You know the song. It begins with a shiny burst of guitar and settles into a piano groove… and then, in an homage to a video Michel Gondry once did for Kylie Minogue, the pretty girl grabs a bag of candy and multiplies. The track is “Rollercoaster” by Major Maker and while it’s currently exploding across various radio formats, you may know it best as that song from the Maynard’s candy commercial.

That might not be entirely fair. This is what you need to know about Major Maker: Todor Kobakov is a well-known songwriter and keyboard player who works with everyone from Stars to Emily Haines while scoring films such as the TIFF ’07 hit Young People Fucking. Lindy Vopnfjord is better known as just “Lindy,” as that’s the name under which he has already released three solo albums. Together, the pair wrangled several other musicians to round out the live band and had already released a full-length album before the candy craze propelled their current EP People Carriers.

In the increasingly well-worn path from independent struggle to wide exposure, Major Maker has built an audience on the back of this candy ad, plus the track “Talk To You,” which they licensed to Telus. Does this mean that going the commercial route has become more of a two-way street?
 “It’s a good way to get the music out,” Vopnfjord says. “When people really started loving [‘Rollercoaster’], it created this craze on the internet, [with people] trying to find out who it was. We were quiet about it on the advice of our excellent manager, who wanted to see how far this could build. It took on a life of its own.”

The manager Vopnfjord praises so highly is Daniel Cutler. Cutler currently runs Runaway Music, a music-publishing company, and is Major Maker’s secret weapon. Because it’s his job to pitch songs to advertisers and music supervisors in film and TV, having him as their manager is a one-two punch that has paid off for Major Maker.

 “Basically, I think that because of the monopoly that major record labels have, it’s difficult to get exposure out there and this certainly helped us a lot,” says Kobakov.

 “People know the difference between the product and the song in the commercial,” adds Vopnfjord.

It’s a well-known fact that bands, especially independents, have fewer traditional outlets for airtime, while emerging avenues are being navigated to varying degrees of success. The marriage between musicians and marketers is nothing new. In 1984, Michael Jackson had his hair singed in a pyro accident during the filming of a Pepsi ad that earned him millions (as well as a trip to the hospital). The major difference now? You don’t put famous music in ads — the ads make your music famous.
Things have continued to evolve since Moby became the first artist to license all the tracks from an album (1999’s Play) for commercial purposes, or since Nick Drake shot to posthumous fame through a Volkswagen commercial in 2000, selling more albums in a month than he ever did during his lifetime. Feist’s song “1, 2, 3, 4” went through the roof this year via an iPod Nano ad, which was parlayed into an incredible four Grammy nominations. CSS, a Brazilian baile-funk export signed to Sub Pop, barely sold any albums until their song “Music is My Hot, Hot Sex” was used in an iPod commercial more than a year after the album began collecting dust. The single is currently in the Top 10 downloads in the iTunes store, prompting CSS to embark on a new tour.

Major Maker themselves are in the midst of playing gigs for their newly expanded audience.

 “We just did a couple of shows with Apostle of Hustle.  People came to buy the CD and assumed that this EP is all we have, but six months ago we released an album,” Kobakov explains. “Luckily for us, people ended up buying both.

 “Of course there’s momentum,” he says, “and there will continue to be, hopefully.”