In 1973, Orleans’ released 2 of the most classic pop hits of all time, ‘Still The One’ and ‘Dance With Me’, along with numerous other top ten hits. The band is now in it’s 38th year together, anchored by original members and brothers, Lance and Larry Hoppen (the ‘radio voice’)!

In addition to performing worldwide by themselves, Orleans is the foundation of an amazing multi-artist concert experience called Rock and Pop Masters (www.rockandpopmasters.com). In this show, Orleans performs their hits, and also serves as the backup band for many of the lead singers and musicians of other classic rock bands. For example, when I saw them perform, they also had Jimi Jameson of Survivor (‘Eye of the Tiger’,’ High On You’, ‘The Search Is Over’), Joe Bouchard of Blue Oyster Cult (‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’), Tommy Tutone (’867-5309′), John Cafferty of the Beaver Brown Band (‘On The Dark Side’,’ Tender Years’) and 3-4 other megastars of the 70s and 80s! Each concert is different because the roster is different, but it is guaranteed to be nothing but hits with the original hitmakers!

When Indie Connect first formed, Lance Hoppen became an ardent supporter, attending meeting after meeting. It never dawned on me that someone with such a stellar track record would hunger for and benefit from the brainstorming, networking and comaraderie that have become the hallmark of Indie Connect meetings.

I recently talked to Lance about his career, the evolution of the band and what he’s doing now.

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IC: What do you consider the secret to your longevity?

Lance: Hmmm …. There are probably quite a few components of why we’re still around. For one thing, my brother Larry and I are two of the original four band members. It’s he and I who have carried the torch through the various ups and downs while others have come and gone. We not only have a long-term musical/professional relationship, but we’re family. That probably has something to do with it.

Beyond that, it’s a mixture of simple perseverance and an acquired appreciation for the value of Orleans itself as an entity. Sure, we all have side careers, but none of us can do in the marketplace single-handedly what Orleans as a unit can. So, we recognize where our bread is buttered and do our best to keep it alive so it can keep us alive.

We also recognize that we’re blessed to have had a couple of hits that have had incredible staying power. Largely because of that, we get to work at all, let alone as much as we do. And because we get to work, we are able to serve our audience with our best continuing efforts. As long as there are fans that enjoy what we do, we’ll continue to do it. Like our tagline says, “We’re Still Havin’ Fun”. When we stop having fun, we’ll stop doing this.

IC: What have been your biggest challenges? For example, does having such big hits mean that you’ve got more gigs now that you could ever handle?

Lance: LOL! Hardly. Now, had we not broken up in ’77 … had we stayed together back then long enough to have a few MORE hits before our first break up (there have been several), then we might be able to still do 100+ dates a year like our contemporaries Little River Band or America. But, in fact, we have to collectively beat the bushes to come up with the 30-40 dates we do in a year. We’d like to be doing twice that if we could. So I guess one of our biggest challenges is pretty much everyone’s biggest challenge — to expand our business; to be noticed more by the talent buyers, the promoters and the general public alike; to generate more revenue.

Perhaps our biggest challenge is time usage. Being a small company, so to speak, everyone on our team is tasked with more to do than they can get done. We wear several hats each, including some we’d rather not have to wear. For example: while I’d rather just play, sing, write, and produce music as my job description, I also have to be a webmaster and Internet Marketer, as well as play a major role in our mastermind management team of Larry, our partner/business manager Andy Broady, our in-house agent Barry McCloud, and me. If Larry and I each don’t do those other things we’re tasked to do, they just won’t get done. And that can greatly cut into the time and mental energy we have available for being creative artists.

IC: What did you lose and what did you gain by not being with a major label any more?

Lance: First of all, we haven’t been with a major label since the mid-80s, when we did an album for MCA Nashville. Since our 1990 Orleans Live double CD, all our projects have been on small Indie labels, here and in Japan. We’ve kept or acquired the rights to all of our albums from 1990 on and now we do licensing deals with several Indie labels for distribution. Among those are FridayMusic.com (three CDs and Orleans’ “We’re Still Havin’ Fun” DVD), Spectra Records (ringtones, RPM’s “One Night in Weston” DVD), Living Legends Music (our new historical DVD), Fuel Records (“75 Live Harvard Square” CD), etc. We even cut a deal with SONY for the “We’re Still Havin’ Fun” CD. We also sell some out-of-print CD music as downloads from our own site.

