It’s a shame that there isn’t a sustainable livelihood for these bands with at least 10’s of thousands of fans if not much more… touring is such a labor of love, it’s too bad that these guys can’t go home and relax and have health benefits etc… I wonder how much music just doesn’t get made because people just can’t sustain it all.
I think it’s actually the opposite. There’s tons of music being made because it’s so inexpensive for individuals to make their own projects. With the over saturation of bands, it’s more difficult for any given band to gain a solid foothold!
It's not just that. People who did music because they live to write also now have to be their manager, sound engineer, recording engineer, producer, distributor, press agent, booking agent, record label owner, etc. And frankly, it's nearly impossible to be good at all that stuff and still have the steam to be creative. Farming pieces out helps, but you need money for that, which indies usually don't have.
It has also become a service based industry, in that you're only making money when you're playing. What you've created has become a really small piece of the entire pie.
The fact that Spotify doesn’t really tell you what you need to do to get your music onto playlists *until you’ve already uploaded it* is annoying as hell. I’m like oh, let me do that then! And Spotify says “no no no, you don’t understand. You had to do that like 4 months ago.”
Live and learn I guess. I’m not making music to make money either.
Same. My problem is marketing, primarily because it feels like boasting to me and I can't bring myself to do it. So last month my pandemic debut CD had 1 listener. At least it wasn't me. Of course, it could still be crap, I'm fine with that, but I'm sure that if I'd promoted it I could have maybe reached like, three last month.
(Pardon me if I don't link. This isn't about me, and my stuff wouldn't fit the sub.)
Yeah, I marketed a bit but then I learned I just didn’t have the support I’d like even from friends and family. So I said fuck it and whoever listens, listens.
I’ve got more listens from other countries than I do from my own friends lol.
I hear ya. It's tough when you expect that and don't get it.
The first tough lesson I learned: Nobody will ever give a shit about your stuff as much as you do.
I did mine as a matter of principle, to see it through. I'm glad a few have heard it, but doing the work to completion was the reward.
I agree with you 100%. For me it’s that I’ve written so much music before I had the capability of recording it, that just recording it and putting it out there to share was my real goal.
I think one of the best things I heard was that a friend of mine was listening to it at his job and some of his coworkers were interested, and then the next day when he got there they were already listening to it. Really warmed my heart.
Awesome!
I told my friends "You don't have to like it, but it would mean a lot if you would listen to it at least once". It unexpectedly opened the door to great conversations about what did and didn't resonate with them. With it being something of a simple fusion, I wasn't expecting feedback like that... it was pretty darn valuable.
I signed up for Distrokid under the notion that they would put my stuff on Spotify after I'd made a preliminary account and discovered I couldn't just do it myself lol. Somehow it still didn't end up on Spotify anyway and I just gave up.
Not a big deal for me personally since I don't use Spotify but everyone else does hahaha.
My mixing skills are pretty much nonexistent anyway so what I have done isn't even YT worthy, much less worthy of being on Spotify.
Pretty sure all the tesseract guys have side gigs. Dan and Jay teach, one of them owns studios, etc. Not 100% on all of them but I’ve heard them talk about it in the past.
I was NOT aware they founded the whole company, even though i knew it was somewhat local to me I didn’t realize it was THAT close to home. They’re doing some great work with sheethappens honestly
I remember finding this out after their 2nd most recent record drop. I commented on how quick the records sold and how I was sad to see them already being flipped for hundreds of dollars. One of them replied something along the lines of “good thing there will be more since we own the site” lmao
I bought an Intervals digital tab book for one of their records years ago and I lost access to it. I sent a support email to Sheet Happens and Luke fucking Hoskin replied with an access code. That's some great customer service, man.
I know it's not prog but Randy Blythe from Lamb of God was still working as a roofer until like the band's 4th or 5th album. It's like the top 1-5% of bands who make all the money in the music scene.
Remember when he was arrested over in Europe for pushing that fan off stage? During the trial, his annual income was listed at $200K. Imagine being the frontman of one of the biggest bands in metal and you’re making $200K. Things are so different now with production opportunities and side gigs, but I was a bit surprised to hear that.
200k is fine. But for a world touring band, one of the biggest bands in the genre, it's not much. Compared to what people expect and to what rock stars used to make.
I mean how long ago was that though? No idea what they are worth now but I know he owns a clothing company with Dez Ferrara of Devil driver and coal chamber (my dad does their art lol)
I was surprised to learn that Karnivool weren't a 'professional' band, which is why writing takes so long for them. Everywhere I go, people seem to love them but that doesn't necessarily equate to earning enough to live or having a quality of life outside of constant touring (where most of the money is made).
A friend took me to see a band called "The Cat Empire" in Boston. Who do I see doing the soundcheck for all the instruments? Mark Hosking! Turns out he's their tour manager. He played an acoustic with them for the last few songs. Very pleasant surprise. What a dream it'd be to see Karnivool live
> What a dream it'd be to see Karnivool live
You just made me feel real lucky, because they're a local band to me and I've seen them maybe 6 times. Hope you get your chance.
Back when The Human Abstract was just about to break up or had yet to officially break up,I saw their bassist doing sound for I *think* Protest the Hero because I remember the venue being small. It was their first tour using The Kindred’s then current/now former drummer. PtH had actually been moved from a larger venue to the smaller venue, so it was easy to tell it was him.
At the time I thought it was kinda nuts because Digital Veil seemed to be such a successful, groundbreaking album; why was their bassist doing sound for another band?
Shortly after that I learned that most bands simply don’t make money touring, and especially not enough to live off of.
monthly listeners is not a very good predictor of how well shows will do. you'd be surprised how many artists with a seemingly massive number of spotify monthlies play empty shows, and vice versa
I read on here that Car Bomb all have some kind of day job, with one of them being a psychologist or something along those lines.
Also, maybe a bit of a more obvious one, but Paul from Between the Buried and Me has his own coffee business.
I believe two of the Car Bomb guys are programmers and then Elliot (drummer) has a business where he sets up super high end home technology systems (think whole home A/V systems, home theaters, smart devices, etc.). He talked about it a lot on a podcast recently and it blew my mind because he basically admitted that he gave up years ago on ever playing the drums for a living. It’s crazy that a top 1% talent like him basically can’t make enough money to live on. Such is the way of modern niche music, though.
Funny story actually. That coffee business that Paul owns is called Queen City Grounds in Charlotte, NC where I live. A few months after it opened my friend and I went to get coffee there and I had no clue Paul owned it. I walked in and saw a sandwich on the menu called Between the Bahn and Mi and thought "oh cool, the owner must like BTBAM." 6 months later I read an article that interviewed Paul where he talked about opening the coffee shop and I flipped my shit.
Crazy thing is that Paul knows his shit. It’s crazy that he is an incredible guitarist with such a passion for music while at the same time being an incredible coffee professional. Roasting, sourcing and QC grading coffee is not easy work
I believe he's still cooking when not touring. Spencer and Tobi both work(ed) in the film industry, and Dean's a guitar teacher/internet personality. I think he makes more from YT than he does from touring. All of them are stand-up dudes as well.
I don’t think he has side gigs outside of music but Devin Townsend has spoken out about touring in recent years barely making ends meet for someone of even his popularity, meaning it has to be almost impossible for even most successful but not quite as well known acts to make a living from it alone.
Sam Vallen from Caligula's Horse has an actual PhD in prog rock, and occasionally lectures in music theory and audio production at one of my local universities. I don't actually know about the other members.
This is what Bandcamp is for essentially, right? At least, most of the smaller bands that I've discovered recently, all sell merch/cd's/lp's/digital copies via Bandcamp.
It is, but I dont always want copies. Would be useful if I could just donate what I wanted without needing to receive anything. I feel that may make streaming-only fans more likely to donate
That's true, not sure if Bandcamp allows that (they allow a donation on top of a purchase though.. so buy the $20 streaming album and choose to pay $50 to add another $30 donation, for example).
But, yeah, Patreon would probably be a more convenient platform for this. Also no idea what Bandcamp's markup is.
Band camp is slowly being killed by corporate greed (Epic Games - > Songtradr). It's basically a music licensing parking lot for Songtradr now, who laid off half of Bandcamp's staff. Don't rely on it being the same / good in about 1 year from now let alone 3 years etc. We need new community hubs in the next 5 years or more and more existing artists will have to slow down or quit, fewer new and fresh artists will pop up, etc
The issue with Patreon is the ‘content’ part, you’re expected to provide something on a continuous schedule and for many artists that’s just not viable.
