The Petra Zone

Hey everybody -
I'm putting a call out to all Christian rock/metal bands and musicians, because I'd like to ask you if you'd have any interest in being a part of a musicial project that I've been trying to develop over the last couple years. I've already got a few Christian artists on board and I am hoping to get at least a few more Christian bands/artists involved as well.

The concept is to do a Christian rock/metal version of the Bible. Both the Old and New Testaments. With about a dozen or so songs for each one to tell the primary stories and teachings provided by the Bible. This could be a double album or it could be two seperate albums. That is yet to be determined. I have made up a rough outline of how the album would be set up and what kind of songs we would need. The outline can be seen on my next post in this thread.

The musical style could range from classic rock to 80's rock and metal or even more modern forms of rock and metal. I will contribute at least a couple complete songs myself and probably more. I also have written some lyrics for the project that need music added to them, so that's an option as well. I'm looking for each artist to contribute one, two or even more songs to the project and I guess that's what I'm hoping more Christian bands or artists will agree to. You could even use songs that you have already recorded, if they represent a Bible story or teaching that fits the format of the album. I'm looking for a combined effort, kind of like the way the Christian Metal Realm albums have been put together.

My goal for this project is an increase in Biblical understanding for those who may be more likely to crank up some tunes than crack open a Bible. Not to mention my desire for this album to carry a clear salvation message. In the long run, I'm hoping that by increasing people's understanding of what's in the Bible, we can also increase thier desire to actually read the Bible.

As of this time, I'm thinking that it's best for this project to be non-profit, both because of it's subject nature and because the division of royalties could be a real nightmare of an obstacle for someone like me have to try and iron out. The album could be offered for a suggeted donation to both offset expenses and to ensure the continued production of the album for those who cannot afford them. Any further proceeds could be donated to some other Bible related cause such as the Gideons.

Please let me know what you think about this and if you have any interest in being a part of it.

Blessings,
Mike Tifft
[email protected]

Royalties, accounting and disbursements would not be a big issue for someone that is in the business. The best way for the artists would be to contract the bands with "Work-for-Hire" contracts. This allows you to use the music however you see fit, and makes you the owner of the "Work". Then there are no royalties to anyone. This would be more appealing to the bands, because royalties are not likely to be paid anyway. You need to think about manufacturing expenses. If you are going to do Red Book CDs, not just burned CD-Rs, then you are looking at .90 to 1.30 EA depending on who you use. So, you will have some out of pocket expenses.

If you have a bunch of artists recording on their own, then the album is going to all over the place level and quality wise. You are going to have to think about having one engineer in charge of it. This guy will communicate with the other engineers and the mastering engineer. You REALLY will need a good mastering engineer to pull it all together. This will set you back $500 a song if you use a great engineer with credits. If the guy doesn't have credits but is still doing great work for indies and such, you might get by on $1k for the whole deal. I would opt for the high end guy. I trusted an up and comer and got severely screwed on the PDC disc. It took 6 attempts on his part, and he still could not hear distortion that I could hear in the studio. Finally he walked with the money and I ended up scrapping all that he did, and had the foreign disc completely remastered again.

People that are unsaved won't buy a record to hear the bible alone. They are going to be pulled in by the music first. I think that you are going for a hyper-niche market with 80s and metal music. Petra couldn't keep doing it, so what makes you think that anyone else could? That type of music is not a big seller. Even the foriegn markets are drying somewhat.

I like the concept though. There used to be more albums like this in the early days of CCM. I think that if you want it to get to the masses, then you should rethink the music, and get some real money behind it. Money from someone who wants to fund missions work. If you could get your church to sponsor it, the donations could be made to your church, which makes it more appealling tax-wise.

Making the record could be a $10k to $50k deal for an indie release. The BIG expense is marketing. People have to know about it. People have to be able to buy it. That's your next hurdle. You need a sales history to get distribution. This is another good point for hooking up with an existing label that has distribution. The distributor will now carry the product, but they will want to see some good faith money and work towards having people buy it from the shelves.

If you need some help with this junk, let me know. No sense killing birds that someone has already shot down.

Thanks for the advice, Brent. I'll give some thought to the things you said.