We Are The Troops is an initiative by recording engineers TheArtillery. TheArtillery consists of engineer/producer duo M. Polman and R. Nabbe.

We Are The Troops will eventually be released to the public in the form of a split CD, a collaboration between artists picked by aforementioned. The purpose of this CD is to stimulate the exposure for participating bands within the more ‘alternative’ (ie. indie, punk, hardcore, metal) genres of Dutch music in a direct way. Participating bands will be able to offer the split CD to fans and people attending their shows and thus creating exposure for all other bands listed on the CD.

Since both Marloes and Robert played in several bands, they know at first hand how acquiring shows as a band isn’t the easiest task. Since most bands have a so-called ‘comfort’ zone around where they’re situated and in where they may already have established a following for themselves, it’s hard to create such exposure for yourself as a band in different parts of the country where undoubtedly nobody has heard of your band before. Myspace used to be a big help in this process; you could send out friend requests to people living in certain areas in  a country (this can’t be done for outside-US residents however) so they could listen to your music. But since a great deal of bands have resolved to over-do this type of ‘self-marketing’, it’s more and more being labeled as spamming instead so it actually works the other way around now, which is a shame. Anyway, back to the part about band’s comfort zones.. Since most, if not all,  ‘starting’ (for lack of a better word) bands will start out by playing shows in and around the area where they’re situated, this is were the fundamental core of their following, fan-base if you will, will be. Expanding this fan-base to the rest of the country (and maybe beyond if you’re ambitious) is a long story of trying to get and play shows all over the country which essentially, is probably why you’re in a band in the first place :).

Nonetheless, to create a more lasting impression on people that do not live in or around your band’s comfort zone is hard without a lasting thing, or physical object.

From that thought the idea of this split CD was conceived. We want to create a CD which includes one song from around a dozen bands. So when one band plays a show in or around their ‘comfort’ zone (or anywhere else for that matter) and is able to offer this CD, which next to around a small dozen other bands includes one song of this one particular band, to the people attending that show in question, they will automatically create exposure for the other bands on this CD.

So hypothetically speaking, if all bands were to play a show on the same night and all are able (and they all should  be, unless they left the merch-box with split CDs at home..) to offer this CD to the people attending, apart from the exposure one band gets from playing their show, they also get in-direct exposure in the places the other bands are playing at. We know, it’s hard to wrap your mind around :P.

What makes this split CD unique is that the bands are brought together by a recording studio, rather than a record label. Also, this CD will contain one track on which all of the participating bands have cooperated which by itself it pretty cool, right?

If you have any questions regarding this project, don’t hesitate to drop us a line at info at wearetheartillery dot com.

xo,

Marloes & Robert,
TheArtillery