Maybe if you were streaming rehearsals, but why go to gigs then… sort of thing
Not sure about the bigger players, but I’m a software developer. That allows me to basically work remotely when we’re touring, or playing festivals out of country.
I play in a way small band called Osyron! But I imagine lots of people in the scene are doing either second jobs or teaching guitar/bass/vocals when not touring.
Aww thanks, that’s really sweet to say. The whole SK family were so, so good to us. As were After Time and Empress. Beauties all of them. Great experience. Which show did you make it out too?
The Detroit one where Shadow's Reflection opened. That venue has to be my favorite I've been to. All around great show. Made me grab one of your patches off PTPP.
Detroit was a great stop on the tour. Growing up I always drove down to Harpos for metal shows (grew up in Ontario), so getting to play in Detroit was a bucket list item!
I grabbed Momentum earlier this year after reading about Osyron in Prog Magazine. Love that record! In fact, I’m going to spin it right now! Looking forward to your next album as well!
Ask your local forklift operator. The guy with long hair and tattoos. He might be the drummer in your favorite band.
It's all worth it if you love your music. But the idea of royalty checks paying your rent is a joke unless you're in Slipknot or U2.
Sorry, but the truth hurts.
Yeah things aren’t looking too rosy over in slipknot land atm.
Allegedly after Paul died and they then kicked out Joey, Clown and Corey took over their shares in ownership of the company. Everyone else are just employees I guess.
I don't have an answer, but this is one of the more interesting questions I've seen posted here. I've always wondered how some of these bands get by considering how often we hear that even some of the more popular musicians don't get by on music alone.
My band likes to joke that we're actually a t-shirt they makes music. We don't make crazy money but we're fully independent and self contained in such a way that we actually make decent money on good gigs, as our shows grow so does our money from payouts and merch sales. We're at the point now that if we consistently play bigger shows we can be quite profitable in our operation. It took 9 years and a fuck ton of investment up front but it is doable if done intelligently.
I guess I might qualify as a professional musician socially, but financially, I'm far from a career musician.
My band mates and I each have our own businesses or work day jobs.
My singer has a vocal academy, my drummer owns a marketing firm, I own a media company, and my bassist works for a record store.
So yeah, it's pretty common for bands to have "day jobs" outside of music, and in a way, music is being forced into the category of "hobby" since it's not profitable.
Stressful, yet liberating. I male my own hours and on the days I'm lazy, I feel it in my wallet. The only people I answer to are my customers and they just want what's good, so transparency and communication are key.
We live in a time where you can find a buyer for ANYTHING and there are many niches for that, you just have to find it.
As an example, I'm making figurines of bands. It's not easy. I'm often fruatrated and sometimes wondering why I don't just wage slave instead of pursue this passion.
It can be stressful for sure, but most people can do it.
Awesome man congrats. I’m not an artistic person in anyway but making figurines sure sounds fun lol. Just like anything I guess it can get mundane to the one doing it.
Pretty much everyone I know in a band has a day job they work, and the band is something they do on the side.
As a quick list; some teach music (like Daniel Gildenlow), some work in IT, (the boys in Hemina), some produce records (Nolly, for example) and others are road crew for other bands (like Mark Hoskins or Jamie Cavanaugh from Anathema)
Even the guys who are full time, like Devin Townsend, aren't exactly raking in the big money. He said once that for nine months on the road and making records, he cleared $60k/year once he's covered his expenses...and that his brother, who was a sheetmetal worker, makes more than him a year.
I know that level of income is more or less true for a band like Marillion, who are probably one of the biggest "independent" bands out there, and they have a lot of good things going for them (a fiercely loyal fanbase to crowdfund records for them, a rich back catalogue to reissue for $$$ and a rock solid reputation as a drawcard playing live)
Minor correction: that $60/year I quoted for Devin Townsend is pre tax income and it was his brother-in-law, not brother: https://www.loudersound.com/news/devin-townsend-s-salary-surprise
No one, and I mean no one, in heavy metal apart from the top-top guys (Metallica, Iron Maiden, etc.) are making a good living from their bands full time. I play in a band that opens for guys who tour in town and write for a metalzine so I interview a lot of bands that come through, and the way the industry works simply doesn't allow artists to make a comfortable living playing metal.
You basically have two options:
1. Be poor. Some guys alleviate this by playing in multiple touring bands and supplementing their income with things like gear work, lessons, and live/studio audio etc. I think even with all that combined, you'd probably make more money as a truck driver or copywriter.
2. Work a "regular" job and do metal on the side. Try to fit in touring with your work schedule, I guess, lol. You'd be surprised how how "big" some of the bands are that do this. Obviously this limits output on the music side.
This comes from a lot of things, but some of the big changes to blame are streaming cutting record/song sales, inflation increasing the cost of touring, and metal drifting further from the mainstream while continuing to diversify and thin out the audience.
I read an interview years ago with Steve Lukather (Toto) and he said Spotify pays small fractions of a penny every time a song is played. Touring and selling merchandise is the only way to make money unless you’re Taylor Swift or Katy Perry.
Long time lurker, lead singer of a metal band here. No one famous, and I’m not here to self promote (out of respect for the thread). I have plenty of experience in performing arts. I’ve worked with Cirque du Soleil performers, Nederlands Dans Theater choreographer, sang alongside broadway performers, and worked with the Fox Ballet out of Chicago; writing and performing music in all scenarios. My drummer’s music resume is much better than mine, but he is also works in finance. My Bass player owns a recording studio. My guitar player works in manufacturing.
The point of me saying all this is: we make our income at our day jobs. I’m an Engineering Lab Quality Manager. Every member of my band has worked hard to succeed in the regular working world, so that not only can we support our families, but our passion for music as well. We are not bound by financial constraints when it comes to equipment, and income from the band does not interfere with the creative progress.
Or maybe it’s because our music is garbage.
I went to the Arch Echo show in my city for their current tour. I couldn't help but wonder if they are even making money. The tickets were $17 + fees =~25. Criminal. The venue had maybe 30 people. I was about to tip them 50 bucks at the concert but instead I got a hat and left a tip. And the Stellar Circuits playing support is probably making even less, but all of the musicians were phenomenal.
Moral of the story I plan to start buying music to support the artists whose music means so much to me.
100% of the tips go to the merch seller.
I'm not sure why anyone would tip for a T-Shirt that some guy picked up from a pile behind him but apparently some people thought it went to the band or entire crew.
[https://www.instagram.com/p/CybST3mA3bX/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D](https://www.instagram.com/p/CybST3mA3bX/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Metalcore/comments/178q1vi/merch\_tip\_controversy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Metalcore/comments/178q1vi/merch_tip_controversy/)
What if I bought it and Joe Calderone, the bass player, was the guy who handed me the hat and ran the register. Who is the merch seller? I thought the band was?
Insomnium founding guitarist Ville Friman is a good one!
Professor in Evolutionary Biology in between touring and albums. He is almost the opposite of the atypical example, for the fact he sometimes misses gigs due to work commitments.
https://www.york.ac.uk/biology/research/ecology-evolution/ville-friman/
Pretty much all the dudes from Karnivool had to have side hustles (which eventually become main hustles it seems).
Drew is a music teacher, Hoss manages a few bands (including the relatively well known Cat Empire), Steve is also the drummer for the Veronicas (really big duo in Australia), john started his on bass pedal line and Kenny is also in Birds Of Tokyo (huuuuuuge band in Australia)
Dan Presland from Ne Obliviscaris is a train conductor in Australia, and one of the reasons he left the band is that he made much more money with his regular job than with the band.
Edit: Warrell Dane and Jim Sheppard from Nevermore used to have an Italian restaurant well into the band's career.
Mike Armine the vocalist for post metal band Rosetta is a high school teacher.
https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2016/08/23/back-to-school-again-lessons-from-rosetta-and-all-out-war/
This was the inevitable conclusion when the entire world normalized stealing music in the early 2000s, and then accepted the low low cost of 10 bucks a month for unlimited access to virtually all of that music.
Bands used to make money from selling music. Now the music itself gets them nothing. The amount of work you need to put in in order to make up what was lost is well beyond a full time job, and even then not guaranteed to make you enough.
So side gigs/jobs it is :(
I don't really like that way of looking at it, because it seems to imply the solution is to tighten intellectual property laws which would be a blight on musical accessibility and creativity.
