Day Jobs for Gigging Musicians?

[Kramsey]

Hello TB'ers!

I could use some advise from you who are actively gigging and working as well.

I am a senior in college and will graduate in May. Up until recently I was pretty sure that I would get a degree and fall into a corporate job with a steady income and benefits like many of my classmates until I started playing in a band with some new friends.

We have began to see some success and it has been really fun to be a part of a band that has the potential to continue to play for a little while. However, I think it will be a while before we are all supported financially through the band.

I have an internship now, but I'm afraid when I graduate they will want me to come on full time, and I don't think a full time corporate job will provide me with the flexibility I need to be in a band.

So what I want to know is...

What do some of you guys do during the day to supplement playing in bands? Any advise you can provide will be very helpful. Thanks for the help guys!

[guy n. cognito]

Corporate jobs allow for free nights and weekends. What could be better?

Don't throw away your future for a band.

[PDGood]

It's been many years, but back when I was young I took a job on the third shift at Dunkin Donuts. Worked the straight job right after the gig - 2-7 A.M. Worked out well.

[Chriso21]

Corporate jobs likely wont allow you to take time off to travel for long weekends/ weeks away and tour in the long term. However, if you can get a well paid one AND play in a band right now by all means do it. You can always leave on good terms and come back.

I did my best to find jobs that paid as much money as possible AND allowed me to do any and all gigs until the gigging got me fired or forced me to quit and find something else. Keep you cards close to your chest at interviews and work hard at our day job so when you need to get a random friday off to travel to Houston they will make an effort for you as a commodity. The natural progression of being in a band means you start playing friday and saturdays locally, then regionally (maybe up tp 5 hours away as guarantees are so low), then start traveling for 1 or 2 weeks, then longer. If you keep this approach what can happen is you find a job that pays well ($20/hour in my case) and is completely flexible around touring. You just have to have that in your mind at all times so when you come across it you go for it. Take the $ where you can - will allow you to buy nice equipment where most locals sound sucks.

Basically: read Tour Smart by Martin Atkins so you are not spending lots of your own money playing gigs and earn as much $ as you can wherever possible.

[guy n. cognito]

Originally Posted by Chriso21

Corporate jobs likely wont allow you to take time off to travel for long weekends/ weeks away and tour in the long term. However, if you can get a well paid one AND play in a band right now by all means do it. You can always leave on good terms and come back.

Most corporate jobs have both vacation and sick time.

[Ubersheist]

Originally Posted by Chriso21

Corporate jobs likely wont allow you to take time off to travel for long weekends/ weeks away and tour in the long term.

.......

Basically: read Tour Smart by Martin Atkins so you are not spending lots of your own money playing gigs and earn as much $ as you can wherever possible.

Originally Posted by guy n. cognito

Most corporate jobs have both vacation and sick time.

Corporate jobs = bad if you want to be serious in music. If you get a quickie gig on a Wednesday night, it'll suck on Thursday. And using your vacation time and sick days for the band can really tick some people off... either your significant other, your family or any other people who might not see you other then on weeks that you're on vacation, and your boss won't like to see you feelin' fine and chipper after taking a sick day.

There's plenty of other jobs that can better accomodate a budding musician, but they usually pay terribly.

Then again, I've held a corporate job for the last 10 years or so... and I've also made music at a professional level, too.

If you do try to burn the candle at both ends, be either totally discrete with your music and pretty much never mention it at work, or be totally up front about it, depending on the situation.

I will say that being in the professional world also taught me how to be a 'professional' musician beyond the technical aspects.

If you have a good day gig and you want to leave it to pursue music, you'd better have a vision, a plan and thought about the realities of how you're going to reach that vision and plan, and also considered the finances behind it in a very real manner where you've actually written down numbers and tried to figure out how much you'd really be making.

The few musicians that I know that work full time from their own music have all cylinders firing: Technically great musicians, great at making contacts with others in the industry, great songs, tenacity, great showmen/performers, great abilities to connect with the audience, good business sense and marketing sense. None really need to be stellar, but you gotta be at least decent in all of those qualities, and it sure helps if you are stellar in any of those qualities. If you can figure out all of those, you'll have a tough, but not impossible road ahead of you. If you're missing any one of those, you will struggle very hard and it'll be nearly impossible to rid yourself of that dreaded corporate job!

