Darrin McGillis Productions

A band is a business. The more you treat your band like a business, the more likely you are to succeed in the industry. There are essentially three forms a business can take. First is a sole proprietorship. If you are a solo artist, this is the route to take. However, if you are a band, this form is unavailable for obvious reasons. Therefore, your choices are between a partnership or a corporation. There are a few other forms businesses can take, limited partnerships, limited liability companies, etc., but they are too complicated to address here. A corporation is an interesting concept. The way it works is you create a company which is owned by stockholders. This stock is not traded on the Stock Exchange, but owned by the band members. In the entertainment industry, a band which incorporates forms what is know as a loan-out corporation. What the corporation does is contract with other parties for your services. For example, if you have a loan-out corporation and you get a record dea...

Not enough bands realize that their band is a business. Some band members may be familiar with business practices, but my experience has been that most are not. Therefore, this column will address what to do when you start a business. The very first thing a band should do is get a business license from the county they live in. A business license is also called a "fictitious name certificate" or a "doing business as" (d/b/a) license. What this certificate does is tells the world that X,Y & Z are doing business using the name "The Band". The procedure for obtaining a d/b/a license is through the County Clerk. They will require an application and a small fee. Generally, another legal requirement is that you publish your application in a newspaper for 3 weeks. Most newspapers do this in their legal classified sections. The newspaper will publish your d/b/a license and it will read something like this: "LEGAL NOTICE: X,Y & Z are doing business as...