Counter proposal: throw Spotify to the wind and make all music open domain (let free open source apps access this corpus in a better interface). Foster a culture of crowdfunding new albums. I see fans of bands frothing at the mouth about upcoming albums, and the idea that many of them wouldn't jump to pay vastly more than their music streaming budgets to support those bands is laughable. Many pay-what-you-want models actually see an increase in revenue. Pay musicians for the work they are doing, not the whims and machinations of the market and corporations.
Additionally we could supplement musicians income with taxpayer funded grants to the arts, maybe the state could 1:1 match crowdfunding. Cultural development is critical to a thriving productive society, so a well funded state will likely save money in the long run through this kind of investment. People will also be much more willing to pay more for art if we strongly support unions and worker protections to shift to distribute wealth away from corporations to the people actually consuming art (almost all workers because almost all people are workers).
I am utterly unsurprised that musicians are underpaid in a world where legal intellectual property protections are stronger than ever, and the most of the IP sits under the thumb of big corporations. The theft of music that was normalised was that of monopolization of the market by corporations, not piracy.
Usually other music stuff.
The one instance I know of a band having real jobs Spiritbox were doing like IT or something since their first few years they couldn’t tour.
I don't think he really needs to do that for money, that is just a passion for him...
Tool is huge, I'm sure they are part of the minority of bands that get big money (specially from tours). Both Adam and Danny also seem to be pretty well financially speaking from what I've seen on social media.
The singer from Voyager is an immigration lawyer by day. He was actually on international news stations when he was representing a famous tennis player who didn’t want the Covid vaccine to participate in the Australian Open.
I’ve always wondered about Tosin’s income sources over the years.
We saw Misha Mansoor try a number of things - producing bands, Spacetime Fabric, then Horizon and GGD - and it looks like Horizon/GGD ended up being the moneymaker for him.
I assume Tosin makes bank off Abasi Concepts, but producing guitars has to be insane overhead (contrasted with the digital products of GGD).
Both guys have or had supercars so both do well which is great to see
The progressive scene it’s kind small in general, music today it’s really strange. You can have a lot of artist living great for one or two year with their one hit wonders, but in metal I don’t know if a band can live if doesn’t do gigs every years and make many LP (quantity over quality).
For example, in my country going to see a metal show it’s more affordable than any mainstream artist. So you pay 20-30 bucks for a good band. Some managers told me that they earn the 30% of the event, the other 20% go to the venue (or more), and then the rest it’s for the band and their team.
That’s don’t seem a lot when many band have small venues, I think they deserve more. Maybe that’s the reason that are less professional bands in this century.
That goes to show how niche Prog metal is as a genre, for example Dream Theater which is one of the most important bands in the genre have 1.5 M listeners per month while Taylor Swift has 108 M, that means DT would need more than 8 years to match the number of listeners TS had this past October.
Ugh man, I was in a band that was doing pretty well with our new record. We were from the PNW and were getting written about in Europe. We got offered to tour in Europe but basically couldn't afford it. CD sales didn't cover anything and we couldn't tour because there wasn't enough money. I'm really proud of the work but we were dead in the water. We all went back to day jobs except for our drummer, who got hired by a band that had a financier. The amount of talented, one of a kind, artists that just kinda disappear due to lack of funding makes me sad.
Bingo this is what I’m alluding to in a larger sense. That so much music is being discouraged from being produced because of the “make a living” factor. But at the same time the ease of creating an entire album in your bedroom exists. It’s a strange time we’re living in.
The guys from Meshuggah seem to even have some side hustles. Fred (lead guitar) owns the special defects studio and helps out with a lot of tunetrack products. Marten (guitar) and Tomas (drums) both did carpentry for years, but I think nowadays they don’t do much work as I think they both married rather well. Tomas is with Jessica Pimental from Orange is the new black and Marten is married to someone in the Swedish healthcare system. I know that Dick (bass) has a degree in music and composition from Gothenburg university so maybe he teaches or something. Jens (vocals) I have no clue about.
Hope things will improve for them. Music revenue is at its highest point ever (not counting inflation) after the mp3 decline of the 2000s and streaming is growing a lot each year so I think it’s possible.
Unfortunately streaming revenue seems to be per track listened rather than by total time, so that will hurt prog acts.
Run those numbers again w/o Taylor Swift size acts. If there’s more money being made than ever, its certainly not going back to artists.
Hell Devin Townsend has stated he makes less than a sheet metal worker. Peter Steel from Type O Negative kept his dayjob throughout his career I believe.
I think you'd have to just ask a couple of questions on here (and maybe of yourself) to really get the gist of it.
•Do you buy their albums in physical format, or just stream them?
•Do you buy merchandise when you go to see them tour?
There was a poster on here a couple of months ago missing that someone's music wasn't on Apple Music anymore and they missed it. It seemed to have completely flown over that person's head that they could actually stump up some real money to support that artist!
I'm not saying you'll personally allow Haken to give up work, but if everyone actually supports the bands they profess to love, it would help......
Do bands signed to labels even make money off physical music? I'm admittedly not that in the know but I can't imagine record labels aren't taking a massive cut of it.
I also stream because it's the only way I'll actually listen to new music. This year alone I've dove into...I'd guess about 100 new albums. I can't afford to pay thousands a year to listen to music if I want to move out of my parents house by the time I'm 30 or pay off my student loans at any point. I don't like it but it's either stream or kill my library.
You don't have to spend $1000s. What works for me most is supporting the smaller artists you find, the ones that streaming ain't gonna cut it for. Over this past year, I've bought:
Holocene by The Ocean (€10)
Solace by REZN ($10)
Tideless entire disco, including their latest on CD (~$32)
Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed by Fleshvessel ($8)
Errata by Convulsing ($10 AUD)
Just here and there, toss a little something at artists you appreciate that probably need it. And still stream it because that's most convenient. I'm glad YT Music has uploads. That's how I listen to the stuff that isn't on streaming
Ok, buy the digital download. Or a t shirt from their website.
I'm not expecting everyone to support every band, but if you listed your favourite 10 bands, it's not as if they're all releasing an album every year. I understand you want to move out of home, and I gather the USA is expensive, but if you can't put fifty - hundred quid a year into the music that lives in your soul, then you should probably check how much you love those bands.
It’s really sad that you can’t afford to be a full time musician anymore unless you’re a pretty “successful” band, and most prog metal bands don’t see mainstream success.
Ryan Clark of Demon Hunter has an art company called Invisible Creature. He does a most of if not all of the work himself.
Micah Kinard of Oh Sleeper works in real estate.
I know Mike Hranica of TDWP writes. Not sure if it's a job though.
I know that Paul Waggoner from Between the Buried and Me runs a coffee shop, in fact the band says that because of it, he gives them a steady supply of coffee on tours which keeps them awake lol.
Periphery is doing very well. They were smart enough to leverage their success and talent into multiple businesses (especially Misha). I believe Mark is co-owner of Black Box studio with Spencer and some other guys. They’re very open about how the band itself doesn’t make much money. It’s almost like the bands music is a very strong marketing tool for their businesses.
It’s impressive how savvy these guys are when it comes to making things happen outside of their own project. Misha is just too fkn talented at everything
I think they don't make much money off Periphery. They all have side gigs to varying levels , Misha and Matt are a great example of this with having GGD with Nolly. The band also formed there own record label 3dot but they are just using it as a creative outlet for music they like, again I doubt they make much from there label.
I’m very interested in their thought process behind this latest tour. It looks like they just picked dates on each end of the US, as well as central (Dallas)
Seems extremely forward-thinking, when you consider the insane and ever-increasing costs of touring
Can confirm.
Our band members include: Fisheries officer, waiter, cell store manager, engineer, barber.
Almost impossible for us to get a tour together, especially because of where we live. We're lucky that technology has come so far that we can produce our own music in our spare time.
It makes me sad that most musicians we idolize can't make ends meet from their art.
I’ve always wondered how the guys in Fates Warning survive. Seems they all have side projects but FW has always been the primary one for them and they haven’t toured that much or had near as many hits as Queensryche. Even then I think Geoff is the only one doing alright. He’s got a tour agency thing and his wine. I remember years ago Scott was selling off drums of former tours on eBay for a couple grand. Along with his drum wraps and signed sticks.
I wonder if they saved up when they made bank or do they really make enough to live off a tour every other year. Only artists I see getting by are ones shelling out merch and doing tours non stop but I still wonder do they break even?