[fingerbun]

You need to work out what sort of gigs you want to do.

I have a work-from-home flexible-hours corporate job. It demands hard work and odd hours, but in return I get flexibility. Basically I can work anywhere I have an internet connection fast enough to link to the company's VPN and use VOIP.

I wouldn't try and do serious touring with it but I can do a few days in another city if needed without trouble.

[fourfinger]

A drummer friend got his Journeyman's card in plumbing. Took him a number of years.

He works on major construction projects, mostly. If he wants to take off work for a while, he could, since the union would just provide an equally qualified Journeyman plumber to take the job when he left, and when he got back he could just get back in line to wait for the next available job.

Now there is a major downside to that gig, though. A lot of the jobs the union has for him are several hours' drive from where he lives.

[fdeck]

I know a lot of musicians who are also K-12 school music teachers. You don't exactly get 100% of the summer off, since you have to spend some time updating your training. But many of these musicians were able to tour with bands during the summer months.

I played a gig last night with a farmer. His hours are pretty flexible. Of course he also works his ass off.

I've got a corporate day gig -- fortunately a really great job. I have managed to keep playing by going freelance. I can turn down gigs without too much penalty.

[coreyfyfe]

Originally Posted by fdeck

I know a lot of musicians who are also K-12 school music teachers. You don't exactly get 100% of the summer off, since you have to spend some time updating your training. But many of these musicians were able to tour with bands during the summer months.

Oddly enough, I know quite a few as well. Many of my friends who went to school for music are teaching grade school and gigging nights/weekends/summers.

Given that the OP is already in college and soon to graduate it's probably a safe bet that he can't go and change his major or career to suit his musical desires. That said, if you have a flexible enough job, you can make it work. I get 4 weeks of vacation to play with and will be using some of that time for a small tour next summer with one group, and I also gig fairly regularly with a few others, so it's possible to do it all, just takes some good time management skills. Also helps to have an understanding spouse

[VWbug08']

Originally Posted by guy n. cognito

Corporate jobs allow for free nights and weekends. What could be better?

Don't throw away your future for a band.

Not to be negative because we have to have our dreams but now is the time you shape your future. Most folks never seem to make it to the "Big Time". Even if you do, is that the life you really want when it comes down to having a family, buying a home, having vacations and health care. Benefits like sick time and a pension for your future are not pointless concerns. I think I even recall BB. King saying it's good to have a day job when things are not happening.

[HeadyVan Halen]

I teach school as well but NOT MUSIC.
I can't think of any thing less musical than high school band.
Anyhow, drink lots of water after the gig and take 2 Tylonol.
The hang-overs ain't so bad when it's time to take roll in 1st period.
Just whatever you do, don't refer to your day job as a gig. Terribly cliche.

[Kramsey]

Hey All,

I really do appreciate all of the feedback you've provided. Thank you all for sympathizing and providing useful information! You guys have helped me set things into perspective and i appreciate it.

[baileyboy]

Yup, been a teacher for over 20 years and it allows some flexibility for gigging... school day ends at 2:30, weekends free, summers off, same holidays/breaks as the kids....

[bassman314]

I'm a cube jockey in an insurance company. We haven't toured at all, but taking a day off here, leaving early on Fridays, etc., has never been much of a problem for me.

This Thursday, we are playing a gig at a club about a block from work. Our sound check is at 3:00, so I will take BART to work, with my bass (there is a backline, so no amp haulage for me) and leave a bit early for sound check. I'll head back to the office for a couple hours until the actual call time for the gig, which is like 7.

I could never be a full-time musician. The thought of trying to make ends meet on what I make at gigs? Yeah... I'll pass... The other ladies in the band teach lessons and do web design to pay the bills.

[MatticusMania]

Originally Posted by Ubersheist

Corporate jobs = bad if you want to be serious in music. If you get a quickie gig on a Wednesday night, it'll suck on Thursday.

