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What's it like being a rockstar?

#26
totallyfrozen said:
Well...lemme tell ya,

No, actually I'm not a rock star, but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night...
:bassist:


Honestly, I imagine it being alot like being a slave. You have a whole network of people who are controlling various aspects of your life and they all have expectations that they push you to meet. You are a product for them to market and make money on so they work you like an ox in a grain mill. The pressure and the temptations to screw yourself up with drugs and alcohol are probably overwhelming. All the while, you just want to be happy like everybody else but instead you end up settling for a series of one-night-stands and gold diggers. The risk of getting AIDS and dying like Freddie Mercury or overdosing on drugs and alcohol like Jimi Hendrix becomes a daily threat. Unless you're a total wussy, then you commit suicide like Kurt Cobain.

...then you either DIE or give up "the life" and retire to Australia to herd sheep (like the Thompson Twins).

Man, I should stay at the Holiday Inn Express more often.
Click to expand...

This. Not that I made it big playing bass, it was something else, but i can empathize with what the person wrote.
 
#28
Over here in Ireland they'll pay you 200 euro/week in social welfare plus another 110 towards your rent - 422 US Dollars - to do nothing.

So I know quite a few people who are "full time rock stars" - if they can bring in an extra 150 euros/week by playing two gigs, you're talking what, 600 dollars a week?

Am often tempted to pack in my software engineering job (major US corporation) to be a rock star myself!
 
#29
A friend's dad, a former state champion golfer, once told me: "Never shoot a sub-80 round. If you do, the game will never be fun again after that."

You guys should be happy playing weekend gigs and sleeping in your own bed. More success than that would very possibly reduce your peace of mind.
 
#30
If you're halfway responsible and on a headlining tour (which sucks sometimes because you're the last to load out at 1 a.m.), it can be miserable some nights. Load out, go someplace to stay (if you have one; and even if you have one, sleeping on the floor gets old fast) and sleep for a few hours. Get up early because you have an 8 hour drive to Burlington, Vermont (cool place, especially in the fall). Our $15 label per diem allows for 2 meals usually, with lunch being peanuts, beef jerky, gas-station food (unless you're in PA or WV where Sheetz gas stations rule with fresh food). Some venues are cool and give you buy-outs, NYC being the coolest with good, cheap places to eat. Others can be stingy. Imagine doing all this being an alcoholic. I feel like your health would degrade pretty quickly. Not to mention you're not making very much, if any money. Compound this with bills and the stress of paying bills at home. Being away from your fiancee is pretty hard also. The tours where you have 4 weeks solid and 2 days off total are the best because you get into a routine and you have something to look forward to at the end of the night. Festival season can be pretty brutal with several days off between the weekend festivals to think about how much it sucks being away from your loved ones. All this being said, I love it. Pretty unconditionally. I get paid, relatively little, to bang on my bass and sing every night. No one ever said it was easy and I guess there's a lotta truth to there being a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll.
 
#32
I wouln't have called myself a "star" that's kind of blow hard --

-worked out constantly for 3 years...
-got accepted on a tour
-was told to "tame down" my bass playing
-Never slept more than 3 hours at a crack
-ate at gas stations
-never had friends
-had zillions of broken cables
-always forgot what city or country I was in.
-Missed all holidays
-zillions of emergencies
-lost a girlfriend
-every once in a while I got to play bass
-someone else decided what I'd look like
-I received a daily microcasette critiquing my work of the day

After about two weeks, it became a total job - It's a romantic period of my life that I'd never trade - probably never do it again..
 
#35
MNAirHead said:
I wouln't have called myself a "star" that's kind of blow hard --

-worked out constantly for 3 years...
-got accepted on a tour
-was told to "tame down" my bass playing
-Never slept more than 3 hours at a crack
-ate at gas stations
-never had friends
-had zillions of broken cables
-always forgot what city or country I was in.
-Missed all holidays
-zillions of emergencies
-lost a girlfriend
-every once in a while I got to play bass
-someone else decided what I'd look like
-I received a daily microcasette critiquing my work of the day

After about two weeks, it became a total job - It's a romantic period of my life that I'd never trade - probably never do it again..
Click to expand...

Things would've been a lot better if you had bought Monster®​ cables.
 
#36
Having worked on the sound company side of it for about 25 years, I've watched a bunch of big touring acts over the years and have noticed that for the most part the stars and musicians in the groups were just normal guys and gals that were never home with their families and who were pretty much robots. They looked at a schedule posted somewhere every morning and noted what time lunch and soundcheck were, showed up and ate whatever was provided, then went and set up their gear if they were unlucky enough to not have someone do it for them, played for a half hour and then went back to the bus/van/hotel and waited for showtime. In the era of in ear monitors and digital consoles, I'm seeing that the soundcheck is even less frequent, so that's even less to occupy your day with.

I'm good friends with several members of Billy Ray Cyrus' first touring band and road crew, and after having talked to some of them after that first tour, when they were THE HOT THING in music and playing 2-3 shows a week all over the country, except for the money that they made/are making, I wouldn't want to subject myself to it.

BnB
 
#38
bound'n'blocked said:
Having worked on the sound company side of it for about 25 years, I've watched a bunch of big touring acts over the years and have noticed that for the most part the stars and musicians in the groups were just normal guys and gals that were never home with their families and who were pretty much robots. They looked at a schedule posted somewhere every morning and noted what time lunch and soundcheck were, showed up and ate whatever was provided, then went and set up their gear if they were unlucky enough to not have someone do it for them, played for a half hour and then went back to the bus/van/hotel and waited for showtime. In the era of in ear monitors and digital consoles, I'm seeing that the soundcheck is even less frequent, so that's even less to occupy your day with.

I'm good friends with several members of Billy Ray Cyrus' first touring band and road crew, and after having talked to some of them after that first tour, when they were THE HOT THING in music and playing 2-3 shows a week all over the country, except for the money that they made/are making, I wouldn't want to subject myself to it.

BnB
Click to expand...

Pretty much how I remember it. But is 2-3 shows a week a normal workload in the US? I would have thought Cyrus would have been doing more than that at his peak.
 
#39
For bigger acts yes, due to the logistics of setting up, tearing down and transporting elaborate stage setups and audio systems. The Stones did several tours where they had two identical setups which would leapfrog each other and the band flew to the gigs. Apparently the staging took two days to set up and one to tear down.
 
#40
Muttleybass said:
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

Atributed to Hunter S. Thompson (although slightly misquoted)
Click to expand...

Actually, it's completely misquoted - Hunter never said this. He did, however, make this comment about the TV industry:

"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason."
 

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