If you start any band and think you're going to get rich by playing music alone, you're incredibly mislead. If you joined a metal band to make money, you're just an idiot.
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I still say that if you want to make a decent, reliable amount of money in the music industry and you're not an executive, be a DJ.
Yeah. Over the past couple of years, my gigs have been split about 50/50 between DJing and bass, but almost all the money is from the DJ side.
One way a band can look at it is to treat every effort / transaction as a single small project where they add effort and as little capital as possible and evaluate return, figuring out how to maximize the equation.
That's what everyone else supporting the show does. The guy driving the truck decides on a specific dollar amount in return for his time.
The singer in this band is under the impression that they are being left out of profit that may not exist. Their genre isn't growing so how can they expect that revenue to grow?
So they tour in hopes of recouping somewhere else. Record sales? Not a chance. The engineer that worked on the record got paid. But the band is in debt for that pay check.
The point is they are not in control of their expenses and they go into activity after activity with no clear outcome for the band.
I will presume they don't have day jobs because at least in part because they don't want to be cogs in someone else's machine and be financially limited by that.
Well create and maintain your own machine. Nobody outside of the band allows themselves to enter into a show without knowing what they put in vs what they get out. The band is naive at best. The big difference with acts that have survived is they have figured this stuff out. It's not really the genre or the market differences. It's taking matters in your own hands and stop dreaming and get down to work.
As #2 in that poll with their fanbase they have some value. Figure out how to make the equation work - at every point in their career.
That's what everyone else supporting the show does. The guy driving the truck decides on a specific dollar amount in return for his time.
The singer in this band is under the impression that they are being left out of profit that may not exist. Their genre isn't growing so how can they expect that revenue to grow?
So they tour in hopes of recouping somewhere else. Record sales? Not a chance. The engineer that worked on the record got paid. But the band is in debt for that pay check.
The point is they are not in control of their expenses and they go into activity after activity with no clear outcome for the band.
I will presume they don't have day jobs because at least in part because they don't want to be cogs in someone else's machine and be financially limited by that.
Well create and maintain your own machine. Nobody outside of the band allows themselves to enter into a show without knowing what they put in vs what they get out. The band is naive at best. The big difference with acts that have survived is they have figured this stuff out. It's not really the genre or the market differences. It's taking matters in your own hands and stop dreaming and get down to work.
As #2 in that poll with their fanbase they have some value. Figure out how to make the equation work - at every point in their career.
Great post overall. Not to go political or derail the thread, but real quick since you mentioned it and there may actually be some parallels to the music business -
Teachers are, or seem to be, underpaid for two primary reasons:
- Public school teaching jobs are contract positions for about 180 days per year, about 9 months. Everyone compares the compensation to full-year positions elsewhere in the workforce.
- The #1 correlation to high compensation is accountability for outcome. Successful salespeople make more than anyone else in their companies. Unsuccessful salespeople are unceremoniously fired, often with little warning. In our existing situation it is extremely difficult to terminate a public school teacher for poor performance.
To make a vain attempt to tie this back to the thread...how many people are attending the shows the guy in the story wrote about, and what are they paying the band? Festivals are their own thing with some weird economics...but if this band is playing for rooms full of a couple dozen devoted fans, the economics are not there.
+1. The drummer in my "country" band is also the drummer for a band called Hemlock that's been touring steady since the early 90's. They never got a big record deal, but they tour America at least twice a year and usually tour Europe at least once when they release an album. The only way they can afford to do this is by doing everything themselves. Their singer books all the tours, his wife runs merch, zero road crew, and they sleep in Wal-Mart parking lots in a old school bus they've converted into a tour bus.
Passinwind
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- Dec 3, 2003
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- Designer/Toaster Tech @ Passinwind Electronics
That makes me think about recording as a biz. I know how hard the indie studio worked for us and how little we could afford. I learned a big lesson then that you can't build a biz from clientele that don't have any money.
Spec is for losers. In a way the band in this story is working on spec. They are realizing that no one is going to hand out money for their art.
