| 1. I am a member of the Union, yes. Benefits: some discounts on things like health insurance, gear insurance, and other benefits that they're trying to add, more over time. The main benefit: The Phonograph Recording Special Payments Fund and Secondary Markets Special Payment Fund, which are royalty paying schemes for both records and film/tv, respectively. Once a year, as you do more and more legit Union sessions, those funds pay you a check. I will say simply that mine have become sizable when I have a nicely busy year, and very happily received when they arrive every year in August or so.
2. I can't really answer this, sorry.
3. Session players typically never receive royalties, except for what I mentioned above, which is based on sales of the artist and the total amount of money in the pool, then divided by the number of musicians in the fund, or something like that. It's not really royalties, but the record companies pay into it, so it works similarly. Royalties come from record sales and songwriting, primarly, not to overstate the obvious. Studio work pays more than live, no matter how you slice it, unless you're playing for Michael Jackson back in '86 or something. However, there's less high paying session work to go around these days, so touring can be more viable, in fact. Depends on the tour.
These questions are a bit general, I'm afraid. Hard to answer without either a) getting too personal, or b) writing a book. :-))
Good luck,
JMJ
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Jerose: "Don't forget LEDs!...you need enough to effectively render an assailant blind...once he's defeated you can reward yourself with Pez".
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