Write Your Artist Bio in 6 Sentences

A quick, painless, fool-proof method for writing your artist bio.

Hi Friends, I’m so excited for this post today! Below I’ll detail exactly how to write your very own extremely effective artist bio in just six sentences. This bio will be perfect for press releases, artist profiles, and any other application you can imagine.

For those who might need a little more help, I’m hosting a live two hour bio-writing workshop on November 2nd! We’ll work together through the steps outlined below, and you’ll get hands-on support and live feedback from yours truly.

Space is limited, so sign up while you can!

Six Sentences? But What About My Brand?

Effective brands that make a big impression are communicated through clarity and simplicity.

If you can’t communicate what fans get out your music in just six sentences, you’ve got a big problem. One you can start solving right away with this exercise.

But please believe me, as someone who has worked on this side of music for a very long time: nobody in the entire world needs to read multiple paragraphs, or even sentences of your flowery writing about angular guitars or whatever else.

Types of Bios

Developing artists basically need two bios.

Bio One

This bio explains who the artist is and what they do. You’ll need this for your artist profile page on a streaming service or maybe for a venue’s event page.

Bio Two

This one is release-specific. It’s sent out to media outlets like online publications, newspapers, and radio in support of whatever new music you’re submitting for coverage consideration.

Today you’ll learn how to write both. At the same time. In six sentences. Total.

Bio Format

Bio One needs to be about a paragraph long. Three sentences. I’m sure you’ve seen 20-paragraph artist bios. If you haven’t sold more than 300 records, I promise that you only need one.

Bio Two needs to be two paragraphs long. And good news, once you write bio one, you’ll be halfway done! The first paragraph will be about who the artist is (see Bio One) and the second one will be about the release.

Each paragraph only needs to be about three sentences long.

Wait, you may be thinking. I have way more than three sentences to say about my new record. And of course you do.

But the purpose of your bio is to help people who haven’t heard of you contextualize your music and know what to listen for. It establishes a jumping off point for potential fans and music writers to engage with your music. Providing a short, fact-heavy bio makes getting to know you and your music easy.

Bio One

Here’s basically what you need to include

1. Who you are

2. What your music is

3. The context of your music

Seriously. That’s it. So let’s break these down in some more detail.

At the end of each sentence section, I’ll write my own artist bio so you can get a sense of how basic this can really be.

Sentence 1: Who You Are

Begin with some stuff about who you are. This is always the hardest, which is good because we get it out of the way early. There are things about you that set you apart from other people. These can include the following:

• creative point of view

• cultural background

• identity

As you go about creating this first sentence about yourself, consider the significance of the facts you’re sharing.

Every fact should either paint you as a reliable source for the kind of music you’re making or a novel source for the kind of music you’re making.

Novel Source Example

If you’re Lil Nas X, a queer black artist making pop country, you’ll likely tell a story portraying yourself as a novel source for the kind of music you make. Your bio will entice readers with the promise of an artist unlike one they’ve ever heard.

Reliable Source Example

If you’re Liquid Mike, a midwestern mailman making white guy pavement rock, you can tell a story where you signal to fans of a the genre that you’re probably gonna be a safe bet for some slacker guitar rock that doesn’t take itself too seriously. You fit the expected persona for the kind of person we’d imagine would make records like that.

My Sentence One

Cassidy Frost (they/them) is a songwriter and producer living in San Francisco.

I guess this seems more reliable-leaning because I’m nonbinary and live in San Francisco? I guess? I didn’t do that good of a job. And you don’t have to either for this to be good, I promise.

See? Pretty painless.

Sentence Two: What Your Music Is

What does your music sound like? What is it about?

Can you imagine more agonizing questions?

Fortunately, for the purposes of bio-writing, we’re only trying to get people in the ballpark of what your music sounds like. Do you have a distinctive voice? A radical message? You only have one sentence you need to get through with this one so just write down something clunky. I promise it’ll be fine.

My Sentence Two

They use simplistic hooks and low-fi recording techniques to make very, very sad pop songs.

Sentence Three: The Context Of Your Music

This is your opportunity to brag. Do you put on amazing chaotic live shows? Does the local press love your band? Are you part of a thriving local scene in your subgenera? What are you reviving? What are you building?

