I make a living from playing and teaching bass (making more money from classes than from gigs) in Bogotá, Colombia. I'll give all prices in US dollars - keep in mind that living expenses are generally cheaper here than in Europe or the US.
So I've been playing with this rock singer for the last two years. He's not a professional musician but he has the money to pay pro players for his CDs and shows.
This guy is paying 22 dollars per musician per two hour rehearsal, that's good for Bogotá although I make more in two hours of teaching. He is paying 83 dollars for two-hour bar gigs in town. That's good considering that these kind of gigs are usually paying between 55 and 83 dollars.
This guy has changed musicians a lot, mainly because they were always late for rehearsals, didn't learn the tunes well, or simply didn't sound the way he wanted his band to sound.
However, for the last year we've been playing with a consistent line-up which included an excellent female guitar player, a rock solid drummer and myself. The guy was really happy and expressed that freely to us and on facebook, commenting photos and videos of our shows.
We also helped this guy with the arrangements of his new songs and recorded a demo for him. All of that for the low price of the rehearsal pay, considering that if we kept him happy, we would continue his work with us.
So for the first time this guy gets to play out-of-town, it seems that he paid some serious cash to some tour promoters so they would let him open two shows of two internationally known artists. So far so good.
One week ago he sends us an e-mail with the confirmation of the two out-of-town shows. It said that we are going to the other city by bus (a mini van with seats, not a tour bus), do soundcheck, play the show, and immediately return home by bus. No hotel. Food covered. (You must know that Colombia does not have high ways as you know them from Europe or the US. Traveling 8 hours by bus in this country is a real pain in the ass. And then another 8 hours after the show for returning home...)
The thing is, the guy states in his mail that the pay for the out-of-town shows is the same 83 dollars that he used to pay in town. We musicians were like ***?! 16 hours on a bus, no hotel, no shower? Two days on the road with little or no sleep at all on horrible bumpy roads in the Andean mountains?
On top of that. We all teach classes Saturdays. And we don't have a problem with getting a sub for those classes, but that means that this trip would have to pay us enough to pay our subs and still get some money out of it. If not, what's the point?
Both out-of-town shows were planned the same way: Travel by bus and no hotel. So the guitar player and I go to the rehearsal and tell the singer in a polite way, that the same pay which was good for playing in town, would not be enough for making a two day trip by bus and leaving behind other work.
The singer got upset immediately and said he would have to discuss it with his "investors". (We don't know if these investors exist, I doubt it.) We told him that we could do these two shows for little money in order to express our good will, to help him cut down expenses, and to maintain this great sounding band the we wanted to continue to be a part of, but that for the future we would need more money for out-of-town gigs. He said no, the pay has to be the same always, and that we had to decide how much "our rate" was.
We told him our rate was double of what he wanted to pay us, but that everything is negotiable, for instance if we were to play two shows in the same city on the same trip, we wouldn't charge him twice our rate because it was only one trip and one effort. He repeated he would have to talk to his investors and give us a reason after the next in-town gig.
So we played the in-town gig, best gig we ever played with this guy, he seemed very happy and also stated that on facebook the next day. The very next day, we receive e-mails from him that he had decided to fire us. No reason, nothing.
I have no problem with some band leader telling me that they can't afford to pay me, or that they're looking for a different sound, or want a six-string player or a guy with tattoos or long hair or whatever. After all, it's a business, I get hired and fired and fortunately I do not depend on one artist.
But after two years of successful work, always offering the best of me, helping the guy with his career decisions, compositions, finding him a decent recording studio, all the things that we nice bass players do for a singer, I would have expected at least a phone call, at least some excuse like "After our discussion about the out-of-town rate I don't feel comfortable playing with you anymore" (which anyway would have been a lie because we did one more fabulous gig after the discussion). But an e-mail with one sentence "I wanted to communicate that I have decided to fire you" is not what I expect from a serious band leader.
The guitar player and I have been thinking if we should respond the guy anything, write him an e-mail, call him, tell him "good luck with your career", but finally we decided this guy wasn't even worth a response.