Where did you hear this? Its bs, I gigged last night (Sunday) at a last minute gig. Got home at 2am, here I am at work the next day. I can do this any night of the week.

And using your vacation time and sick days for the band can really tick some people off... either your significant other, your family or any other people who might not see you other then on weeks that you're on vacation, and your boss won't like to see you feelin' fine and chipper after taking a sick day.

Generally, if I take a day off because Im sick, I do come to work the next day feeling fine. Thats why I took the day off. Also, its my vacation/sick time to do with as I like. My wife is supportive of my musical ambitions, and I can see my family any time Im not at work or gigging.

There's plenty of other jobs that can better accomodate a budding musician, but they usually pay terribly.

Then again, I've held a corporate job for the last 10 years or so... and I've also made music at a professional level, too.

So you argue against a coporate job while knowing full well that it can be done?

[NKUSigEp]

Originally Posted by Kramsey

Hello TB'ers!

I could use some advise from you who are actively gigging and working as well.

I am a senior in college and will graduate in May. Up until recently I was pretty sure that I would get a degree and fall into a corporate job with a steady income and benefits like many of my classmates until I started playing in a band with some new friends.

We have began to see some success and it has been really fun to be a part of a band that has the potential to continue to play for a little while. However, I think it will be a while before we are all supported financially through the band.

I have an internship now, but I'm afraid when I graduate they will want me to come on full time, and I don't think a full time corporate job will provide me with the flexibility I need to be in a band.

So what I want to know is...

What do some of you guys do during the day to supplement playing in bands? Any advise you can provide will be very helpful. Thanks for the help guys!

I'm a Field Service Engineer in the instrumentation and process control industry and if we get a call and I have to be somewhere in the arctic circle tomorrow evening then I have to go, gig or not. But if I have a gig, I'll request to be unavailable for travel and someone else should be available. So planning out a schedule is the key.

What pays the bills though? It's all about the fun and the music in high school and college but then reality hits and you get married or buy a house or a car and the debt piles up. If the band I was in netted me $70k/year, I'd gladly drop everything and do that but it doesn't, so I'm a working stiff and I am no less happy to be one.

On a side note: the approach we have moved to is not to gig out very much but to focus all of our energy and resources on recording and internet marketing. It is a recent development so I don't have much to report back on it yet, but I will say that we've made more money thus far and had more fun doing it this way as well as made better music and received double the attention than we ever did trying to "make it" while gigging out more frequently. So it has been a win-win since the inception of the idea.

[Ubersheist]

Originally Posted by MatticusMania

So you argue against a coporate job while knowing full well that it can be done?

Absolutely. It's not been easy, and there's plenty of opportunities that I've had to pass on because it would have brought me too far out of town or otherwise affected my day job negatively.... and I still have that stupid corporate day job. I think my music career has certainly suffered because of it. The 'professional' gigs that I've had were typically one-night things at clubs, weddings, etc. were we got paid and were certainly expected to be 'on it' and perform at a higher level then most other gigs. However, there's been far more gigs where I've gotten little or no pay, and if we didn't fully engage the audience or there were some mistakes, no one cared.

I can't ever say for sure how the day job has affected my music, as there's not another Ubersheist running around who quit my day job and pursued music more aggressively. While I have had a much more furtive music career then nearly everyone else I know, I also know the difference between what I do and really being a professional musician who can make a living off their music.

There's no hard and fast rules. It's false to say "All corporate jobs are bad for your music career," but I still contend that they're generally bad for your music career.

[Ubersheist]

Oh yeah - Matticus - does your band have any gigs coming up this month or early next month? I'm in the LA area, and would love to check you guys out! Seriously.

[One Bad Monkey]

I have gigged regularly with two different "day jobs," and have found that if you're upfront with them about your gigs and you are willing to put in the extra effort to make sure your work is covered and the place runs with you gone for an afternoon, they won't care. I had a couple of summers when I was leaving a place an hour early every Thursday and Friday. I offered to come in an hour early to ensure my work was done; after three weeks of it, my boss told me it wasn't necessary because I was keeping so on top of things.