Musicians building a brand and finding a niche: Steam Powered Giraffe and the steampunk subculture

When the major labels developed the star system (in which the revenue was provided by a small number of artists, affecting choices regarding which artists should be released and promoted to the public) lots of musicians on the roster did not benefit from the amount  of exposure the stars did. The model certainly did not favour niche musicians (Anderton, 2013, p. 5). Nowadays, the Internet enables people with common interests from all over the world to gather in a virtual place, giving a chance to niche musicians to reach their specific audiences. Wall and Dubber (2010) observed, with application to the niche of jazz music, the surprising amount of attention accorded to this genre online, compared to the small amount of time dedicated to it in mainstream media. This comes to support the democratic nature of online activity for both musicians and music consumers.

Steam Powered Giraffe are an American band who combine music with theatricals and mime to create a performance associated with the steampunk culture. There are a number of other self-proclaimed steampunk bands, such as Abney Park, Vernian Process and The Cog is Dead. Although they label themselves ‘steampunk’, their music tends to be mutually divergent and lack the stylistic coherence of other subcultural genres such as goth or punk (Ferguson, 2001, pg. 67). They have in common the aesthetics of steampunk subculture, the fashion, preoccupation with creating personas, and the DIY ethos. 

Even though the music in itself does not have anything particularly ‘steampunk’ in it, it is the branding and association with an online community that allowed Steam Powered Giraffe to gather an audience. If an artist combines talent, imagination and brand with good social and networking skills and manages to find his or her niche, the amount of support they receive might prove surprising. This is also recognised by Kusek (2005, p.28) who argues that success in the an overcrowded music landscape can be reached ‘if and when musicians can define their niche, they differentiate themselves and reach people who are interested in their uniqueness’.

Steam Powered Giraffe Logo (www.steampoweredgiraffe.com)

Steam Powered Giraffe have an elaborate brand, maintained both in performances and online,
involving the creation of personas with a complex fictional backstory (the band members pretend to be automatons created in 1896), elaborate make-up, steampunk clothing and a fitting logo. This brand is extended to a whole fictional universe, reflected in the band’s merchandise, a comic containing fictional adventures of the robots and a card game based on the same characters. These are all created by the band members, who also run the website; the band’s sound engineer is considered part of the band and appears frequently in the band’s webcomic stories and video blogs - yet another example of musicians understanding the importance of being self-sufficient.

The band’s Facebook page shows continuous engagement with their fans - from sharing live streams of rehearsals to the ‘Fan Art Fridays’ - a weekly updated Facebook album containing fan art. They also post pictures and videos of the band offstage, such as videos of them doing their make-up; this does not ruin their personas, but adds authenticity and familiarity, creating the illusion of intimacy referred to above (p.35). The band runs a pay-what-you-wish website subscription, which offers extra material and allows the fans to become ‘Engineer-eteers’ and support the maintenance of the ‘robots’. Music is released through iTunes and TuneCore and physical CDs can be ordered on the website; the website store also contains various merchandise based on the band’s concept and artwork.

Steam Powered Giraffe is a great example of an independent band employing entrepreneurial skills to target, build and maintain an audience. In the age of internet, reaching out to people is easier than ever; the difficult the job for a musician is to find their niche audience and to create a distinguishable identity. 

References:

Anderton, C., Dubber, A, and James, M (2013) Understanding The Music Industries. London: Sage Publications.

Steam Powered Giraffe, (2012). Steam Powered Giraffe - Honeybee. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojYK6CW8gdw (Accessed 1.11.2015).

Wall, T., and Dubber, A. (2010) Experimenting With Fandom, Live Music, And The Internet: Applying Insights From Music Fan Culture To New Media Production". Journal of New Music Research 39.2 (2010): 159-169.