So, what we’ve gained is a great deal of control, flexibility and autonomy about what is out in the marketplace. Thankfully, we’ve been approached by these labels with their interest in doing these deals. They supply the distribution channels and the staff to make it happen. The advances are relatively small but welcome, and we’re grateful for all of the royalty opportunities. Together, these licenses constitute our modern day income streams, along with the twice-annual statement from Warner Music Group for the original catalog and an occasional Still the One commercial usage.

What we lost mostly was the source of major funding for recording and marketing. If we had the kind of bankroll the majors have (or used to have) to spend on us, I’m sure we would be making a new album collection this year. Without major funding, we’re limited as to how much time we can spend in the studio and how much promotion we can afford.

IC: What are you doing to market the band and RPM? How much does the age of your fan base affect your marketing plan?

Lance: As I mentioned, we have an in-house agent in industry-veteran Barry McCloud. His sole job is to create buzz and get gigs of all natures for Orleans and RPM, and he does so by proactively marketing. Barry has compiled a database of talent buyers, promoters, event planners … anyone and everyone who books live events, TV, etc. He relentlessly emails these 7500+ decision makers to make and keep them aware of us. He is on the computer and the phone every day, connecting and developing relationships that can and do lead to gigs for us. That’s the core of our business.

His best weapons are the websites at www.OrleansOnline.com and http://www.rockandpopmasters.com/ , where he refers potential clients. The video collages at each site are the key initial selling tools. In just a few minutes, a buyer can see and hear what it is they might be contracting.

Beyond that, we maintain relationships with our fan base through the use of email newsletters and our blogs, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, iLike, etc. While Larry and I tend to write all of content for the newsletters and blogs, we have a fan (Steve Eberly) who maintains the Social Media sites on a regular basis. We might pop in from time to time, but Steve stays on top of it all for us … posting videos and gig listings, running contests and promotions, answering generic fan mail or comments and forwarding more personal stuff to us for our responses.

We have, from time to time, engaged professional PR firms to generate publicity out in the world. But that can be very expensive and it’s often hard to quantify any specific ROI (return on investment) for those dollars spent. So we tend not to be able to utilize that kind of resource very much. However, we do take advantage of every opportunity for FREE publicity and promotion … such as doing radio interviews before a gig in a given town, or even answering these questions as a cover article for Indie Connect!

As regards the age of our fan base — While the music of Orleans and RPM has wide appeal, it doesn’t make much sense for us to market to the modern MTV crowd, for example. We try to go where our fans are. Obviously, the average fan tends to be a Baby Boomer. As such, he/she is more likely to use FaceBook than MySpace, might be on Twitter, listens to the radio …

IC: Besides being Orleans’ bass player, you’ve taken on a few other roles in the organization. Can you tell us what other roles you have either volunteered for or inherited?

Lance: As I mentioned, I am tasked as Webmaster … not because I’m great at it, but because I know a lot more about it than anyone else on the team. Actually, I built and maintain the OrleansOnline site myself. It’s on a template structure, so it’s mostly point and click stuff. Not so hard once you know how to do it, but daunting if you don’t have someone to help you get started. And there are some tech issues that require a modest amount of knowledge of HTML code. Believe me, I’ve picked the time and brains of several mentors along the way to be able to do what I do, such as it is.

I did not build the architecture of the new RockAndPopMasters.com site, but I did have a strong hand in the design and content. I’m the liaison with the programming staff and it’s my job to keep the content current and to make sure everything stays working on the site, through them.

I also issue an occasional eNewsletter for Orleans, keeping the email list members up to speed with what’s been going on and what’s coming up. I used to spend LOTS of time building web pages and sending emails, but I have to admit that I’ve been pretty lax in that department lately. As I said, there is only so much time to spend on everything that needs doing and, thankfully, I have been spending a lot more time writing and in the studio lately than I have in many years. Fortunately, we have our fan Steve Eberly who graciously donates his time to manage our Social Media sites.

And, although I was at one time our Road Manager (a LONG time ago), we also have two great production guys (Mike Malfesi and Marc Lewis) who handle all of that for us. Oh … and a KILLER travel agent (Claudette D’Arrigo)! See how many people it takes to keep this ship afloat?

IC: Is working with Orleans your full time job, or do you do other things?

Lance: Well, it’s “full time” in that it constitutes a large portion of my annual income and because I am part owner of this nearly 40-year old “brand”, but not in that it takes all of my time. Yes, between Orleans and RPM, I spend a LOT of time, doing gigs and tending to websites, eMarketing and career planning. But it’s not really “full time” as in “40-hour week.”

