OBSERVER Photo by Jo Ward Armand Petri gives a presentation on the modern era of the music industry on Friday at the SUNY Fredonia Technology Incubator.

Initiative and self confidence, innovation and hard work. These were the fundamental keys of success Armand Petri, professor of music industry at SUNY Fredonia, stressed at his Arts and Business Luncheon presentation Friday.

Petri, an industry veteran, with over 40 years of experience as a musician, sound man, record producer, songwriter and now educator, talked about how the old models of being discovered and then signed by a label are dead.

“Record companies gave up on developing artists in the late 70s’, they rode the wave of seeing a successful act and then signing a band/artist in the similar vein,” Petri said. “Currently major labels right now make their money off catalogue sales (collections of an artist’s works).”

So the big question is of course, how does someone today make a living in the music industry?

“You have to have, as an artist, someone interested in what you’re doing, an image that draws people in and lots of hardwork,” Petri stated. “It never ends, the music industry is 24/7, eight days a week. You can’t give up, you can’t lay back, you can’t wait for somebody to come to you. It’s not being in the right place at the right time, it’s putting yourself in the right place at the right time.”

In a small city or town many find it difficult, but Petri pointed out, quite quickly, that it’s not as hard as it seems. A platinum selling record producer, he’s based his whole career from Silver Creek where he’s worked with groups such as the 10,000 Maniacs, The Goo Goo Dolls and Six Pence None the Richer just to name a few.

Petri explained that to become successful “you get involved with your community, any way that you possibly can.”

He went on to share examples of what his classes have done with their student run record label, HAIL! Fredonia Records, where they put on charity events, most notably for the Institute of Autism Research (IAR) at Canisius College.

The first was the story of a New York based artist named Cassandra Kubinski, who wrote a song called “Not So Different”. Petri learned of the track from a former student and was stunned by the lyrics, however, he didn’t like the way it was produced. He contacted Kubinski to rerecord it, and after getting in touch with her he brought in Mary Ramsey of the 10,000 Maniacs and John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls, to collaborate on the recording with all the proceeds of a download to go to IAR.

Building on that, he then got the idea of using Record Store Day to do a special pressing and release of the song; they then added a show into the mix. The show sold out in an hour. At the end of the entire event, they had raised $30,000 for IAR and the students in his classes were involved with this process every step of the way.

“The students learned you can do an event from a small town as long as you are there helping people and using your community to benefit the community,” Petri added.

He next shared an idea his class in 2016 had of using a dog walk to raise money.

“I said… okay… let’s go with it, let’s see what you do,” Petri said. “It took us three months to organize it. We got donations from everybody and they raised $3,500.”

In 2018 the students built on this endeavor with the theme Star Paws.

“People love dogs, people love Star Wars, you combine the two and you get a lot of people interested.”

The one thing he asked the students was to get their social media together. They did. They had their dog walk, contacted some Star Wars people from Buffalo that do charity events, there were donations of food and baskets and because of the topic combinations they received 1.6 million followers including Mark Hamill.

This year they will be doing Canine Avengers.

“We’ll be doing Marvel characters. I told the students I want 10 million followers, I want credit card stuff together. The goal this year is $10,000 for IAR.”

In short, it takes self confidence and initiative to stand out in this business.

“It’s all about your innovation. How hard you want to work, how innovative you’re going to be and how unique what you’re trying to do is,” Petri said. “Remember you also need a team of people, nobody can do anything on their own.”