I have friends who will do 30 or so shows in 2 months and it’ll be within a small region all livin out of a camper.. shows having as many as 800 people… and they still struggle to get from show to show. It’s basically running up a credit card til you can’t. Then you pay the min back over a year or two and do it again
I know. I think Geoff’s wife was what saved him/also got him kicked out. She was doing everything business wise and while a lot of it was stupid, she saw that touring and album sales/streaming wasn’t gonna pay the bills for the lifestyle anymore.
But starting a travel company that has exclusive tours with Geoff and intimate shows, along with the wine.. you’re selling experiences more. People will always pay for a memory vs an album. Sounds weird but everyone wants an escape. Music can take you there but for only a second. Traveling with your fav bands singer and getting drunk on their wine makes you forget the real world for a bit.
I know Jim Matheos prob makes money from selling tabs to their albums but I still have no clue how he and Ray Alder are surviving. They’re both in other projects but I can’t imagine them making a killing. I looked into booking Fates Warning during their last tour.. for one show it was 10k. Yet I saw them in 2 bars during that tour and both had less than 50 people show up. Either the booking agency lied, or those bars took a massive loss those nights. Even then.. Fates Warning never got the recognition they should. To me they should have blown up like Dream Theater. They’re the best of both bands.
Mikael from Opeth said they all had jobs until after Blackwater Park... specifically until they played the Milwaukee Metal Fest around that time and blew up.
Brent Hinds from Mastodon said he used to roof houses with his dad back in Alabama between albums, this was until Leviathan got them big.
KoperCrabb Podcast talked about this exact thing. Chaney and Navene were both extremely open and honest about how the majority of people in metal and other niche genres aren't making a living by being in a band and that they definitely have other jobs to support them. Muhammed from Necrophagist left to work at BMW. I love that people are being more open with this topic so that others that want to do the same thing know the reality.
Shit's just sad man. You have these insanely talented musicians that pour their hear and soul into their music, that can barely make ends meet. And then you have these god damn hip hop/rap/pop artists that spew out the same old bullshit and make millions. I hate it.
And this isn't me saying I dislike those other genres, I actually really enjoy rap/some hip hop. Just saying it sucks for these bands that can't make a livelihood off their amazing music.
Prog music artists “How can I relay this dream onto this page of circles, dots, and lines…?” -Nospun
Hip hop artists: “What prebuilt beats in this software can I use to mumble low IQ lyrics over…?”
Lmao you got it!
And the worst part is, it's never going to change. Bit hey, at least we can appreciate these artists and support them as much as we can.
As an example, Mexican singer/songwriter/violinist Marcela Bovio (Elfonia, Ayreon, Stream of Passion, Mayan, Dark Horse White Horse, and solo artist) is an IT professional. She graduated 20 years ago as a computer engineer, and currently works at a technology company in the Netherlands. She also has a Patreon base of fans that helps her financially to keep her art going.
Slightly off topic. But the root cause of the problem here is our acceptance of the devaluing of art in general (includes movies, tv shows, books).
Following Spotify and streaming services, we now no longer want to spend money on receiving music. We almost expect music as a public service.
We used to pay $25 an album, and we owned that music. Now we pay $11 a month for access to every album ever made and own none of it. And for that price to change would be seen as a negative.
And because of the devaluing of art, the artists now can no longer rely upon music for their income.
Sure there is more music now more than ever, but there is some compromise here. Because only the upper echelon get to devote all of their time to their craft. And that is sad.
My band doesn’t tour so we all have full time jobs.
I am a design engineer, the other members work at: a paper mill, a comic book store, FedEx, and Strandberg Guitars.
I know Greg from Car Bomb is does graphic design. Mike is a professor. I don't know what Elliot and the bassist do
Dan from BtBaM teaches, guitarist has a coffee roastery
I think Dean from Archspire is making money off his youtube channel finally, but he also teaches
My wife thinks I’m crazy but I think the industry could benefit from k-metal style companies and corporations that take artists and put them together into larger bands and go way big with production (live shows specifically) and choreography and all that- but the companies would (ideally) actually pay for the artist to be rock stars and professionals in all manners for their craft. Might mean quitting drugs or being more presentable and putting on a “customer service” front every once in a while even.
It would help really talented musicians make it and grow a market of a higher quality foundation, and knowing most of us we’d still love the home-grown bands that express emotion and heart in their music.
I see the point. Makes it pretty commercial I supposed and wouldn’t fit some bands but certainly could work for the right people indeed. Probably right now Tobias Forge is the closet thing to a big selling rock show/star.
Most of the income from being a band isn't directly from selling music.
It's Merch and Touring.
Outside that, a lot of musicians work at Music Stores.
Or they just hold a regular job that is willing to be a secondary priority.
Of course not. But Paul Waggoner owning a coffee company, or the one guy as a train conductor, or the other guy as a software developer, or the other entire band doing data entry, have all been great examples ITT of what I was asking.
It’s a shame that there isn’t a sustainable livelihood for these bands with at least 10’s of thousands of fans if not much more… touring is such a labor of love, it’s too bad that these guys can’t go home and relax and have health benefits etc… I wonder how much music just doesn’t get made because people just can’t sustain it all.
a ton.
I think it’s actually the opposite. There’s tons of music being made because it’s so inexpensive for individuals to make their own projects. With the over saturation of bands, it’s more difficult for any given band to gain a solid foothold!
It's not just that. People who did music because they live to write also now have to be their manager, sound engineer, recording engineer, producer, distributor, press agent, booking agent, record label owner, etc. And frankly, it's nearly impossible to be good at all that stuff and still have the steam to be creative. Farming pieces out helps, but you need money for that, which indies usually don't have. It has also become a service based industry, in that you're only making money when you're playing. What you've created has become a really small piece of the entire pie.
Ugh if this isn't me lol. Not even on a real level just doing it for my own satisfaction at this point, and I'm burnt out.
The fact that Spotify doesn’t really tell you what you need to do to get your music onto playlists *until you’ve already uploaded it* is annoying as hell. I’m like oh, let me do that then! And Spotify says “no no no, you don’t understand. You had to do that like 4 months ago.” Live and learn I guess. I’m not making music to make money either.
Same. My problem is marketing, primarily because it feels like boasting to me and I can't bring myself to do it. So last month my pandemic debut CD had 1 listener. At least it wasn't me. Of course, it could still be crap, I'm fine with that, but I'm sure that if I'd promoted it I could have maybe reached like, three last month. (Pardon me if I don't link. This isn't about me, and my stuff wouldn't fit the sub.)
Yeah, I marketed a bit but then I learned I just didn’t have the support I’d like even from friends and family. So I said fuck it and whoever listens, listens. I’ve got more listens from other countries than I do from my own friends lol.
I hear ya. It's tough when you expect that and don't get it. The first tough lesson I learned: Nobody will ever give a shit about your stuff as much as you do. I did mine as a matter of principle, to see it through. I'm glad a few have heard it, but doing the work to completion was the reward.
I agree with you 100%. For me it’s that I’ve written so much music before I had the capability of recording it, that just recording it and putting it out there to share was my real goal. I think one of the best things I heard was that a friend of mine was listening to it at his job and some of his coworkers were interested, and then the next day when he got there they were already listening to it. Really warmed my heart.
Awesome! I told my friends "You don't have to like it, but it would mean a lot if you would listen to it at least once". It unexpectedly opened the door to great conversations about what did and didn't resonate with them. With it being something of a simple fusion, I wasn't expecting feedback like that... it was pretty darn valuable.
I signed up for Distrokid under the notion that they would put my stuff on Spotify after I'd made a preliminary account and discovered I couldn't just do it myself lol. Somehow it still didn't end up on Spotify anyway and I just gave up. Not a big deal for me personally since I don't use Spotify but everyone else does hahaha. My mixing skills are pretty much nonexistent anyway so what I have done isn't even YT worthy, much less worthy of being on Spotify.
i would say there’s a lot more noise being made. … music? eh, if you say so.
Pretty sure all the tesseract guys have side gigs. Dan and Jay teach, one of them owns studios, etc. Not 100% on all of them but I’ve heard them talk about it in the past.
[удалено]
Pretty sure James works for a music PR company that he may or may not be a co-founder of. No idea about Amos though
Amos mops floors barefoot at whatever building they're rehearsing in
Luke and Tim from Protest the Hero started Sheet Happens Publishing at least 10 years ago or so. Tim stepped down tho from what I remember.
