This post got its creative start from talking with a friend, who is a fan of the band Celtic Thunder. These guys are gearing up for a US tour this fall. Part of this has involved a lot of public appearances, with PBS, and maintaining a really active forum. I’m deliberately not linking the forum to avoid more issues. Anyways, these guys all have myspace pages and the like. Recently, a fan of theirs got in to the myspace page of one of the guys friends and pulled down pictures of one of the band members with his girl friend and with some relatives. And then posted those pictures for others to see. This set me to thinking about privacy and how little you sometimes have when performing. As a band member, you want to maximize your privacy without offending your fans.

In the years that I’ve been performing I’ve learned that when people see you on stage they automatically think they know you. In the last year and a half I’ve started playing, semi-regularly, with a group of girls, and our darling guitarist who’s male. After our most recent performance I went to the grocery store in the town we were performing in and got stopped by a guy who wanted to tell me how much he enjoyed our music. I was flattered. But it also made me realize how quickly getting recognized and approached could get old. Even bothersome. The catch-22 is that, especially as a folk musician, you don’t want to alienate the people who like your music by being unapproachable. You have to hang out with fans after shows (this really doesn’t apply to me, my band is not at all well-known), and these days, you have to run websites and pages on all of the popular internet sites.

But how much is too much? Where do you draw the line? I’m friends with multiple bands and individual band members on both myspace and facebook. One of the guys, probably the smartest one, has his entire friends list hidden on myspace. If you can’t see it, then you can’t access their friends pages. This helps the friends and family of band members maintain their privacy. It’s a good rule of thumb when dealing with the internet. It follows the adage of not posting anything you wouldn’t want anyone to see. Or everyone. If the information is unavailable then, well, it can’t be used/exploited.

After that, it comes down to restricting the information. But, in a day and age where anyone can google and find photos and way too much personal information, one should always assume that anything posted on the internet can be found by other people. Period. So, if it’s really private, keep it off-line. That’s the safest way to go.

But, there are far more fans out there then band members. To the fans I say this: respect their privacy. It only takes one person to ruin the fun for everyone. In the case of the Celtic Thunder issue, it wasn’t all the fans, it was one. One person who has now made some of the band members question their participation in the forum. So don’t do it. Yes, these guys are public figures, but that doesn’t mean you should be trying to nose in on every part of their lives. There are lines for a reason, don’t cross them.

Another thing to remember is that, just because they talk to you online or after shows, doesn’t mean that you’re “real” friends. Musician’s hang out with fans. That’s the way the business works. Yeah, in the smaller world of Irish and Traditional American Folk music the musicians may learn your name, recognize you on sight, friend you on the internet, etc. But that doesn’t mean that you are really their friend. They still have lives that you know nothing about. Lives that you don’t have the right to know anything about. They may be your friends, but really, it’s more like acquaintances.

Above all, for everyone, it’s best to treat each other the way you would want to be treated, and yes, I just threw the golden rule out there. Seriously, though, I know I wouldn’t want someone searching for pics of me on my family members webpages and then posting them on a forum for the world to see. Especially when it involves kids. It’s just something to think about. Privacy is a big deal. Everyone deserves to have some modicum of privacy. Even musicians.

~The Countess~