Who Would Try To Earn A Living This Way? The Travails of Touring Musicians

Tim Holehouse finishes his set by removing his guitar and hollering the final words in triumph. The dozen audience members who have made it this far applaud politely as the self-styled ‘hobo musician’ leaves the tiny stage. When the hat is passed round for contributions the total donated at The Wagon Offenbach, a disused train carriage turned venue in southern Germany, is 20 Euros. But Tim has made six times this selling t-shirts, vinyl, box sets and promotional lighters, so overall it’s a decent result. This is Tim’s job, and an amount someone else might blow on a night out will fill his belly and the tank of his car, get him to a concert tomorrow evening in Kasel, nearly 180km away. 

“That night had its ups and downs.” Tim recalls in the Peckham room he uses when he isn’t out on the road. A diplomat’s son raised in suburban Portsmouth, Tim now spends eight months of every year peddling his ‘mutant delta blues’ around the world. “There was no guarantee I would even cover my expenses, food wasn’t included and it was in the middle of nowhere. But they turned out to be a great crowd and they bought my stuff,” the 38 year-old recalls. “When you’re doing 200 gigs a year, not eating or sleeping properly, you kind of dread being frazzled in an empty room on a week night, especially when you have to meet new people and be upbeat while on-stage. That’s when I remind myself what a privilege it is, to earn my living this way.”

Tim gave up his job at the Performing Rights Society back in 2006 after supporting a friend’s band on tour across the US. The early months going solo were frustrating, with Tim mapping a course through uninterested booking agents and pay-to-play venues, but experience and the help of 2000+ Facebook friends brought advice and assistance from other full-time musicians, gig-goers and niche record labels. Eight years down the line though, and his work could hardly be described as lucrative.

“I make £2000-£3000 profit a year, after tax and expenses,” Tim explains. “Which is less than minimum wage, but I’m lucky. When I’m in the country I get to stay at my girlfriend’s place rent-free and I keep my possessions down to a minimum.”

This hand to mouth existence is one way of approaching today’s music industry, but it’s a long way from the dream back in the boom years. During the nineties musicians would come down to London to gig and be spotted by a label’s A&R [Artists and Repertoire] man. They might sign a deal; receive an advance and work to promote their album, building a career from there. It happened for the likes of Oasis and Muse and Radiohead, but that’s not how it happens anymore.

This year income from digital and CD sales fell once more, while the long-term trend has seen listeners moving from owning music outright to streaming via services like Spotify; sites where royalties are less than a penny per play and record labels pass on a fraction of that to their artists. In this climate, even successful acts struggle to earn an income from recording alone, so musicians must look to other revenue streams, with tours and merchandising to the fore. But unless you’re Bruce Springsteen, whose recent tour grossed $347 million from 127 shows, such a path is fraught with risk.

Mudhoney were one of the best-known names of the early nineties grunge scene, and their breakthrough hit ‘Touch Me I’m Sick’ is second only to Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ as the defining anthem of that era. Last year saw the release of their ninth record, with the band playing 60 headline sets and festival slots worldwide. Yet Mudhoney all have day jobs, with singer Mark Arm running the warehouse of Seattle record label Sub Pop, guitarist Steve Turner dealing in rare vinyl and bassist Guy Maddison working as a critical-care nurse. 

In a 2013 interview Arm told Magnet Magazine this is why they’re still musically active. When the financial focus is elsewhere, you only create and perform because you really want to: “once the band didn’t become our primary source of income, and there weren’t any  kind of perceived pressures – like we’ve got to keep making money to live the life we’re accustomed to – then any compromise is completely off the table”. Unlike the accusations of ‘selling out’ which dogged Kurt Cobain towards the end, Mudhoney aren’t about pleasing anyone but themselves.

 

Holding down a job to avoid artistic compromise is very much against the received wisdom, wherein ambitious songwriters are encouraged to believe they should focus entirely on the music and remove any other distractions. But today it can be more liberating to forgo the unstable existence of a life on the road, and pursue music as a part-time hobby.

George Gargan runs the independent label Damnably. He releases records and books tours for US, Japanese and British musicians; the kind of established acts who play 50-100 capacity venues.