My Sentence Three

Previous efforts include co-fronting Portland slow-fi duo bed., an NPR All Songs Considered favorite, hailed as “gloriously gritty”. This their first solo project.

(A better writer could have made this into one sentence, but you don’t need to be a good writer to write an effective bio!)

And just like that, we’re half way done!

So here’s my short artist bio:

Cassidy Frost (they/them) is a singer-songwriter and producer living in San Francisco. They use simplistic hooks and low-fi recording techniques to make very, very sad pop songs. Previous efforts include co-fronting Portland slow-fi duo bed., an NPR All Songs Considered favorite, hailed as “gloriously gritty”. This is their first solo project.

Bio Two

So remember, your release bio, or Bio Two is just bio one with the addition of a second release-specific paragraph.

Here are the three sentences we need for your release-specific paragraph.

4. What is the release?

5. How/with who was it made?

6. What is it about?

Sentence 4: What Is The Release?

This is where you can say what the release is. Is it your first single? Your fifth full-length record this year? A live compilation? A greatest hits record? Introduce the record and say what it is along with any label affiliation. Look how easy this can be.

My Sentence Four

Live In Private LP is Frost’s debut solo album, available Dec 2024 via cassette on Seattle’s Puzz Records.

Sentence 5: How/With Who Was It Made?

How was it recorded? Who was it recorded with? What style of recording was used? Where was it recorded? And how do these things shape the feel and sound of the record?

My Sentence Five

Each song in this collection was recorded live in one take, the very first time each song was played through in full.

So I could talk about this all day. About the magic of capturing songs as the very lyrics are coming into shape. I am dying for someone to ask me about this. But for the purposes of this bio, leaving this fact unembellished opens the door for someone (hopefully a music writer!) to ask me about it!

Sentence 6: What is it about?

So what is your music about? Just when you thought we were out of the woods, another excruciating question!

And while your entire repertoire of songs might have varied topics, we’re going to zoom in and focus on just this one release, which hopefully will make things a little easier. If you’re writing a bio for a single release, that should make it a lot easier!

This one was easy for me because all of my songs are about heartbreak.

But if you’re writing about an album and the songs are about different things, try to find a lens through which you can unify them. Are they songs you wrote about people you knew? Songs inspired by the passing of your brother? Songs that are secrets you couldn’t share any other way?

My Sentence Six

These songs were all written on cold nights for lost loves.

And just like that - my bio is finished!

My Finished Product

Cassidy Frost (they/them) is a singer-songwriter and producer living in San Francisco. They use simplistic hooks and low-fi recording techniques to make very, very sad pop songs. Previous efforts include co-fronting Portland slow-fi duo bed., an NPR All Songs Considered favorite, hailed as “gloriously gritty”. This is their first solo project.

Live In Private LP is Frost’s debut solo album, available Dec 2024 via cassette on Seattle’s Puzz Records. Each song in this collection was recorded live in one take, the very first time each song was played through in full. These songs were all written on cold nights for lost loves.

It’s densely packed with useful information and it provides the just right amount of facts to be interesting to someone who likes this kind of music.

How Do You Know It’s Good?

The thing is, your bio doesn’t have to be that good. It has to be clear and give people a strong sense of who you are and what you’re doing.

But here’s a helpful sniff test I’d like to offer:

Many music publications will basically copy/paste your bio. Imagine seeing a write-up for your music on a blog and reading your bio. Yes, that might be a little disappointing, but it also happens all the time and readers definitely won’t know the difference.

Basically the sniff test is this. Imagine different people reading your bio in a music blog. Imagine your dream label head reading it. Does that feel ok? Then it’s probably good to go. If not, feel free to continue adjusting. Adjust all you like until it feels right!

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Please comment below if you used these guidelines to write your bio - I’d love, love, love to read them! I’d also appreciate so much if you shared this article with your bandmates and music besties.

I’m very excited for the Six Sentence Artist Bio workshop coming up in a little less than two weeks! I’ve got all kinds of cool activities planned to help get you in the zone of making a truly amazing and concise artist bio.

Sending you all love and may you find every single one of your missing guitar picks,

Cass