KERRY band, Ten Past Seven reached its goal with only minutes to spare. Signed to Limerick record label Out on a Limb the band Ten Past Seven had a plan. The plan was to record a 25 minute EP using standard, binaural and surround sound techniques at the renowned Black Box Studios in France. But recording at Black Box, which has recorded everyone from Shellac to The Redneck Manifesto, was going to be expensive so the band utilised Fundit.ie.
The new Irish website is a crowdfunding platform to help raise money for creative ideas and projects. It’s based on the premise that a creative idea can attract small amounts of money from a large number of people and it was up to the band and the record label to use social media and publicity to reach their goal of raising €5,000. Contributers made pledges in return for rewards such as a physical copy of the finished project but with only hours to go before the campaign was due to close the band were only 75% of the way there.
Then what ensued last Friday was an urgent Facebook and Twitter campaign involving friends and fans of the three-piece instrumental band that got Ten Past Seven the cash total needed to reach its goal.
Ciarán Ryan of Out on a Limb Records explained, “It was pretty crazy. I was at work checking it on my phone. Seeing so many people sign up to support the project on the final day was genuinely heartwarming but also rather nervy.”
The reaction from the band was obviously ecstatic, Ciarán says, “They’re pretty thrilled as you’d imagine. They, and we, always believed that this was a viable project, but it’s just fantastic to see that people got behind it and believe in it too.”
The positive effect of social media on the band’s progress in this Fund It campaign is undeniable but Ciarán puts this in perspective, “Like most things, social media can be useful and not so useful. It’s a cheap way of getting the message out, and people like to get their info in a more bitesize way I suppose. At the same time, there are a lot of bands clamouring to receive coverage/promotion via social media so it can be harder to get the message out sometimes. It was kind of nuts to see the amount of twitter activity around the campaign on the last day from people all around the country. To be honest, without that Twitter surge on the final day, it may not have made it over the line.”
For Ten Past Seven recording and mixing of the EP will take place in France at the end of July. Expect the release to surface not too long after that.
