The Many Sides Of The Derailers And The Cost Of Promoting An Artist

“What you hear from The Derailers often depends on our whims.”

Those whims produced a feast for Texas music lovers in The Derailers latest CD, “Soldiers of Love.”

Yes, it is honky-tonk country, but with echoes of Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and yes, The Beatles.

James, who sings as well, performs a mixture of originals and cover songs. The sound is part western-swing, which was the forte of the disbanded Cowtown band, with a little jazz, folk and bluegrass thrown in.
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James has a distinctive, often sultry voice, but she doesn’t show much range. The playing is top-notch throughout, however, and should be more than enough to pique the interest of music listeners looking for something new and a little different.

“Ninety percent of everything we do still revolves around radio,” said Kevin Herring, vice president of promotion for Lyric Street Records, the Disney-owned country label that’s home to top-selling trio Rascal Flatts. That’s a sentiment music industry executives echo regularly, albeit sometimes begrudgingly.

A label has to be willing to commit at least a million dollars to see an artist break into the big time.

“It’s more that a label has to be willing to commit that amount of money,” said Herring, who is working to break a new female artist at country radio, Sarah Buxton. “It’s kind of like when you sit down at the poker table, you’ve got to have enough money to get you in the game.”
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Several sources, including Butler, said it can cost between $200,000 and $400,000 to produce a record, $100,000 to $200,000 to shoot a music video and up to $150,000 for a six-week radio tour. Those expenses don’t take into account label staffing costs, nor a whole range of other marketing and promotion costs.