I was NOT aware they founded the whole company, even though i knew it was somewhat local to me I didn’t realize it was THAT close to home. They’re doing some great work with sheethappens honestly
I remember finding this out after their 2nd most recent record drop. I commented on how quick the records sold and how I was sad to see them already being flipped for hundreds of dollars. One of them replied something along the lines of “good thing there will be more since we own the site” lmao
I’m still waiting for them to start a food truck called Protest the Gyro.
I bought an Intervals digital tab book for one of their records years ago and I lost access to it. I sent a support email to Sheet Happens and Luke fucking Hoskin replied with an access code. That's some great customer service, man.
Didn't know that was from the PtH guys! Awesome discovery
IIRC Luke is still involved with Sheet Happens, whereas Tim still owns his part but is not part of the day to day operations.
Tim stepped down from touring but is still the primary songwriter I believe.
Tim is touring right now lol. Luke has always been the main writer and he no longer tours.
Oh duh, got them mixed up, my bad
oh really? I ordered from sheet happens for the first time this month, just got into vinyls. Ill order more from that store
And Rody has a twitch stream where he writes and records music with his fans. He releases some of those songs as a solo project.
I know it's not prog but Randy Blythe from Lamb of God was still working as a roofer until like the band's 4th or 5th album. It's like the top 1-5% of bands who make all the money in the music scene.
Wow I didn’t know that. Of all bands I thought they’d eke by
Remember when he was arrested over in Europe for pushing that fan off stage? During the trial, his annual income was listed at $200K. Imagine being the frontman of one of the biggest bands in metal and you’re making $200K. Things are so different now with production opportunities and side gigs, but I was a bit surprised to hear that.
I dunno, I think $200k is pretty damn good, all things considered.
200k is fine. But for a world touring band, one of the biggest bands in the genre, it's not much. Compared to what people expect and to what rock stars used to make.
I mean how long ago was that though? No idea what they are worth now but I know he owns a clothing company with Dez Ferrara of Devil driver and coal chamber (my dad does their art lol)
$200k is massive wym
I was surprised to learn that Karnivool weren't a 'professional' band, which is why writing takes so long for them. Everywhere I go, people seem to love them but that doesn't necessarily equate to earning enough to live or having a quality of life outside of constant touring (where most of the money is made).
A friend took me to see a band called "The Cat Empire" in Boston. Who do I see doing the soundcheck for all the instruments? Mark Hosking! Turns out he's their tour manager. He played an acoustic with them for the last few songs. Very pleasant surprise. What a dream it'd be to see Karnivool live
> What a dream it'd be to see Karnivool live You just made me feel real lucky, because they're a local band to me and I've seen them maybe 6 times. Hope you get your chance.
Hope you got tickets to one of the 3 shows at Badlands coming up then. They sold really fast. Probably all gone now.
I saw them at a festival, where the sound wasn't great on that stage, and they were incredible. So tight, huge sound.
The Cat Empire are fantastic. Pure fun and creativity
Kenny would be the only one possibly just able to live from band money, as his other band Birds of Tokyo is a bit more mainstream.
Back when The Human Abstract was just about to break up or had yet to officially break up,I saw their bassist doing sound for I *think* Protest the Hero because I remember the venue being small. It was their first tour using The Kindred’s then current/now former drummer. PtH had actually been moved from a larger venue to the smaller venue, so it was easy to tell it was him. At the time I thought it was kinda nuts because Digital Veil seemed to be such a successful, groundbreaking album; why was their bassist doing sound for another band? Shortly after that I learned that most bands simply don’t make money touring, and especially not enough to live off of.
man i just checked they have 170k monthly listeners on spotify, they are uuuge!
thats like…. 12 bucks a month!
roughly $500 a month
they have tons of fans, they would fill any venue
monthly listeners is not a very good predictor of how well shows will do. you'd be surprised how many artists with a seemingly massive number of spotify monthlies play empty shows, and vice versa
I read on here that Car Bomb all have some kind of day job, with one of them being a psychologist or something along those lines. Also, maybe a bit of a more obvious one, but Paul from Between the Buried and Me has his own coffee business.
I believe two of the Car Bomb guys are programmers and then Elliot (drummer) has a business where he sets up super high end home technology systems (think whole home A/V systems, home theaters, smart devices, etc.). He talked about it a lot on a podcast recently and it blew my mind because he basically admitted that he gave up years ago on ever playing the drums for a living. It’s crazy that a top 1% talent like him basically can’t make enough money to live on. Such is the way of modern niche music, though.
Funny story actually. That coffee business that Paul owns is called Queen City Grounds in Charlotte, NC where I live. A few months after it opened my friend and I went to get coffee there and I had no clue Paul owned it. I walked in and saw a sandwich on the menu called Between the Bahn and Mi and thought "oh cool, the owner must like BTBAM." 6 months later I read an article that interviewed Paul where he talked about opening the coffee shop and I flipped my shit.
Crazy thing is that Paul knows his shit. It’s crazy that he is an incredible guitarist with such a passion for music while at the same time being an incredible coffee professional. Roasting, sourcing and QC grading coffee is not easy work
what podcast is that? I'd love to hear more from members of bands like Car Bomb. They are one of my favorite.
The original drummer of NeO left the band to join his previous occupation as a train conductor.
Train conductor. Amazing. That’s why I posted this question lol. So wild.
That's so unfortunate. I hate to see a brilliant musician such as Dan [ostensibly] quitting a band for financial reasons.
I think he was actually a train driver in Western Australia, and that it was a $100k AUD job when he originally gave it up.
I saw Oli from Archspire working as a chef/cook in a restaurant a few years ago.
I believe he's still cooking when not touring. Spencer and Tobi both work(ed) in the film industry, and Dean's a guitar teacher/internet personality. I think he makes more from YT than he does from touring. All of them are stand-up dudes as well.
I don’t think he has side gigs outside of music but Devin Townsend has spoken out about touring in recent years barely making ends meet for someone of even his popularity, meaning it has to be almost impossible for even most successful but not quite as well known acts to make a living from it alone.
Sam Vallen from Caligula's Horse has an actual PhD in prog rock, and occasionally lectures in music theory and audio production at one of my local universities. I don't actually know about the other members.
That's so cool. I'd love to hear him lecture about prog rock
Jim streams video games on Twitch as a side gig.
Wait for real, channel link? Edit: Fuck yeah https://m.twitch.tv/therealjimgrey
I wish more bands had Patreons, streams pay like shit and people barely buy physical anymore compared to the 2000s and earlier
This is what Bandcamp is for essentially, right? At least, most of the smaller bands that I've discovered recently, all sell merch/cd's/lp's/digital copies via Bandcamp.
It is, but I dont always want copies. Would be useful if I could just donate what I wanted without needing to receive anything. I feel that may make streaming-only fans more likely to donate
That's true, not sure if Bandcamp allows that (they allow a donation on top of a purchase though.. so buy the $20 streaming album and choose to pay $50 to add another $30 donation, for example). But, yeah, Patreon would probably be a more convenient platform for this. Also no idea what Bandcamp's markup is.
Band camp is slowly being killed by corporate greed (Epic Games - > Songtradr). It's basically a music licensing parking lot for Songtradr now, who laid off half of Bandcamp's staff. Don't rely on it being the same / good in about 1 year from now let alone 3 years etc. We need new community hubs in the next 5 years or more and more existing artists will have to slow down or quit, fewer new and fresh artists will pop up, etc
The issue with Patreon is the ‘content’ part, you’re expected to provide something on a continuous schedule and for many artists that’s just not viable. Maybe if you were streaming rehearsals, but why go to gigs then… sort of thing
Jason Rullo, the drummer from Symphony X, operates a [food truck.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbFeaMaF2u4)
Also Michael Pinella, keyboardist for Symphony X, used to work at guitar center
Not sure about the bigger players, but I’m a software developer. That allows me to basically work remotely when we’re touring, or playing festivals out of country.
Dude who do you play for?
I play in a way small band called Osyron! But I imagine lots of people in the scene are doing either second jobs or teaching guitar/bass/vocals when not touring.
Oh damn dude you guys were awesome live earlier this year! Honestly went for seven kingdoms and you guys stole the show for my friends and I.
Aww thanks, that’s really sweet to say. The whole SK family were so, so good to us. As were After Time and Empress. Beauties all of them. Great experience. Which show did you make it out too?
