Chrissy Costanza: How social media has levelled the playing field for musicians to “take back the power and not have to sign your whole life away”

This week, Against The Current vocalist Chrissy Costanza joined us on the Kerrang! In Conversation podcast, powered by KILLSTAR, to discuss everything from her new record to her love of video games, as well as her thoughts on social media.

Having posted make-up tutorials on YouTube herself more than 10 years ago, and used the platform's massive reach to establish ATC as a band in the very early days, Chrissy has first-hand experience and knowledge of just how vital content creation and social media is for new acts trying to find a fanbase. And will vehemently defend any artist doing so.

Check out Chrissy's full impassioned response to the idea of how artists of all sizes now need to have a social content strategy as part of their daily routine, and why apps like TikTok have completely revolutionised what it means for a band to break…

“We couldn’t tour when we were 15 because our parents said, ‘No, you need to finish school,’ which I thought was bullshit but they were probably right, so we started doing cover videos on YouTube while we were releasing original songs. Those covers got us a lot of traction and made us a lot of fans around the world, so when we started touring we were actually headlining globally – which was awesome. That was not how most bands did it then and we got a lot of hate from it within the music community. A lot of people would tell us, even within our label, like, ‘You’re not a real band, you’re just an online band,’ and we’re like, ‘Okay, but our tour sold out and people are showing up to the shows.’

“[People would say], ‘You’re not an online band, you didn’t earn it, you didn’t sleep in a parking lot in a van,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, why would I want to do that? Why do I have to do that to be a legitimate musician? What does that have to do with music?’ If that’s how your band came up, that’s a cool backstory, but it doesn’t mean everyone has to follow that same path. So I look at the whole TikTok and content creation thing with that kind of perspective. When I see people pushing their music and really going for it and building a fanbase on social media and stuff, and I see other artists hate on them I’m like, ‘Shut the fuck up!’

“No-one’s spending marketing dollars these days unless you’re a massive artist, so how are you supposed to get out and make fans? The internet is your greatest tool and it’s free for you to do. You have a phone already. I think it sucks that labels are like, ‘You have to [do it] or we won’t do anything for you.’ That sucks because they know they have no power to do their jobs anymore, apparently. They don’t know what to do. TikTok is one of those things where you can’t just run an ad on it, you have to be making the content, so your label can’t just do a marketing campaign for you anymore. You have to be starring in your content. But to me, the content creation part of it is what’s empowered and lowered the barrier to entry for artists more than ever. You can get to millions of people – you don’t have to buy radio time, you don’t have to buy advertisements, you don’t have to do any of that. You can work really hard on your content strategy and reach millions of people on your own without any help.

“I’ve seen independent artists who started in their bedroom playing guitar and posting on TikTok, and because they’re just fucking talented it blows up and then they get to do their career on their terms, whereas a lot of us sold our souls to labels early on for 360 deals because it was just the way you did things. I think TikTok, YouTube and content in general is the biggest thing that can help an independent or new artist – you can do so much of this on your own and take back so much of the power and not have to sign your whole life away.

“So whenever anyone shits on it I’m like, ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Just because you don’t want to do it, that’s cool, but don’t take away from someone else because it’s so powerful and it gives them so much autonomy over their own career and life. They get to directly talk to their fans, they could make money doing social promos and fund their own music, they don’t have to sign away their masters for 20 fuckin’ years to an entity. It’s the greatest thing that could happen for musicians – just being able to be autonomous.”

Listen to the full episode of Kerrang! In Conversation now.