The art of asking Amanda Palmer

so I didn’t always make my living from

music for about the five years after

graduating from an upstanding liberal

arts university this was my day job I

was a self-employed living statue called

the eight-foot bride and I love telling

people I did this for a job because

everybody always wants to know who are

these freaks in real life hello

I painted myself white one day

stood on a box put a hat or a can at my

feet and when someone came by and

dropped in money I handed them a flower

and some intense eye contact and if they

didn’t take the flower I threw in a

gesture of sadness and longing as they

walked away

so I had the most profound encounters

with people especially lonely people who

looks like they hadn’t talked to anyone

in weeks and we would get this beautiful

moment of prolonged eye contact being

allowed in a city street and we would

sort of fall in love a little bit and my

eyes would say thank you I see you and

their eyes would say nobody ever sees me

thank you and I would get harassed

sometimes people would yell at me from

their passing cars get a job and I do

think this is my job but it hurt because

it made me fear that I was somehow doing

something on job like an unfair shameful

I had no idea how perfect a real

education I was getting for the music

business on this box and for The

Economist’s out there you may be

interested to know I actually made a

pretty predictable income which was

shocking to me given I had no regular

customers but pretty much 60 bucks on a

Tuesday 90 bucks on a Friday it was

consistent and meanwhile I was touring

locally and playing in nightclubs with

my band The Dresden Dolls this is me on

piano a genius drummer I wrote the songs

and eventually we started making enough

money that I could quit being statue and

as we started touring I really didn’t

want to lose this sense of direct

connection with people because I loved

it

so after all of our shows we would sign

autographs and hug fans and hang out and

talk to people and we made an art out of

asking people to help us and join us and

I would track down local musicians and

artists and they would set up outside of

our shows and they would pass the Hat

and then they would come in and join us

on stage so we had this rotating

smorgasbord of weird random circus

guests and then Twitter came along and

made things even more magic because I

could ask instantly

anything anywhere so I would need a

piano to practice on and an hour later I

would be at a fans house this is in

London people would bring home-cooked

food to us all over the world backstage

and feed us and eat with us this is in

Seattle fans who worked in museums and

stores and in any kind of public space

would wave their hands if I would decide

to do a last-minute spontaneous free gig

this is a library in Auckland on

Saturday I tweeted for this crate and

hat because I did not want to slept them

from the East Coast and they should have

care of this dude Chris from Newport

Beach who says hello I once tweeted

we’re in Melbourne can I buy a neti pot

and a nurse from a hospital drove one

right at that moment to the cafe I was

in and I bought her a smoothie and we

sat there talking about nursing and deaf

and I love this kind of random closeness

which is lucky because I do a lot of

couchsurfing in mansions where everyone

on my crew gets their own room but

there’s no wireless and in Punk squats

everyone on the floor in one room with

no toilets but with wireless clearly

making it a better option

my crew once pulled our van up to a

really poor Miami neighborhood and we

found out that our couchsurfing host for

the night was an 18 year old girl still

living at home

and her family were all undocumented

immigrants from Honduras and that night

her whole family took the couches and

she slept together with her mom so that

we could take their beds and I lay there

thinking these people have so little is

this fair and in the morning her mom

taught us how to try to make tortillas

and wanted to give me a Bible and she

took me aside and she said to me and her

broken English your music I had hoped my

daughter so much thank you for staying

here we’re all so grateful and I thought

this is fair this is this a couple

months later I was in Manhattan and I

tweeted for a crash pad and at midnight

I’m ringing a doorbell on the Lower East

Side and it occurs to me I’ve never

actually done this alone I’ve always

been with my band or my crew is this

what stupid people do is this how stupid

people die and before I can change my

mind the door busts open she’s an artist

he’s a financial blogger for Reuters and

they’re pouring me a glass of red wine

and offering me a bath and I have had

thousands of nights like that and like

that

so I couch-surf a lot I also crowd-surf

a lot I maintain couchsurfing and

crowd-surfing are basically the same

thing you’re falling into the audience

and you’re trusting each other I once

asked an opening band of mine if they

