The Viral Marketing of Dispatch: Word of Mouth

Dispatch books its own gigs and does its own books. Meet the three CEOs.

The Roseland Ballroom in New York City is a legendary venue. It holds some 3,300 people and books major bands-the Rolling Stones played there in September. So when a Boston-based band called Dispatch filled the place in November 2001, it was a big deal. They were, it turned out, the first band not signed to a major label ever to sell out the 75-year-old hall. After the show, the promoter hosted a champagne reception backstage and presented the band's three members-Pete Francis, Chad Urmston, and Brad Corrigan-with framed "Sold Out" posters commemorating the event. At the time, the band had rarely been heard on the radio-a couple of songs in light rotation in Philadelphia and Denver and a bit more frequently in Chicago. They'd never been on MTV. They'd released a handful of self-funded CDs on Bomber Records, a label they'd started in college six years earlier, and had sold them mainly at gigs and local stores and through their Web site. Not exactly Keith and Mick. "Over the years, lawyers and managers would say that if we ever wanted to play big rooms, we'd have to sign with a major label," says Francis, who plays guitar and bass. Francis partnered with drummer Corrigan and guitarist/bassist Urmston when they were all students at Middlebury College, in Vermont, playing what Corrigan calls "a cross between the Police, Sublime, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers." Even then, they knew that major labels were a catch-22. "You get this big advance, and all this other money is spent on you-but everything has to be recouped before royalties kick in," Corrigan says. "Basically, after the advance you'll never see a dime." So they went it alone, with each member a shareholder, a sales manager, a distributor-oh, and a musician. The band has sold almost 300,000 records, thanks largely to a viral marketing campaign Nike would envy. Without a major label to grease the wheels of promotion, Dispatch knew a key to success was a solid fan base. "They're our sales team," Corrigan says of the band's network of 182 fans who are employed as field marketing reps. The Dispatch business plan, you could say, led directly to the sellout at Roseland (and others at the Fillmore in San Francisco and the Orpheum Theatre in Boston, to name a few). Step one: Eschew the competitive, quasi-glamorous bar scene in favor of the East Coast prep school circuit. By performing at elite high schools-which have ample social budgets and students eager to discover the next cool band-Dispatch essentially insured its future. The students would talk up the band to their friends at nearby schools, where Dispatch would play next. Step two: The mass of prep school kids becomes a mass of college kids spread across the country, leading to college gigs. The final phase: The fans then enter the real world, and Dispatch hits just about every big-city venue in the country, playing as many as six nights a week while touring. The Internet sped things up. As file-swapping services like Napster gained favor, Dispatch fans downloaded feverishly-more free promotion, putting the band on the radar in new cities. "We realized what a big deal it was when we played in San Jose," Corrigan says. "We had never even been there, but the kids knew all the lyrics." Dispatch went on to become one of the biggest independent bands on Napster and one of its biggest champions: When the site came under attack in Congress in 2001, founder Shawn Fanning asked Dispatch to headline a pro-Napster show in Washington, D.C. "Napster helped us sell a ton of records," says Francis. When their fourth CD, Who Are We Living For?, was released in 2001, it debuted at No. 17 on the Billboard Internet releases chart (Rolling Stone named it one of the top 10 albums of the year). And because they were independent, the band raked in profits. After manufacturing costs, Dispatch earns about $6 for every CD they sell-an unimaginable take, says Corrigan, for most major-label bands, who receive around $1.50 per unit sold after paying back the advance. And no one's taking a cut of their merchandise or ticket sales, either: Last year's fall tour netted almost $180,000. They pay themselves modest salaries, and the rest goes to R&D. "It's pressure on us, to be constantly earning the money that keeps the band going," says Francis. "There's not a big machine that's going to put tons of money behind a record. There have been times when I've wondered if we should have gone with a major." At times, the pressure of maintaining a do-it-yourself business grates-this is, after all, the only job the three musicians/businessmen have had for the past seven years, during which they've spent many hours talking business in their van and in backstage greenrooms. After almost breaking up last spring, they decided to pour most of the tour revenue into a recently released DVD/CD-appropriately called Under the Radar-that documents the band's history. The release was No. 9 on the Billboard music video chart in late October. If nothing else, Francis says, he hopes it will inspire other bands. "It can just be you and your music," he says. "You don't need a lot of hype."