I don't know if my story is of interest to anybody, feel free to comment if you like.
So I've been playing with this rock singer for the last two years. He's not a professional musician but he has the money to pay pro players for his CDs and shows.
This guy is paying 22 dollars per musician per two hour rehearsal, that's good for Bogotá although I make more in two hours of teaching. He is paying 83 dollars for two-hour bar gigs in town. That's good considering that these kind of gigs are usually paying between 55 and 83 dollars.
This guy has changed musicians a lot, mainly because they were always late for rehearsals, didn't learn the tunes well, or simply didn't sound the way he wanted his band to sound.
However, for the last year we've been playing with a consistent line-up which included an excellent female guitar player, a rock solid drummer and myself. The guy was really happy and expressed that freely to us and on facebook, commenting photos and videos of our shows.
We also helped this guy with the arrangements of his new songs and recorded a demo for him. All of that for the low price of the rehearsal pay, considering that if we kept him happy, we would continue his work with us.
So for the first time this guy gets to play out-of-town, it seems that he paid some serious cash to some tour promoters so they would let him open two shows of two internationally known artists. So far so good.
One week ago he sends us an e-mail with the confirmation of the two out-of-town shows. It said that we are going to the other city by bus (a mini van with seats, not a tour bus), do soundcheck, play the show, and immediately return home by bus. No hotel. Food covered. (You must know that Colombia does not have high ways as you know them from Europe or the US. Traveling 8 hours by bus in this country is a real pain in the ass. And then another 8 hours after the show for returning home...)
The thing is, the guy states in his mail that the pay for the out-of-town shows is the same 83 dollars that he used to pay in town. We musicians were like ***?! 16 hours on a bus, no hotel, no shower? Two days on the road with little or no sleep at all on horrible bumpy roads in the Andean mountains?
On top of that. We all teach classes Saturdays. And we don't have a problem with getting a sub for those classes, but that means that this trip would have to pay us enough to pay our subs and still get some money out of it. If not, what's the point?
Both out-of-town shows were planned the same way: Travel by bus and no hotel. So the guitar player and I go to the rehearsal and tell the singer in a polite way, that the same pay which was good for playing in town, would not be enough for making a two day trip by bus and leaving behind other work.
The singer got upset immediately and said he would have to discuss it with his "investors". (We don't know if these investors exist, I doubt it.) We told him that we could do these two shows for little money in order to express our good will, to help him cut down expenses, and to maintain this great sounding band the we wanted to continue to be a part of, but that for the future we would need more money for out-of-town gigs. He said no, the pay has to be the same always, and that we had to decide how much "our rate" was.
We told him our rate was double of what he wanted to pay us, but that everything is negotiable, for instance if we were to play two shows in the same city on the same trip, we wouldn't charge him twice our rate because it was only one trip and one effort. He repeated he would have to talk to his investors and give us a reason after the next in-town gig.
So we played the in-town gig, best gig we ever played with this guy, he seemed very happy and also stated that on facebook the next day. The very next day, we receive e-mails from him that he had decided to fire us. No reason, nothing.
I have no problem with some band leader telling me that they can't afford to pay me, or that they're looking for a different sound, or want a six-string player or a guy with tattoos or long hair or whatever. After all, it's a business, I get hired and fired and fortunately I do not depend on one artist.
But after two years of successful work, always offering the best of me, helping the guy with his career decisions, compositions, finding him a decent recording studio, all the things that we nice bass players do for a singer, I would have expected at least a phone call, at least some excuse like "After our discussion about the out-of-town rate I don't feel comfortable playing with you anymore" (which anyway would have been a lie because we did one more fabulous gig after the discussion). But an e-mail with one sentence "I wanted to communicate that I have decided to fire you" is not what I expect from a serious band leader.
The guitar player and I have been thinking if we should respond the guy anything, write him an e-mail, call him, tell him "good luck with your career", but finally we decided this guy wasn't even worth a response.
I don't know if my story is of interest to anybody, feel free to comment if you like.
If he had asked me for "cheaper" musicians, I would have recommended him some of my more advanced students.
