Hello, this is Tak from Imari Tones, Japanese Christian rock band!
Let me explain about our fundraising campaign on IndieGoGo.
As we have already told you, we are going to join “The Extreme Tour” this year.
It’s a Christian missionary music tour in USA. We will be touring with them during August 25–September 14.
We are very much excited to be a part of it.
Since we started playing Christian rock, we have done USA tours almost every year, mostly independently. They may have been small tours, but they were certainly big things for us, as well as very important steps.
On the other hand, we have all used up our budget on those tours. Actually (and honestly), this year we have some financial backup from our home church in Japan. That’s a great blessing and that’s what made it possible for us to join this missionary tour in USA.
But still, we have to do this fundraising stuff, because we are still struggling with budget issue. We didn’t expect much. One reason was we did this kind of fundraising last year too, on Kickstarter. Doing it again was kind of heavy. Heavy for us, and also heavy for our fans. (On the other hand we know we have new fans since last year.)
So we wanted to do something different.
We didn’t make our campaign video “sentimental”.
Instead, we tried to tell you about our band and music. We tried to tell you what kind of band we are, what kind of music we play, and where we want to go. Because we knew the video would be being watched even after the campaign is over. And we decided that’s more important than the campaign itself – Trying to communicate.
As a result, our campaign video turned out to be 8 minutes long, where most campaigns make their videos within 3 or 4 minutes.
Also we made this video by all of 3 band members. Tak, Hassy and Jake.
Last year, we made our campaign video just by Tak (me). Because I was the only person who can speak English. We actually tried to make a video with 3 of us, but it didn’t work.
But this year, we decided to do it with 3 of us. Of course Hassy and Jake can’t speak English and they just remain silent in the movie. It may look weird. But we decided it’s more important to be present as a band, rather than Tak only.
Maybe we are not good at “PR”, or maybe we are getting too “modest” (in Japanese culture we are all taught to be “modest”, not to demand much), but that’s the point of this video.
You may find it interesting, if you watch and compare the campaign videos from this year and last year.
Last year on Kickstarter:
This year on IndieGoGo:
Another reason we decided to launch this fundraising campaign was “Heroes EP”.
We just released our latest album “Japan Metal Jesus” recently, but actually we are already working on new recordings. Now we are recording 4 songs. Those songs would be on our next EP, called “Heroes EP”.
We are planning to release it sometime next year, but we thought it would be exciting if we can share it with people before the official release, just after the recording is finished.
That’s why we set the $10 perk “Heroes EP”. It’s a special limited edition just after the recording completion.
We are offering other “Perks” such as signed CDs and downloads, but this $10 perk “Heroes EP” is something special for us. We recommend you to join this party with $10, because we can’t wait to share the new music we just recorded and we want to hear what you will think about those songs.
To make a long story short (and it was a long story, I know),
Please support us on our IndieGoGo campaign!!
Every small contribution counts!!
Thank you very much!
God bless you all!!
Tak / Imari Tones (Japan)