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Music as a Job or Lifestyle

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StaedlerMars:
Our Band Could Be Your Life

Kai:
Most of my favorite bands have, on the large scale, held working jobs throughout their musical career. Whether or not there's a correlation here is up for debate, but I'd be willing to argue that monetary incentive can very easily corrupt a good artist. When you're pressuring yourself to make a living off of the music that you create, whether it be consciously or subconsciously, that is going to come out into the music. You're no longer creating just for yourself--you are indirectly thinking about the listener, about what the listener might want, and catering to it. This is where I find the argument just kind of splits off. Is it better to have the artist create something for you to enjoy, or to write solely for themselves, listener be damned? I fall into the latter perspective myself, but to each their own.

That being said, it can be done. Emilio mentioned Shellac, which is a stellar example in this case. I deeply enjoy Shellac's music, and At Action Park  is one of my favorite albums. All of the members, so far as I remember, anyway, have a day job in addition to writing music. Steve Albini runs/records electrical audio (I believe Todd works in a factory or bartends or something). That's their primary source of income. BUT they're (well, two of them, anyway) are still making a living through music. Just, not, you know. There own.

Anyway. Brief return. Back to my forum-lurk-cave for disgruntled bastards.

Zingoleb:

--- Quote from: Bastardous Bassist on 13 Sep 2009, 16:24 ---Networking is key

--- End quote ---

If you take away one thing from this thread it is these three words.

WriterofAllWrongs:
Oh!  I just joined a Scottish pipe band as a tenor drummer, actually, and the pipe leader actually supports himself and his wife solely through his line of work.  He's played in a few bands over the years and has enjoyed a pretty nice amount of success.  He has a modestly sized, but endlessly classy house in a city outside of Birmingham, and is actually the only man in his line of work in all of Alabama.  I mean, I guess you don't see a lot of bagpipers in America, much less Alabama, but he is really well-off because of his line of work.  I think his wife may give belly dancing lessons to help out, but that only contributes a bit.  So yeah, it's pretty possible to achieve moderate financial success by only playing music and still have cash left over for a house.

a pack of wolves:

--- Quote from: Koremora on 13 Sep 2009, 15:39 ---I've never really heard specific stories about how bands or musicians fit recording albums, touring, etc. into a full-time job schedule and raising a family.

--- End quote ---

If you're a DIY band in the UK it isn't that bad (I know absolutely nothing about non-DIY bands but a fair bit about DIY ones, so all of this will be about them). A band can drive to a gig pretty much anywhere in the country from anywhere else in a day, so it's easy to do a gig where you like on a weekend so long as you don't mind crashing on somebody's floor (at least as far as logistics is concerned). For most cities there will be quite a few places you can play and get from in a night so you can still play some out of town midweek gigs and hold down a nine-to-five job.

Cost can be very problematic though. Being in a DIY band is in almost all cases a net monetary loss. You'll spend more on van hire, petrol costs etc playing gigs than you will, on average, get back so you need a good enough income from elsewhere to handle that or you end up either playing very few gigs or just playing in your home town. The same goes for releasing records, tons of DIY labels go under because they can't afford to keep losing money anymore. Networking comes in here too, someone who puts on gigs in their home and plays regularly will have a much easier time getting gigs than someone who only has time to play once in a blue moon since nobody will know them.

Touring can be tricky as well. Sometimes if you can't get holiday time from your job you have to decide between the job and going on tour (which is how I lost my last job), but most bands just tour when people can book time off and accept the limitations of that. Some people deliberately choose jobs with long holiday periods (like those in education) in order to facilitate touring or just go on the dole.

Kids seem to be one of the biggest problems. Loads of DIY bands seem to go under when one member has a kid since it almost inevitably means a serious cut in the amount of time that can be spent on the band. This isn't always the case though, others just adapt to not being as active a band as they perhaps once were. Basically it all boils down to prioritising your time and money to make sure there's enough there to still make music and play gigs, and occasionally pulling a sickie so you can go play to ten people in Dundee.

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