Over the course of the last four decades, there have been times of plenty and times of not much; times of Orleans tours that lasted for weeks or months and times of no Orleans gigs for a few years. In those down times, I sometimes got to work with and for other artists. I was brought to Nashville in ’89 by my good friends, Kathie Baillie and Michael Bonagura, to be a part of the then-hot Country group “Baillie & the Boys”. After a couple of years with them, I became bandleader for Suzy Bogguss for two years. In ‘99/2000 I was on the road with Andy Griggs, and I’ve done short stints with many other Nashville artists. Sometimes I even get some bass and/or vocal session work, but that doesn’t happen too often.

But I also took many different jobs along the way to support myself and my family (my daughters are now 16 and 20). I’ve done construction, temp work, even had a career in direct sales for several years. I also dabbled in various Internet businesses. But, thankfully, I haven’t had to do ANY of these last things for many years now.

These days I am, once and again and gratefully, a full-time musician. I not only do my Orleans and RPM gigs, I play around town with as many of my friends and peers as I can. Sometimes I even get paid! I do the occasional session. I write and co-write songs and, although I haven’t really written a lot over my career, the rate at which I write new songs has quickened a lot recently. Right now, I am at the tail end of producing 17 tracks for a friend of mine … and maybe “Producer” is the thing I most want to be when I grow up. I think I am happiest in that role, getting to utilize ALL of my skills as player, session leader, singer, co-writer, arranger … all at once. It’s like Heaven to me!

IC: Do you have any advice for up and coming artists who are trying to ‘make it’?

Lance: Geez! The first thing I would have to say is this: If you don’t absolutely HAVE to do this … become a professional musician and/or writer … DON’T do it! There are LOTS of way easier career paths to choose. But, if your heart and soul call out to you and demand to be expressed in this medium then, by all means, do it with ALL of your heart and soul. It’s likely going to take that much if you are to succeed. With rare exceptions, there are LOTS of guys and gals who are more gifted and better looking than you are BUT, if you are willing to go the distance, commit to the long-haul, learn what you need to learn and then put it into practice, do whatever is required of you … if you’re patient, perseverant and simply refuse to quit, you may very well succeed. But there are no guarantees at all. So either “go big or go home.” I wish you the best on your journey.

IC: If you could ask the readers for one thing, what would that be?

Lance: Mmmm … I’m wondering if anyone out there knows where a guy like me could find the girl of his dreams with whom to share the rest of his life. No? Well, how about something easier then …

I’ve been observing the phenomenon of “fan-funded albums” done successfully by others and I’m wondering if anyone out there, individually or collectively, would be interested in fronting about $20,000 to cover the hard costs of Orleans making a new album. Don’t everyone holler at once, now!

IC: Why would someone at your level in the industry join Indie Connect?

Lance: My level? I’m not sure what that’s perceived to be, but the fact is that I (and we as Orleans) am an independent, working artist. Just like anyone else, I need to have support and continued education if I am to continue to succeed in this quickly and vastly changing landscape of a new world. Through Indie Connect, I have learned much and been introduced to several people who have been extremely helpful in getting me from where I was to closer to where I want to be. Specifically, Vinny Ribas has been hugely helpful in making many of these introductions.

I have had the pleasure of having Brendan Wovchko mentor me on aspects of website building and contracts with web providers. We have had Lisaann Dupont do a Social Media evaluation for Orleans and RPM, resulting in some totally inexpensive but hugely effective improvements. We were introduced to a website development firm we did not wind up hiring, but they in turn introduced us to Barry McCloud, who is now our in-house agent. Our next arranged meeting will be with Scott Welch, the owner of AirPlay Direct. ALL of these contacts and more have come as a result of my involvement with Indie Connect.

In addition to that, I would gladly pay $5 to hear my friend Rand Bishop speak for over an hour on topics like songwriting craft and how to get songs cut. Rand’s wisdom, and that of many other speakers, is archived on the Indie Connect site. I would recommend to ANYone at ANY level of this industry to become a paid member of Indie Connect. It’s been THAT useful to me and to my organization … and the small “cost” is negligible when you consider the wealth of benefits that membership brings with it.

Lance: Thanks for asking me about all of this … and thanks for reading. I hope that each of you gets at least one take-away idea that makes your journey a little easier.

Lance Hoppen

www.OrleansOnline.com

www.RockAndPopMasters.com