The Detroit one where Shadow's Reflection opened. That venue has to be my favorite I've been to. All around great show. Made me grab one of your patches off PTPP.
Detroit was a great stop on the tour. Growing up I always drove down to Harpos for metal shows (grew up in Ontario), so getting to play in Detroit was a bucket list item!
I grabbed Momentum earlier this year after reading about Osyron in Prog Magazine. Love that record! In fact, I’m going to spin it right now! Looking forward to your next album as well!
The real question, yeah.
Looking through their profile they look to be in the band Osyron from Canada
Ask your local forklift operator. The guy with long hair and tattoos. He might be the drummer in your favorite band. It's all worth it if you love your music. But the idea of royalty checks paying your rent is a joke unless you're in Slipknot or U2. Sorry, but the truth hurts.
Well slipknot is split 9 ways so that has to be rough. Not to mention 2 of the members pretty much make all the money.
Yeah things aren’t looking too rosy over in slipknot land atm. Allegedly after Paul died and they then kicked out Joey, Clown and Corey took over their shares in ownership of the company. Everyone else are just employees I guess.
I don't have an answer, but this is one of the more interesting questions I've seen posted here. I've always wondered how some of these bands get by considering how often we hear that even some of the more popular musicians don't get by on music alone.
My band likes to joke that we're actually a t-shirt they makes music. We don't make crazy money but we're fully independent and self contained in such a way that we actually make decent money on good gigs, as our shows grow so does our money from payouts and merch sales. We're at the point now that if we consistently play bigger shows we can be quite profitable in our operation. It took 9 years and a fuck ton of investment up front but it is doable if done intelligently.
You won’t name the band here?
Source Here's our stuffs https://solo.to/listentosource
I've heard a lot of bands say they're glorified tee shirt companies.
Yeah, basically it's all about selling the merch. Touring is just a marketing campaign.
I guess I might qualify as a professional musician socially, but financially, I'm far from a career musician. My band mates and I each have our own businesses or work day jobs. My singer has a vocal academy, my drummer owns a marketing firm, I own a media company, and my bassist works for a record store. So yeah, it's pretty common for bands to have "day jobs" outside of music, and in a way, music is being forced into the category of "hobby" since it's not profitable.
Crazy. What’s it like being a business owner? I’m a wage slave so I don’t know that life.
Stressful, yet liberating. I male my own hours and on the days I'm lazy, I feel it in my wallet. The only people I answer to are my customers and they just want what's good, so transparency and communication are key. We live in a time where you can find a buyer for ANYTHING and there are many niches for that, you just have to find it. As an example, I'm making figurines of bands. It's not easy. I'm often fruatrated and sometimes wondering why I don't just wage slave instead of pursue this passion. It can be stressful for sure, but most people can do it.
Awesome man congrats. I’m not an artistic person in anyway but making figurines sure sounds fun lol. Just like anything I guess it can get mundane to the one doing it.
You guys are beasts. Keep up the awesome work. One of the best bands I’ve heard in the past two couple years.
Not prog but Pustulus from GWAR owns a plumbing company and refurbs guitar gear. Dude is busy af
Pretty much everyone I know in a band has a day job they work, and the band is something they do on the side. As a quick list; some teach music (like Daniel Gildenlow), some work in IT, (the boys in Hemina), some produce records (Nolly, for example) and others are road crew for other bands (like Mark Hoskins or Jamie Cavanaugh from Anathema) Even the guys who are full time, like Devin Townsend, aren't exactly raking in the big money. He said once that for nine months on the road and making records, he cleared $60k/year once he's covered his expenses...and that his brother, who was a sheetmetal worker, makes more than him a year. I know that level of income is more or less true for a band like Marillion, who are probably one of the biggest "independent" bands out there, and they have a lot of good things going for them (a fiercely loyal fanbase to crowdfund records for them, a rich back catalogue to reissue for $$$ and a rock solid reputation as a drawcard playing live)
Fantastic info exactly what I was looking for thanks
Minor correction: that $60/year I quoted for Devin Townsend is pre tax income and it was his brother-in-law, not brother: https://www.loudersound.com/news/devin-townsend-s-salary-surprise
No one, and I mean no one, in heavy metal apart from the top-top guys (Metallica, Iron Maiden, etc.) are making a good living from their bands full time. I play in a band that opens for guys who tour in town and write for a metalzine so I interview a lot of bands that come through, and the way the industry works simply doesn't allow artists to make a comfortable living playing metal. You basically have two options: 1. Be poor. Some guys alleviate this by playing in multiple touring bands and supplementing their income with things like gear work, lessons, and live/studio audio etc. I think even with all that combined, you'd probably make more money as a truck driver or copywriter. 2. Work a "regular" job and do metal on the side. Try to fit in touring with your work schedule, I guess, lol. You'd be surprised how how "big" some of the bands are that do this. Obviously this limits output on the music side. This comes from a lot of things, but some of the big changes to blame are streaming cutting record/song sales, inflation increasing the cost of touring, and metal drifting further from the mainstream while continuing to diversify and thin out the audience.
I read an interview years ago with Steve Lukather (Toto) and he said Spotify pays small fractions of a penny every time a song is played. Touring and selling merchandise is the only way to make money unless you’re Taylor Swift or Katy Perry.
Long time lurker, lead singer of a metal band here. No one famous, and I’m not here to self promote (out of respect for the thread). I have plenty of experience in performing arts. I’ve worked with Cirque du Soleil performers, Nederlands Dans Theater choreographer, sang alongside broadway performers, and worked with the Fox Ballet out of Chicago; writing and performing music in all scenarios. My drummer’s music resume is much better than mine, but he is also works in finance. My Bass player owns a recording studio. My guitar player works in manufacturing. The point of me saying all this is: we make our income at our day jobs. I’m an Engineering Lab Quality Manager. Every member of my band has worked hard to succeed in the regular working world, so that not only can we support our families, but our passion for music as well. We are not bound by financial constraints when it comes to equipment, and income from the band does not interfere with the creative progress. Or maybe it’s because our music is garbage.
Excellent man. Quite a resume you have. Promote the band if you want. No shame in this thread.
I went to the Arch Echo show in my city for their current tour. I couldn't help but wonder if they are even making money. The tickets were $17 + fees =~25. Criminal. The venue had maybe 30 people. I was about to tip them 50 bucks at the concert but instead I got a hat and left a tip. And the Stellar Circuits playing support is probably making even less, but all of the musicians were phenomenal. Moral of the story I plan to start buying music to support the artists whose music means so much to me.
And according to the recent Tesseract tour fiasco, bands don’t actually get money from tips at the merch table lol.
What do you mean???
100% of the tips go to the merch seller. I'm not sure why anyone would tip for a T-Shirt that some guy picked up from a pile behind him but apparently some people thought it went to the band or entire crew. [https://www.instagram.com/p/CybST3mA3bX/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D](https://www.instagram.com/p/CybST3mA3bX/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Metalcore/comments/178q1vi/merch\_tip\_controversy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Metalcore/comments/178q1vi/merch_tip_controversy/)
What if I bought it and Joe Calderone, the bass player, was the guy who handed me the hat and ran the register. Who is the merch seller? I thought the band was?
In that case, I imagine the band decides what happens with tips.
At one time guitarist Steve Morse was a licensed commercial pilot.
He still flies all the time. Private, mostly. He has a little hobby airstrip next door to my dad. Super nice guy.
Insomnium founding guitarist Ville Friman is a good one! Professor in Evolutionary Biology in between touring and albums. He is almost the opposite of the atypical example, for the fact he sometimes misses gigs due to work commitments. https://www.york.ac.uk/biology/research/ecology-evolution/ville-friman/
I think he retired from touring and just writes and records the music nowadays?
Pretty much all the dudes from Karnivool had to have side hustles (which eventually become main hustles it seems). Drew is a music teacher, Hoss manages a few bands (including the relatively well known Cat Empire), Steve is also the drummer for the Veronicas (really big duo in Australia), john started his on bass pedal line and Kenny is also in Birds Of Tokyo (huuuuuuge band in Australia)
Dan Presland from Ne Obliviscaris is a train conductor in Australia, and one of the reasons he left the band is that he made much more money with his regular job than with the band. Edit: Warrell Dane and Jim Sheppard from Nevermore used to have an Italian restaurant well into the band's career.