wanted to go out into the crowd and pass

the Hat to get themselves some extra

money something that I did a lot and as

usual the band was psyched but there was

this one guy in the band who told me he

just couldn’t bring himself to go out

there it felt too much like begging to

stand there with the Hat and I

recognized his fear of it’s this fare

and get a job and meanwhile my band is

becoming bigger and bigger we signed

with a major label and our music is

across between Punk and cabaret it’s not

for everybody but well maybe it’s for

you we sign and our there’s all this

hype leading up to our next record and

it comes out and it sells about 25,000

copies in the first few weeks and the

label considers this failure and I was

like 25,000 isn’t that a lot they’re

like no the sales are going down it’s a

failure and they walk off right at the

same time I’m signing and hugging after

a gig and a guy comes up to me enhanced

me a $10 bill and says I’m sorry I

burned your CD from a friend

I but I read your blog I know you hate

your label I just want you to have this

money and this starts happening all the

time

I become the Hat after my own gigs but I

have to physically stand there and take

the help from people and unlike the guy

in the opening band I’ve actually had a

lot of practice standing there thank you

and this is the moment I decide I’m just

gonna give away my music for free online

whenever possible so it’s like Metallica

over here Napster bad Amanda Palmer over

here and I’m gonna encourage torrenting

downloading sharing but I’m gonna ask

for help because I saw work on the

street so I fought my way off my label

and for my next projects with my new

band the grand theft Orchestra

I turned to crowdfunding and I fell into

those thousands of connections that I’d

made and I asked my crowd to catch me

and the goal was $100,000 my fans back

to me at nearly 1.2 million which was

the biggest music crowdfunding project

today

and you can see how many people it is

it’s about 25,000 people and the media

asked Amanda the music business is

tanking and you encourage piracy how did

you make all these people pay for music

and the real answer is I didn’t make

them I asked them and through the very

act of asking people I’d connected with

them and when you connect with them

people want to help you it’s kind of

counterintuitive for a lot of artists

they don’t want to ask for things but

it’s not it’s not easy it’s not easy to

ask and a lot of artists have a problem

with this asking makes you vulnerable

and I got a lot of criticism online

after my Kickstarter win big for

continuing my crazy crowdsourcing

practices specifically for asking

musicians who are fans if they wanted to

join us on stage for a few songs in

exchange for love and tickets and beer

and this was a doctored image that went

up of me on a website and this hurt in a

really familiar way people saying you’re

not allowed anymore to ask for that kind

of help really reminded me of the people

in their cars yelling get a job because

they weren’t with us on the sidewalk and

they couldn’t see the exchange that was

happening between me and my crowd an

exchange that was very fair to us but

alien to them this is slightly

not-safe-for-work this is my Kickstarter

backer party in Berlin at the end of the

night I stripped and let everyone draw

on me now let me tell you if you want to

experience the visceral feeling of

trusting strangers

I recommend this especially if those

strangers are drunk German people this

was a ninja master level fan connection

because what I was really saying here

was I trust you this much should I show

me for most of human history musicians

artists they’ve been part of the

community connectors and and openers not

untouchable stars celebrity is about a

lot of people loving you from a distance

but the Internet and the content that

we’re freely able to share on it or

taking us back it’s about a few people

loving you up close and about those

people being enough so a lot of people

are confused by the idea of no hard

sticker price they see it as an

unpredictable risk but the things I’ve

done the Kickstarter the street the

doorbell I don’t see these things as

risk I see them as trust now the online

tools to make the exchange as easy and

as instinctive as the street they’re

getting there but the perfect tools

aren’t gonna help us if we can’t face

each other and give and receive

fearlessly but more important to ask

without shame my music career has been

spent trying to encounter people on the

Internet the way I could on the box so

blogging and tweeting not just about my

tour dates and my new video but about

our work and our art and our fears our

hangovers our mistakes and we see each

other and I think when we really see

each other we want to help each other I

think people have been obsessed with the

wrong question which is how do we make

people pay for music what if we started

asking how do we let people pay for

music

thank you