Sopranos star : rock music in commercials, good

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Steven Van Zandt, known for both his role as Silvio Dante on The Sopranos and as guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, offers his support for licensing young, up and coming, indie bands for commercials on tv.

Two interesting tidbits for me…

One :

… a big star is going to overwhelm your brand. I remember Beyonce doing a commercial, but who cares what the product was? Two, it’s cheaper. For the tens of millions spent on Beyonce, you get 30-60 new bands. Band, master, song, all in.

Do we really need to point out the obvious here?

SILVIO WANTS YOU TO LICENSE OUR ARTISTS MUSIC. BANDANNAS AND/OR HAIRPIECES SHALL FLAIL IF YOU IGNORE HIS ADVICE.

Okay, maybe not in quite such specific terms, but seriously… there are major advantages to working with artists who aren’t already big time stars.

Help the little guys out, will ya? We tell you about ‘em because we’re fans, not because we get a piece of their careers for landing them a spot. We’ll help seal the deal, connect the pertinent parties, negotiate some terms, but licensing an indie artist song from Burst Labs really does go a long way toward jumpstarting interest in the band or artist.

And point B :

I don’t know who started it — Allen Moyle’s “Pump Up the Volume” with Christian Slater comes to mind — but it’s good for the movies and good for the music world, which, now more than ever, must rely on the synergy of strangers.

Agreed, and it makes me want to add Wave Of Mutilation by The Pixies (one of the tunes in Pump Up The Volume) to our ongoing list of songs too precious to us to ever accept them as corporate advertising fodder. Add yours to the list and drop us a comment over there.

Tip of the ol’ hat to AdFreak. [dh]