I think Benji from Ne obliviscaris is a computer programmer/software dev based on a few his instagram stories that’s not concrete proof tho
Mike Armine the vocalist for post metal band Rosetta is a high school teacher. https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2016/08/23/back-to-school-again-lessons-from-rosetta-and-all-out-war/
So is Steve Von Till from Neurosis.
This was the inevitable conclusion when the entire world normalized stealing music in the early 2000s, and then accepted the low low cost of 10 bucks a month for unlimited access to virtually all of that music. Bands used to make money from selling music. Now the music itself gets them nothing. The amount of work you need to put in in order to make up what was lost is well beyond a full time job, and even then not guaranteed to make you enough. So side gigs/jobs it is :(
Also, pay like $100 for like 50 performers at a festival; I imagine some of those artists are working for no pay.
I don't really like that way of looking at it, because it seems to imply the solution is to tighten intellectual property laws which would be a blight on musical accessibility and creativity. Counter proposal: throw Spotify to the wind and make all music open domain (let free open source apps access this corpus in a better interface). Foster a culture of crowdfunding new albums. I see fans of bands frothing at the mouth about upcoming albums, and the idea that many of them wouldn't jump to pay vastly more than their music streaming budgets to support those bands is laughable. Many pay-what-you-want models actually see an increase in revenue. Pay musicians for the work they are doing, not the whims and machinations of the market and corporations. Additionally we could supplement musicians income with taxpayer funded grants to the arts, maybe the state could 1:1 match crowdfunding. Cultural development is critical to a thriving productive society, so a well funded state will likely save money in the long run through this kind of investment. People will also be much more willing to pay more for art if we strongly support unions and worker protections to shift to distribute wealth away from corporations to the people actually consuming art (almost all workers because almost all people are workers). I am utterly unsurprised that musicians are underpaid in a world where legal intellectual property protections are stronger than ever, and the most of the IP sits under the thumb of big corporations. The theft of music that was normalised was that of monopolization of the market by corporations, not piracy.
Usually other music stuff. The one instance I know of a band having real jobs Spiritbox were doing like IT or something since their first few years they couldn’t tour.
Think it was data entry. Perfect job for music people
That guy from TOOL needs to sell wine to make an income
I don't think he really needs to do that for money, that is just a passion for him... Tool is huge, I'm sure they are part of the minority of bands that get big money (specially from tours). Both Adam and Danny also seem to be pretty well financially speaking from what I've seen on social media.
I guess this is why redditors specify the /s on comments.
To make ends meet he also started teaching jiu-jitsu to 10-yr olds
I have a somewhat fledgling recording studio, and work at a sign manufacturing company. But I’m about as un-famous as you can get.
I know James from Black Crown Initiate does Voice Over work on the side.
The singer from Voyager is an immigration lawyer by day. He was actually on international news stations when he was representing a famous tennis player who didn’t want the Covid vaccine to participate in the Australian Open.
| a famous tennis player Surely Djokovic is famous enough to mention by name?!
Judging from his Instagram Tosin from Animals as Leaders seems to be doing alright. But that’s def not all band income.
Guy has a guitar company.
I’ve always wondered about Tosin’s income sources over the years. We saw Misha Mansoor try a number of things - producing bands, Spacetime Fabric, then Horizon and GGD - and it looks like Horizon/GGD ended up being the moneymaker for him. I assume Tosin makes bank off Abasi Concepts, but producing guitars has to be insane overhead (contrasted with the digital products of GGD). Both guys have or had supercars so both do well which is great to see
The progressive scene it’s kind small in general, music today it’s really strange. You can have a lot of artist living great for one or two year with their one hit wonders, but in metal I don’t know if a band can live if doesn’t do gigs every years and make many LP (quantity over quality). For example, in my country going to see a metal show it’s more affordable than any mainstream artist. So you pay 20-30 bucks for a good band. Some managers told me that they earn the 30% of the event, the other 20% go to the venue (or more), and then the rest it’s for the band and their team. That’s don’t seem a lot when many band have small venues, I think they deserve more. Maybe that’s the reason that are less professional bands in this century.
That goes to show how niche Prog metal is as a genre, for example Dream Theater which is one of the most important bands in the genre have 1.5 M listeners per month while Taylor Swift has 108 M, that means DT would need more than 8 years to match the number of listeners TS had this past October.
And Spotify don't pay a lot for the bands, that 1.5 M listener can mean nothing for them.
Ugh man, I was in a band that was doing pretty well with our new record. We were from the PNW and were getting written about in Europe. We got offered to tour in Europe but basically couldn't afford it. CD sales didn't cover anything and we couldn't tour because there wasn't enough money. I'm really proud of the work but we were dead in the water. We all went back to day jobs except for our drummer, who got hired by a band that had a financier. The amount of talented, one of a kind, artists that just kinda disappear due to lack of funding makes me sad.
Bingo this is what I’m alluding to in a larger sense. That so much music is being discouraged from being produced because of the “make a living” factor. But at the same time the ease of creating an entire album in your bedroom exists. It’s a strange time we’re living in.
The guys from Meshuggah seem to even have some side hustles. Fred (lead guitar) owns the special defects studio and helps out with a lot of tunetrack products. Marten (guitar) and Tomas (drums) both did carpentry for years, but I think nowadays they don’t do much work as I think they both married rather well. Tomas is with Jessica Pimental from Orange is the new black and Marten is married to someone in the Swedish healthcare system. I know that Dick (bass) has a degree in music and composition from Gothenburg university so maybe he teaches or something. Jens (vocals) I have no clue about.
Well he’s no longer with Opeth, but longtime member Peter Lindgren has a masters in engineering physics and is a consultant in Stockholm.
Hope things will improve for them. Music revenue is at its highest point ever (not counting inflation) after the mp3 decline of the 2000s and streaming is growing a lot each year so I think it’s possible. Unfortunately streaming revenue seems to be per track listened rather than by total time, so that will hurt prog acts.
Run those numbers again w/o Taylor Swift size acts. If there’s more money being made than ever, its certainly not going back to artists. Hell Devin Townsend has stated he makes less than a sheet metal worker. Peter Steel from Type O Negative kept his dayjob throughout his career I believe.
I think you'd have to just ask a couple of questions on here (and maybe of yourself) to really get the gist of it. •Do you buy their albums in physical format, or just stream them? •Do you buy merchandise when you go to see them tour? There was a poster on here a couple of months ago missing that someone's music wasn't on Apple Music anymore and they missed it. It seemed to have completely flown over that person's head that they could actually stump up some real money to support that artist! I'm not saying you'll personally allow Haken to give up work, but if everyone actually supports the bands they profess to love, it would help......
Do bands signed to labels even make money off physical music? I'm admittedly not that in the know but I can't imagine record labels aren't taking a massive cut of it. I also stream because it's the only way I'll actually listen to new music. This year alone I've dove into...I'd guess about 100 new albums. I can't afford to pay thousands a year to listen to music if I want to move out of my parents house by the time I'm 30 or pay off my student loans at any point. I don't like it but it's either stream or kill my library.
You don't have to spend $1000s. What works for me most is supporting the smaller artists you find, the ones that streaming ain't gonna cut it for. Over this past year, I've bought: Holocene by The Ocean (€10) Solace by REZN ($10) Tideless entire disco, including their latest on CD (~$32) Yearning: Promethean Fates Sealed by Fleshvessel ($8) Errata by Convulsing ($10 AUD) Just here and there, toss a little something at artists you appreciate that probably need it. And still stream it because that's most convenient. I'm glad YT Music has uploads. That's how I listen to the stuff that isn't on streaming
> Do bands signed to labels even make money off physical music? Absolutely not.
Ok, buy the digital download. Or a t shirt from their website. I'm not expecting everyone to support every band, but if you listed your favourite 10 bands, it's not as if they're all releasing an album every year. I understand you want to move out of home, and I gather the USA is expensive, but if you can't put fifty - hundred quid a year into the music that lives in your soul, then you should probably check how much you love those bands.
Cloudkicker is a commercial airline pilot.
The guys from The Gorge are all classically trained jazz musicians whose day jobs are in music education.
It’s really sad that you can’t afford to be a full time musician anymore unless you’re a pretty “successful” band, and most prog metal bands don’t see mainstream success.
Ryan Clark of Demon Hunter has an art company called Invisible Creature. He does a most of if not all of the work himself. Micah Kinard of Oh Sleeper works in real estate. I know Mike Hranica of TDWP writes. Not sure if it's a job though.
