As some have stated, this group was Deathcore, one of the many offshoots of Metal. Some call this singing style "cookie monster metal" because of the monotone growl. You either love it or hate it.
The less fringe Metal groups have a wider fanbase:
More Earnings & Attendance Figures from SLAYER, LAMB OF GOD, ROB ZOMBIE, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER and more - Metal Injection
You're still not going to get pop star rich, even if you're Avenged Sevenfold or Slipknot. But you can make a living if you're at the top of your game, market yourself well... and it helps if you keep your metal a little more "mainstream."
Thanks for the link. If you think about it, though, it actually reinforces the point about the limits on what bands make. The very biggest figure in there is Queens of the Stone Age making $188K at a concert with close to 4,000 in attendance. From there you have a couple of shows making about $155K, then $105K, and down from there - those generally being three-band tours. Ticket prices generally running around $30 each and ballpark 2500-3500 fans at each.
If you take the QOTSA figure, that means you've got maybe $160,000 in ticket sales and $28,000 in merch. Now, the thing is that the venue has to get paid out of the gross, mainly the ticket sales; I suspect about a half-and-half split with the tour. So the tour is now really making $80K plus merch. Out of that, the tour is paying all their touring expenses; renting buses and trucks, paying drivers for the buses and trucks, gas and hotels, paying roadies, lights and sound gear (possibly leased?), producers, promotions and marketing. I suspect that at the end of the day, there're probably about 5-10% of the original gross left to pay the band with - maybe $8,000-16,000. Now, I don't know how that money gets split among band members. There are five guys in QOTSA, but my impression is that the "band" is really Josh Homme... and whoever he happens to be playing with. Most optimistic scenario, $16K split 5 ways, everyone gets $3200 for the night. On a tour with 20 dates, if they're all that big, everyone goes home with $64000. More pessimistic scenario, Homme gets half and the other guys split the rest and there's only $8000 in the pot: he goes home from a 20-date tour $80,000 richer, the other guys only $20K each. Merch adds to that, of course, but of course you have to buy the merch wholesale in the first place (say 50% of its retail cost), and pay a merch crew, and the venue probably wants a 10-20% cut. I can still believe it's adding $10,000 to the pot for the night, which might roughly double what each musician takes home, again depending on how it's split.
That's for the biggest tour of the biggest band in that website; playing in QOTSA can give you a fairly comfortable middle-class existence in the $60-120K range, more if you happen to be Josh Homme. I'm assuming that album sales and digital downloads are only slightly adding to tour figures, based on what everyone says about the music business these days.
But let's look at the other tours; let's say three-band shows grossing $105,000, and again assuming that's consistent for a 20-date tour. With the same proportions of money going to the venue and to touring and promotion expenses, so that 10% is left for musicians, that's $10,500 to pay all three bands. Assuming those bands have five members apiece and it's all even splits, they go home with a whopping $700 from each show. The twenty-show tour earns them a total of $14,000 each. That would be an average; if one act is the clear headliner, they're probably getting more while the support acts get less, and there may be splits involving principal songwriters/bandleaders getting higher proportions and other band members getting less.
I think a lot depends on the genre of music and location. I know a guy who recently became the bass player for a well established local disco band. This band plays mainly private parties and corporate events. He told me that he makes more in one gig with this band than his entire other hard rock band makes for a gig. He said it was enough that he could even quit his day job if he really wanted to. So there are good paying gigs out there if you are lucky enough to find them!
Indeed. That makes the point, though; the real money, insofar as there is any, is not in being a touring, album-releasing rock band. The wedding band/corporate function band has a much better income-to-expense ratio. Nice work if you can get it.