We've got a kid that's a big fan who keeps submitting our stuff to Metal Blade, and gets pissed that they're not responding and jumping at the bit to sign us. I can't get it through to this kid that this isn't the 80's. He's only 21 and doesn't realize how broke touring bands are and how if they're signed they're pretty much in debt to the label. We had a decent gig last Friday and made $118 with 3 other bands. I told him if we were a touring band doing a 2 month tour in a van, $118 is horrible. Gas, food for 5 people several times a day. He didn't understand. He couldn't fathom why I'd rather stay in my home and just want to pay my mortgage and chill in town making the money I make from my day job over "traveling and touring and just playing live music". He doesn't see all the empty clubs you play at, the constant "we've gotta hit the road NOW if we're gonna make the next gig that's 7 hours away", the smells of 5 guys crammed in a van, the horrible diets you have to endure, and not having the time to actually SEE any of the cities you're playing. All of us are cool with doing our thing and funding whatever we want out of our own pockets if the band funds aren't there. At least we've been in enough bands to realize it. It's more of a serious side hobby for us. We dedicate time and energy to it, but we don't expect to be making Van Halen money like this kid thinks. Those days of being rich as hell and able to afford Ferraris and mounds of coke from your record sales are gone. Now you're lucky if you can score a $5 foot long after a show and have enough change in your pocket to get those 3 cookies you've been eyeing as you get to the register.
Yeah we're starting to push the envelope here, but to keep things within TB regulations, I'll say that I do personally agree on a lot of what you said. My illustration was mainly to say that there is a hand in the pot, invisible to the fans, that has a big effect on why musician's aren't fairing as well as they could. In a way, the fans are being demonized for lack of album purchases, while people don't seem to acknowledge that the management side is taking advantage of the artists as much.
Working with Michael I can see just how much "the suits" CAN take from you. It's hard for guys who don't want to get in the business side and just want to play/make music. I'm hoping it lasts as long as possible for me lol
It's a shell game...
ON paper I made $1500/month... EVERYTHING I would spend money on in an "normal" world was paid... food... lodging.. clothes etc.
Alright! I have about $0.10 to drop on this thread instead of the regular 0.02.
"That's not music" @$&* you! That's what they said about Swing in the 20s, Elvis in the 50s and the Beatles in the 60s. When every generation gets older they complain like a bunch of old cranks about how what is being played now isn't music.
"Is that singing?" See the '@$&% you' comment above. I seem to remember old people complaining about the caterwauling of bands like the Beatles, Stones, and Led Zep. Things change, get over it. What kind of vocals do you think would work over blast beats, A-tuned guitars, and lyrics about murdering people. Bing Crosby ain't gonna work for that.
"Its a niche market" so is Rush, jazz, prog, and 80% of the things people talk about on TB. Then when someone brings up Bruno Mars on the Super Bowl they say "whose that?" The biggest acts pulling down money right now get slammed on TB all the time, so I don't think anyone here has a lot to say about that is niche and what isn't.
ALL forms of music that use real instruments, and that are written by the performers, have been marginalized. Even accessible rock bands are scrapping to get buy. Huge acts like Slipknot or Mastodon do well, but they aren't making the millionaire money rock acts did back in the 80s. Meanwhile, a handful ofl pop acts are making outrageous sums, just as a small percentage of our population are getting rich in the broader economy while everyone else struggles. Ironically, the big "artists" don't even write their own stuff (The Elaborate Charade to Obfuscate Who Writes Pop Music).
Metal has a very specific dynamic that makes things difficult. Having always been marginalized, when the money started draining from it, and record companies showed less interest, DIY took over. That lack of gatekeeping by producers meant that metal could explore any avenue it wants, making it the most diverse musical field out there. That diversity makes grabbing larger audiences hard, because as pop illustrates, the largest number of possible consumers likes vanilla, simple, and obnoxiously memorable. In metal, deathcore/metalcore bands like Thy Art is Murder are some of the bigger upcoming acts, but are also viewed as another bubble like glam metal or nu metal. Older fans of metal won't like it, and non-metal fans can't connect with it. So yes, while there is a niche problem, it is a niche with millions of world wide fans.
Fan base isn't the problem. Its revenue. CD sales are down, and CDs are now cheaper than they were 15 years ago, even though inflation should have pushed them up. Venues don't pay these sort of bands well because they are sharing an event pool with 5,6,7 different bands. Labels aren't paying for recording, touring, merch, or really much of anything anymore, so all of those costs are coming out of a bands shrinking budget.
We all know that music is something that takes a lot of time, effort, and money to do. If all the money disappears from it, your complaining about the quality of acts is only going to get worse due to talent drain. Kids that could be the next great creative forces are going to shy away from the difficulties of the music industry, and get into something you can actually make a living at. Instead of learning about music, the next great musical prodigy will get an MBA instead. That sucks in so many ways it isn't even funny.
"That's not music" @$&* you! That's what they said about Swing in the 20s, Elvis in the 50s and the Beatles in the 60s. When every generation gets older they complain like a bunch of old cranks about how what is being played now isn't music.
