Last week, our Editor-at-Large, Jay Sweet, wrote about the importance of building strong communities for DIY artists. Not just large fan bases, but living, breathing, organic organisms. In other words, tribes. He wrote,

“A tribe by most definitions is a mutual care system formed by a group of people connected to each other, to a leader and to a shared belief. The importance of the tribe is really the chance of survival beyond which couldn’t be attained alone. Yes this means feeding seemingly insatiable social networking sites, creating newsletters, servicing fan clubs, etc. , but it also means something more; it means creating an environment where fans have a say in the overall agenda.”

To dig a little deeper into the fine art of tribe-building, we caught up with an OurStage artist with an impressive tribe of his own. Ari from Somersault Sunday is a young, energetic artist from Pennsylvania who’s been pounding the pavement on and offline in order to share his music with the world. You can find him almost anywhere and, wherever his music is, an ever-growing tribe of lively, adoring fans is sure to follow.

When asked about the tribe building process, Ari was humble; you can tell immediately that this hard-working guy doesn’t want to fake anything about his career. He keeps it real with a simple secret: add a bunch of people to an online network and don’t forget about them. “I try to include a personal note and respond to new fans with comments and links to my music,” he said, “I just try to talk to as many people as I can, but I want to keep things genuine.”

Ari takes advantage of all the benefits the Internet has to offer. He can reach out to his fans in one fell swoop, and he can get real, honest feedback. He recently wrote on his blog:

“I’ve been having A LOT of stress recently… For the past while I’ve been having trouble with deciding what kind of exact style I want my music to be. I find myself constantly changing my mind, and having all these song ideas that I’m scared to develop, because they’re SO different from each other. I just don’t want my music to go all over the place, and from song-to-song not even sound like the same artist, ya know?”

His fans did know and they told him as much.  In fact, they told him exactly what they thought he should do and what they wanted to hear next.  In effect, they helped decide the future for Somersault Sunday. “I was surprised that my biggest feedback is to do whatever I want and not limit myself,” Ari said, “For a while I was leaning toward more full band pop music, but I’ve decided to stick with the more electronic sound.”

All of this online contact can have its downsides though. “In a lot of cases, being able to reach out to my fans and get feedback is helpful, but at the same time I find myself worrying about what everyone else wants me to do. It can be distracting,” he added, “For a while I had trouble removing myself from my online fans. The Internet is just an easy way to talk to people. I can spend hours online talking to my fans and I don’t even realize how much time has gone by. Sometimes I can get lost in it so I try to go out and skateboard and hang out with friends to keep perspective.”

Ari also cautions that you can’t take the easy road and do everything online. “I also really try to focus on building a local fan base and make sure I connect with the people around me in person,” he explained. “I go to shows in my area with bands from similar genres and I hand out flyers.” He is quick to remember that real, face-to-face connections still mean something in the music world, and he benefits from his diligence. “People take you more seriously offline because they can see that you’re working hard. When your face to face, you can be more personable and the fans respond to that.” But, he also thinks you have to find a balance between online and offline networking. You can reach the masses online, but you’ll blend in. You’re limited by the number of people you can reach offline but you’ll stand out since it’s a slower, more genuine process.

In less than two years, Somersault Sunday has built a strong online following on a variety of Web sites including OurStage (of course!) YouTube, MySpace, Twitter and many more. If your not already a part of the tribe, check out Somersault Sunday and join the thousands of fans helping to create their sound. And current tribe members take note, Somersault Sunday is entered in the MTV VMA Best Breakout Philly channel on OurStage. Judge now to see your tribal leader make it to the finals.