You'd be surprised how many musicians
have part-time jobs when not on the road.
It's not like back in the day when a band
played a show and the club split the profit
with the band. Veteran artist manager
Mike Kaminsky made a strong point on
Alternative Press back in January of 2012:
"For argument’s sake, let’s say a sold out
club show will make the headlining band
roughly $1,500. The opening acts will
likely get paid between $500 and $50.
Great! $1,500 a night for two months is a
lot of money! Well, that’s not taking into
account any expenses. Assuming everyone
is in a van instead of a bus, there’s gas,
which is maybe $200 a day. One hotel
room to cram everyone inside at $75. A
small two person crew runs maybe $150
total if they’re working for real cheap.
Insurance. Gear purchases.
Van purchases (one broken transmission will likely eat
the profit from an entire tour)." Profit margins are also
slim and the biggest cost of being on the road are your
days off the stage. While the real profit starting bands
and even well known bands comes from mechandise
sales, it's still hard to maintain a solid living. Kaminsky
made a point - on a good night a band averages a net
profit of $1,000, which over 45 shows comes to $45K.
Not bad! The only problem is now you have to pay your
manager and agent, so you're left with around $30K to
split among five band members. That's just $6000 each
and with about at least three headlining tours in a year,
that leaves each member with $20K. It's time to face the
fact that a lot of the bands we've grown to love are
growing up and we can't really blame them for wanting
to spend more time with family, try new career choices,
or simply start another band. We still have DYS, Gorilla
Biscuits, Chain Of Strength, Youth Of Today, Refused,
Judge, Earth Crisis, Trapped Under Ice,
and many2 more
NOMADIC
4
bands that we can listen to.
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