They do exist, Rockstar deities and impossible Divas, earning megabucks whenever they walk on stage, but for most professional musicians and live performers, ensuring money’s coming in from every possible avenue is the key to survival.
Well, maybe you won’t have to work 5-9 jobs, but as a working musician one of the first lessons you learn in the industry is that just focusing on one field or project won’t keep you financially stable. Not even close. It’s an unfortunate reality that when it comes to a career in music, simply performing a few shows every week is almost never going to cut it.
Most working musicians are working on 3 to 4 jobs or projects at a time, but you may as well aim for 5-9 for no other reason than its delightful symmetry with the alternate reality of working 9-5. Your multiple jobs will likely comprise being a member of a few bands, and spreading your skills across writing, performing, booking, teaching music, and even other creative avenues like film editing, a skill that’s become crucial to keep your social media presence strong.
When I started out in my current band ‘Furnace and the Fundamentals’, we were making no more than about $500 a show, doing only about 2 gigs a month. Spread that between 6 lads and the music money coming in wasn’t exactly providing the fiscal capacity to buy a round of Stone and Woods down at the Steyne. So, while always keeping our hopes alive of having a successful band, we all held down regular jobs to keep the lights on and rent paid.
As the band got busier and made more money, we were able to put more time and effort into our show, but as we weren’t making Guy Sebastian money, we had to learn how to do a lot of things ourselves as we couldn’t afford to pay for someone else to do it. We all took it upon ourselves to focus on different areas and hone our craft to improve areas of the show including photoshop to make our own merch and posters, film editing, visual graphics imaging for the show, lighting design, social media marketing, and even self-managing the band. Not only did this mean we saved money for the band, but we could use these skills to work with other artists and businesses.
When you rely solely on performance income, even if you are earning a good sum of money for your band/business, it is at best very irregular and can be incredibly hard to budget on. By keeping your finger in as many pies as possible it really helps to regulate your income and simplify your budgeting for the year.
If you’re an original musician, it’s also very unlikely these days you’re going to make much money at all from your music. The majority of band and artist income now derives from merch sales and, even more recently, from popular Twitch and Tik Tok accounts. This means just writing or performing music isn’t going to cut it, you have to be a Jack of all Trades, and don’t let the saying fool you, more than likely you’ll become a Master of Some.
So, to all you aspiring musicians on the Beaches, put down your guitar and loop pedal a few hours a day and start perfecting your content creation, learn how to manage an artist, start a side hustle that complements your brand as an artist, write songs and jingles and create as many avenues of income as you can. It’s the only way to survive.