close the loophole broadcast radio uses to not pay performance royalties.

How much money could be paid to artist is hard to imagine. The scale is huge. Just one example is that France does pay musicians performance royalties for songs played on the radio. But because U.S. radio stations do not pay French musicians performance royalties, French radio stations do not pay U.S. musicians performance royalties. Calhoun believes that U.S. artist should received more than $100 million in performance royalties from foreign radio stations alone.

Musicians deserve to be paid for their work, and SoundExchange is one more way to get paid.

Performance royalties quick tips

• Create a bank account for music revenue.

• Make sure your information is correct when registering for XM, SIRIUS, Pandora and any other digital music provider.

• Register with Soundexchange.