Making an artist or band bio is an important aspect of promoting your music.
A bio gives your audience a glimpse into the kind of music you make and how far you’ve come in your music career.
Artist bios should be written in a way that it’s consistent with your branding strategy.
What’s important is that it tells a compelling, honest story without sounding like you’re bragging.
Artist bios come in a number of lengths, styles and configurations.
You can also employ different approaches when writing your bio.
One approach involves combining a bio with a press release into a uni-document, which reads like a press release but also contains information about your background and accomplishments as an artist.
Before writing your bio, it would be a good idea to draft a piece containing the fundamentals.
This master document would serve as your basis for creating different kinds of bios for different purposes.
What your bio should have
The key elements of an artist or band bio are the following:
Who you are
Introduce yourself. Include your name, and your real name if you’re currently using a stage name, or your band name.
Say where you’re from and who your musical influences are.
It’s also a good idea to describe what you sound like.
If people can only read your bio without hearing your music, how would you describe your music style to them?
What you are currently doing
So what are you working on right now?
Are you looking to release a new track or working on an album?
Do you have a regular gig schedule?
When you’re writing your bio, don’t forget to give an update about what’s going on with your career.
It would make people know you’re actively working as a professional musician.
Some background information
It’s interesting to read about when a guitarist first started playing acoustic guitar, but a year-by-year account of your musical history probably won’t go over well with some readers.
Make drafts of your backstory and have friends read it to see which version tells an interesting story without sounding too much like you’re aiming for a lifetime achievement award.
The highlights of your career so far
Make a list of the minor and major accomplishments you’ve had since you started going pro.
Some of the things you can include are collaborations with an established artist or brand, awards, topping radio charts, nominations and so on.
Make sure you don’t leave anything out.
Once you’re done, make another list – a shorter one – this time choosing only the accomplishments you’d like to highlight.
Every time something significant occurs – like releasing a new single – add this to your master bio and update your website bio with the information.
What other people have said about your music
We’re talking about people from the industry, such as a music journalist or another artist.
If you have media quotes, preferably those that can be verified, include them in your bio.
Choose one or two that help describe your sound and remark about your potential as a bankable artist or band.
If you’re just starting out and you haven’t been written about yet, that’s okay, just leave it out of your bio.
As you progress in your career the quotes will come, and you can update your master document with them.
Different kinds of bios to make
As we’ve mentioned, there are different kinds of artist/band bios for different purposes.
There’s the uni-document, which should be in every press kit you give out and on your website.
From your master bio you can create a long version, which you can keep handy if music journalists or bloggers want to know more about you and your achievements.
You can also create a short one-paragraph bio, which you can use for social media posts, radio plugs and so on.
With a master bio on hand, you can then create other bios you can use depending on purpose.
This makes the task of writing different bios a whole lot easier. Good luck!
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