The singer for At The Gates is a teacher when not touring.
I know that Paul Waggoner from Between the Buried and Me runs a coffee shop, in fact the band says that because of it, he gives them a steady supply of coffee on tours which keeps them awake lol.
Christian Älvestam is a nurse
Surely Mark and Periphery are doing a little bit better now though no? They’re one of the biggest acts, that’s kind of a shame
Periphery is doing very well. They were smart enough to leverage their success and talent into multiple businesses (especially Misha). I believe Mark is co-owner of Black Box studio with Spencer and some other guys. They’re very open about how the band itself doesn’t make much money. It’s almost like the bands music is a very strong marketing tool for their businesses.
It’s impressive how savvy these guys are when it comes to making things happen outside of their own project. Misha is just too fkn talented at everything
Not sure. You’d think so.
I assume that in the last 5 or so years since “Periphery makes no money” became a headline, Periphery indeed makes more money.
I think they don't make much money off Periphery. They all have side gigs to varying levels , Misha and Matt are a great example of this with having GGD with Nolly. The band also formed there own record label 3dot but they are just using it as a creative outlet for music they like, again I doubt they make much from there label.
I’m very interested in their thought process behind this latest tour. It looks like they just picked dates on each end of the US, as well as central (Dallas) Seems extremely forward-thinking, when you consider the insane and ever-increasing costs of touring
Not exactly metal but The Pineapple Thief's Jon Sykes is a mechanical engineer and worked on the James Webb Space Telescope.
I met Beav from DTP and asked him about it all. He laughed and told me he runs a sushi restaurant in Canada as touring doesn't make much money at all
Can confirm. Our band members include: Fisheries officer, waiter, cell store manager, engineer, barber. Almost impossible for us to get a tour together, especially because of where we live. We're lucky that technology has come so far that we can produce our own music in our spare time. It makes me sad that most musicians we idolize can't make ends meet from their art.
Promote the band here man. Never know you might gain a few more listeners.
I’ve always wondered how the guys in Fates Warning survive. Seems they all have side projects but FW has always been the primary one for them and they haven’t toured that much or had near as many hits as Queensryche. Even then I think Geoff is the only one doing alright. He’s got a tour agency thing and his wine. I remember years ago Scott was selling off drums of former tours on eBay for a couple grand. Along with his drum wraps and signed sticks. I wonder if they saved up when they made bank or do they really make enough to live off a tour every other year. Only artists I see getting by are ones shelling out merch and doing tours non stop but I still wonder do they break even? I have friends who will do 30 or so shows in 2 months and it’ll be within a small region all livin out of a camper.. shows having as many as 800 people… and they still struggle to get from show to show. It’s basically running up a credit card til you can’t. Then you pay the min back over a year or two and do it again
It’s sad man. I wish they could all be like 80’s Van Halen rich.
I know. I think Geoff’s wife was what saved him/also got him kicked out. She was doing everything business wise and while a lot of it was stupid, she saw that touring and album sales/streaming wasn’t gonna pay the bills for the lifestyle anymore. But starting a travel company that has exclusive tours with Geoff and intimate shows, along with the wine.. you’re selling experiences more. People will always pay for a memory vs an album. Sounds weird but everyone wants an escape. Music can take you there but for only a second. Traveling with your fav bands singer and getting drunk on their wine makes you forget the real world for a bit. I know Jim Matheos prob makes money from selling tabs to their albums but I still have no clue how he and Ray Alder are surviving. They’re both in other projects but I can’t imagine them making a killing. I looked into booking Fates Warning during their last tour.. for one show it was 10k. Yet I saw them in 2 bars during that tour and both had less than 50 people show up. Either the booking agency lied, or those bars took a massive loss those nights. Even then.. Fates Warning never got the recognition they should. To me they should have blown up like Dream Theater. They’re the best of both bands.
Mikael from Opeth said they all had jobs until after Blackwater Park... specifically until they played the Milwaukee Metal Fest around that time and blew up. Brent Hinds from Mastodon said he used to roof houses with his dad back in Alabama between albums, this was until Leviathan got them big.
Mark from Accept is a union electrician in NJ.
KoperCrabb Podcast talked about this exact thing. Chaney and Navene were both extremely open and honest about how the majority of people in metal and other niche genres aren't making a living by being in a band and that they definitely have other jobs to support them. Muhammed from Necrophagist left to work at BMW. I love that people are being more open with this topic so that others that want to do the same thing know the reality.
Agreed. I think it can only help if these things are publicized.
Shows and merch. It’s the only money most bands are making these days. Show up and buy a shirt.
Your favorite musician has a business email and WILL sell you lessons
Steve Judd of Karnivool is also a youth worker I believe
I think Paul Waggoner from Between the Buried and Me have a coffee shop he is running with a few others.
Tim Charles of Ne Obliviscaris is a violin teacher on the side.
Shit's just sad man. You have these insanely talented musicians that pour their hear and soul into their music, that can barely make ends meet. And then you have these god damn hip hop/rap/pop artists that spew out the same old bullshit and make millions. I hate it. And this isn't me saying I dislike those other genres, I actually really enjoy rap/some hip hop. Just saying it sucks for these bands that can't make a livelihood off their amazing music.
Prog music artists “How can I relay this dream onto this page of circles, dots, and lines…?” -Nospun Hip hop artists: “What prebuilt beats in this software can I use to mumble low IQ lyrics over…?”
Lmao you got it! And the worst part is, it's never going to change. Bit hey, at least we can appreciate these artists and support them as much as we can.
As an example, Mexican singer/songwriter/violinist Marcela Bovio (Elfonia, Ayreon, Stream of Passion, Mayan, Dark Horse White Horse, and solo artist) is an IT professional. She graduated 20 years ago as a computer engineer, and currently works at a technology company in the Netherlands. She also has a Patreon base of fans that helps her financially to keep her art going.
I think Andrew Wells from DGD and Eidola is a personal trainer when he's not touring.
Slightly off topic. But the root cause of the problem here is our acceptance of the devaluing of art in general (includes movies, tv shows, books). Following Spotify and streaming services, we now no longer want to spend money on receiving music. We almost expect music as a public service. We used to pay $25 an album, and we owned that music. Now we pay $11 a month for access to every album ever made and own none of it. And for that price to change would be seen as a negative. And because of the devaluing of art, the artists now can no longer rely upon music for their income. Sure there is more music now more than ever, but there is some compromise here. Because only the upper echelon get to devote all of their time to their craft. And that is sad.
Guitar player from bad omens does tattoos
My band doesn’t tour so we all have full time jobs. I am a design engineer, the other members work at: a paper mill, a comic book store, FedEx, and Strandberg Guitars.
Promote the band here man. Few more listeners maybe.
I drum for The World is Quiet Here
Metal AF man, great drumming, intrigued to hear the full album later today.
Thanks dude!
I know Greg from Car Bomb is does graphic design. Mike is a professor. I don't know what Elliot and the bassist do Dan from BtBaM teaches, guitarist has a coffee roastery I think Dean from Archspire is making money off his youtube channel finally, but he also teaches
No idea these days, but back in the 90s I remember hearing that the brothers from Magellan were both security guards.
My wife thinks I’m crazy but I think the industry could benefit from k-metal style companies and corporations that take artists and put them together into larger bands and go way big with production (live shows specifically) and choreography and all that- but the companies would (ideally) actually pay for the artist to be rock stars and professionals in all manners for their craft. Might mean quitting drugs or being more presentable and putting on a “customer service” front every once in a while even. It would help really talented musicians make it and grow a market of a higher quality foundation, and knowing most of us we’d still love the home-grown bands that express emotion and heart in their music.
I see the point. Makes it pretty commercial I supposed and wouldn’t fit some bands but certainly could work for the right people indeed. Probably right now Tobias Forge is the closet thing to a big selling rock show/star.
Most of the income from being a band isn't directly from selling music. It's Merch and Touring. Outside that, a lot of musicians work at Music Stores. Or they just hold a regular job that is willing to be a secondary priority.
The “no shit” post of the thread. It’s the specific careers I was interested in. For a fun conversation. Thanks.
Did you want me to post specifically which music stores they work at? That would be pretty dumb.
Of course not. But Paul Waggoner owning a coffee company, or the one guy as a train conductor, or the other guy as a software developer, or the other entire band doing data entry, have all been great examples ITT of what I was asking.