“[Singer-songwriter] Geoff Farina is someone who makes a life in music work without very much compromise.” George told me. “He plays a two-hour set every Friday night in [his home town of] Chicago, practices eight hours a day and tours a couple of months a year, managing to record and cover the costs himself.”

“But Geoff also teaches the history of blues, folk and music at [Chicago’s] DePaul University, which he loves, and that gives him some security, so he has the best of both worlds.”

“Compare him to another performer on my label who was in some well-known bands years ago. This man still does nothing but play and record full-time, usually as a hired guitarist. He loves not having a day job, but it’s not a healthy lifestyle, being out on the road and having to watch every penny. He’s had his drink and drug years and pulled through, but you can see the stress of trying to make ends meet.”

One of the British acts on the Damnably roster are a band very much focussed on their careers outside music. Lazarus Clamp maintain what might be called a middle class lifestyle, raising children in houses they own while rehearsing every month and recording regularly. 2015 sees the release of their sixth LP which offers a blend of math-rock, guitar noise and violin-inflected folk, while the band have previously supported Giant Sand, Laura Cantrell, Drugstore and the late Jason Molina. All this despite being scattered across the country (Leicester, Derbyshire, Aldershot) and working as a teacher of advanced Mathematics, software consultant or, in the case of the frontman and songwriter Michael Larkin, a Doctor of Clinical Psychology at Birmingham University.

Guitarist Andrew Kingston [a London-based systems administrator] explains: “We got past the stage where it was considered acceptable for the band to be full time pretty quickly. The members who joined later already had full-time jobs, so everyone knew where they stood.”

“I would say we do an average of four gigs a year which you can’t really call touring,” Kingston continues. “Although they usually feel special because we’re playing with bands we love, or doing a rare headline show so people are more likely to come out.”

“There are five members in this band, so we’d have to be generating pretty decent revenue to provide for us all. I think relying on music would put too much pressure on everyone. For me it’s about meeting up with friends, having a good time and working hard to produce something we can be proud of.”

This art for art’s sake approach feels noble, and it’s made possible by the quintet combining their band with careers elsewhere. But being blasé about recognition seems to go against the point of making music, which is surely to be heard by the largest audience possible. With Lazarus Clamp’s forthcoming record said to be their most accomplished by those who have heard it, such reticence about pushing their songs could keep the band off the radar of potential fans. Their label boss clearly feels the same way, recalling how Lazarus Clamp records have been delayed in the past because of debates over cover art or music left unmastered, George reflecting: “it can be hard for the listener to find a way in”.

People with jobs who just happen to be in bands, producing music you have to hunt down to hear, out on the fringes, is an unusual way to pursue the dream. Other acts become seduced by the romantic ideal of the wandering troubadour, taking their music directly to this audience. Tim Holehouse for one has the time and willingness to accept promotional opportunities that come his way, but he’s also dependent on his own success as a performer, tour manager and roadie to put food on the table and relies on his enthusiasm to get through, something that doesn’t always come easy. 

“I got stuck on the Kosovo-Macedonia border once in the pitch dark trying to talk my way across. That went on forever. More recently I got into a fight with a drunk Austrian who grabbed my beard,” Tim recalls. “So it can be tough, never affording the high-life, and it would be unfair to have kids, with me away so much, but I’ve learned to make it work. I love what I do and I don’t see myself giving it up anytime soon.”

“The other full-time musicians I meet tend to be humble and friendly and feel the same way. It’s the part-timers who can be envious because they hate their jobs, or let their egos run riot a couple of nights a week. There are still bands out there who believe they could have been rock stars, if earning a living hadn’t got in the way.”  

But compromise is a fact of life, even if changes in music consumption can have their positive side. With technology removing the need for record labels, and Bandcamp paying 85% of royalties to artists from its customizable online store, this is a good time to try and do it yourself. That’s if you can write and record the songs, raise the interest and translate it into sales or plays. Then you’ll find the tools are available to locate like-minded souls, book a tour, and use any funds raised to travel the world. Or, if the road holds no appeal, simply put the profits towards your next mortgage payment.