So get a real job
There will ALWAYS be enough people who are passionate enough about making their music to get it out there, and there will ALWAYS be people who are passionate enough about hearing it to make the effort to get it.
If you're only in it to make money, then you're daft, and you're in the wrong business.
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jme, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 17:01,
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I've got a real job.
I work my arse off 6 days a week doing technical support for a college and freelance editing work. Why? To make enough money to support being in a band, because I'd rather die than not play music. If you think I'm only doing it for cash, then you obviously haven't met me and moreover, I'd have to be completely fucking stupid to think that in this day and age I could make enough money from playing guitar at this level to support myself. Which I'm not.
I agree with you however, there will always be enough people who want to make music for it to continue forever, and similarly there will always be people who want to hear it. But have you been to any local shows recently? I live in Manchester, and the music scene here is fucking crap. Unless you want to play indie music. Which I don't.
The sad fact is that the people who truly care about music are very much in the minority, and for a band to ever make a living out playing music you need the rest of the people, the ones who only listen to whatever Kerrang magazine tells them to, to buy your albums.
I'm not into music for money. Not at all. Would I like to be paid to play music for a living, you fucking bet I would. Who the fuck would turn down the chance to do something they love dearly, and have poured countless hours of their lives into (whether they got paid or not), for money? I certainly wouldn't. Give up my job and go touring with my band? Fuck yes. But even if I never make a penny from it in my life, I'll still play in bands regardless.
Which, in a convoluted way, brings me back to my original point. For a band to play music for a living, they have to sell enough of their products to sustain themselves. And that is the dream for most musicians (not to be rich, just to make enough to be able to do nothing else). This is made possible (or easier I should perhaps say) by the process of being signed to a label that has a supply of cash to pay for things like recording sessions and pressings and so on. If people are "stealing" tracks and albums as opposed to paying for them, there is less cash going to record labels and as a knock on effect, less cash for them to put into up and coming bands. And I don't want to get into an argument about how record labels are evil and controlling. They are, but thats a different conversation altogether. They also happen to be a neccessary evil for young bands who need exposure on a wider scale.
Basically, if there was a better, practical alternative to getting signed, everyone would do it. As it stands, the only real alternative is financing a release yourself (like we're doing), but thats not an option for most bands. I'm lucky I work where I do, or we'd have never got the cash together to record an album. It took us 6 months. If we'd have paid for that time, it would have run into the many thousands, without a doubt. Especially considering the spec of the studio.
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PMGT -Bacon., Sun 18 Jul 2010, 10:49,
Reply)