"Is that singing?" See the '@$&% you' comment above. I seem to remember old people complaining about the caterwauling of bands like the Beatles, Stones, and Led Zep. Things change, get over it. What kind of vocals do you think would work over blast beats, A-tuned guitars, and lyrics about murdering people. Bing Crosby ain't gonna work for that.
"Its a niche market" so is Rush, jazz, prog, and 80% of the things people talk about on TB. Then when someone brings up Bruno Mars on the Super Bowl they say "whose that?" The biggest acts pulling down money right now get slammed on TB all the time, so I don't think anyone here has a lot to say about that is niche and what isn't.
ALL forms of music that use real instruments, and that are written by the performers, have been marginalized. Even accessible rock bands are scrapping to get buy. Huge acts like Slipknot or Mastodon do well, but they aren't making the millionaire money rock acts did back in the 80s. Meanwhile, a handful ofl pop acts are making outrageous sums, just as a small percentage of our population are getting rich in the broader economy while everyone else struggles. Ironically, the big "artists" don't even write their own stuff (The Elaborate Charade to Obfuscate Who Writes Pop Music).
Metal has a very specific dynamic that makes things difficult. Having always been marginalized, when the money started draining from it, and record companies showed less interest, DIY took over. That lack of gatekeeping by producers meant that metal could explore any avenue it wants, making it the most diverse musical field out there. That diversity makes grabbing larger audiences hard, because as pop illustrates, the largest number of possible consumers likes vanilla, simple, and obnoxiously memorable. In metal, deathcore/metalcore bands like Thy Art is Murder are some of the bigger upcoming acts, but are also viewed as another bubble like glam metal or nu metal. Older fans of metal won't like it, and non-metal fans can't connect with it. So yes, while there is a niche problem, it is a niche with millions of world wide fans.
Fan base isn't the problem. Its revenue. CD sales are down, and CDs are now cheaper than they were 15 years ago, even though inflation should have pushed them up. Venues don't pay these sort of bands well because they are sharing an event pool with 5,6,7 different bands. Labels aren't paying for recording, touring, merch, or really much of anything anymore, so all of those costs are coming out of a bands shrinking budget.
We all know that music is something that takes a lot of time, effort, and money to do. If all the money disappears from it, your complaining about the quality of acts is only going to get worse due to talent drain. Kids that could be the next great creative forces are going to shy away from the difficulties of the music industry, and get into something you can actually make a living at. Instead of learning about music, the next great musical prodigy will get an MBA instead. That sucks in so many ways it isn't even funny.
And bad managers and lawyers are the difference the other way. I read that in the late 70's Ted Nugent was the number one grossing act in the country. After touring for 2 years selling out arenas, he got home to find out he was broke and was barely able to even keep his home. Many blues artists, while not selling out arenas, got screwed pretty horribly though the years as well.
While I dislike the music "business", and artists getting ripped off by shady promoters and labels, I agree with what you're saying here. That's always the trade-off, I'm sure lots of corporate accountants play an instrument, and would find it enjoyable to make a living playing. They've decided the security of a corporate career outweighs the enjoyment of playing music full time. In a way, it has to be this way - otherwise nobody would do the "less fun" jobs that need doing. If it were attainable for a statistically significant portion of the population to make a comfortable living doing their hobby, there would be very few accountants, nurses, etc...
Last year I bought a nice little PA system after booking a DJ/host gig...the job payed for the whole thing, and consisted of me being a decent public speaker and driving an ipad. Not exactly musically rewarding, but not a bad way to make a weeks' pay in a few hours...
I know and stated the same thing in my post, but something about reading it just agitates the crap outta me. I made it about halfway through the article before I had to stop reading it. Manufactured acts are nothing new, but yeah it's still pretty sad to see how things are run these days. I hope I'm not stepping over any boundaries by mentioning this, but lets just say the live show for Mike Rowe is a different experience than the album, also we will be molding into a sound transition that we think will be great for the next album. We'll be "breaking some rules" that will hopefully grow the fanbase.
Most metal bands aren't going to be making much money. I've heard a few of the songs from TAIM on Liquid Metal, not my thing, but they are OK. If they expect to make a living from music, then they need to cater to a larger audience. As it is, they are a niche sub-genre of a niche genre. They may have a fairly decent following, and sell some records, but if you want to live the metal band life, you have to expect that it's not going to be too financially rewarding unless you can secure major label advances. (not likely for any metal bands) IMO the bands that play metal and make a decent living are the ones that have exceptional songwriters.
