Interesting post from Jay Postones, drummer of TesseracT, relating to being a musician these days

axisus

Casual show tonight with TesseracT at Wembley Arena, supporting Dream Theater

And in this day I’d like to tell you the truth about being a full time musician - I don't see many people talking about this as opening up about this stuff can tell a story vastly different to the reality a musicians ego would like you to believe. It also runs the risk of bursting the bubble for a number of people, but I feel it's important and my duty to share these truths, as doing so could help others along their journey as a self-employed creative.

Let's burst the biggest bubble - TesseracT is not my full time job. Of course it's not. Unless you were in the Beatles, or are one of a handful of successful cherry-picked pop stars, it's very unlikely that the job of creating music and touring it is the sole thing keeping a roof over your head and food on the table. Composing and performing music exclusively, and having it pay handsomely is the musicians equivalent of winning the lottery and should be nobody’s short term, or medium term plan in my opinion. If we play our cards right and continue pushing this thing forwards, TesseracT might be my pension.

In my experience, if you're good enough at composing and performing, and you pair that with consistent marketing and reinvestment into your project, you will be presented with opportunities which will help you to craft a life around being a full time musician.

I have been doing this long enough now that I can sustain my lifestyle on a combination of: drum lessons which make up the vast majority of my income, a small amount of income generated from live streaming, and a small amount of income from TesseracT. It hasn't always been this way though. In fact, this combination is a fairly recent development in my life and in order to maintain it, I push forward every single day with either a live stream and/or work towards a new drum lesson (and of course working on TesseracT material). The latter is particularly time consuming and I can sink days into a single drum lesson - but I love it! The saying 'time flies when you're having fun' has never been so true as when it's applied to the jobs we do. I'll work on a single drum lesson from 10am till I fall asleep - no problem.

The traditional understanding of 'full time' does not apply when you are self employed. You're either working, or you're not. The only reason for not doing something towards my work is when I am allowing myself time to chill - which is very important.

 Before TesseracT released our first album 'One', I worked in an office in Reading, in the south of the UK. My job was a 'bid coordinator' - sexy! It was my job to pull together a good-looking document which answered a bunch of questions about the company I worked for, which would then be mailed to a prospective client concerning a specific job they needed doing, for a huge amount of money. Was this job my dream or my desired career? Absolutely not, but I am grateful for it. For the couple of years I worked there, it gave me the income to pursue my creative career. It also gave me a bunch of graphic design skills I still use today.

That job gave me the confidence and skillset to become a graphics consultant. I did this type of consulting work throughout the 2nd half of the album campaign for 'One', all of Altered State, all of Polaris and some of Sonder. Specifically, I was the person responsible for all of the graphical content and formatting for a £multi-million contract submissions for a prominent UK train company - extremely sexy!

While I was on tour in the US for Sonder, I was also running a huge graphics and formatting project for a Scottish Ferry company - oh my god, so sexy! I'd wake up at 5am/6am every day, open my laptop and run through a huge pile of requests, right up to sound-check. Then after sound-check, I'd go back to the bus and carry on working until 30 minutes before our stage time. I'd work after the show if I needed to.

 

All of this leads to a point - you have to work hard. To become a full time musician and afford to hold down anything resembling a home or family life, you need to find a way to break free of working at a particular place and offer a skill that you can do remotely, from anywhere in the world. Otherwise, you're setting yourself and your band up for failure - as the band quite likely won't pay your way.

You could consider setting up a business that you're able to run remotely - I did this too. I set up four music rehearsal studios (The Rhoom Studios in Reading UK) which are still open to this day under new management since I moved to the US. Having both of these things in place: essentially 'passive' income from the studios and the ability to offer consultation remotely, has meant that I've been able to maintain my position as the drummer in TesseracT, and say yes to going on back-to-back 6-week tours with a couple of weeks at home in between. It's still tough to go away for those stretches of time, but it's made significantly easier when I'm not having to worry about where the money is coming from during or after the tour.

99% of the musicians I know do something else to ensure their financial freedom.

So, if it’s your dream to get your band to the point where you’re playing stages like Wembley, what skills do you have that you can begin to monetise so that, one day, you can leave that uninspiring job to give your creative dreams a chance of success?

 (source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158866246493108&set=a.10150245435368108)

PolarityMan

Hustle culture basically. Periphery are another great example of a band that have diversified their income streams. 

PolarityMan

Also worth noting that Jay did not play on the Portals live stream which might also give some insight into exactly how secure the future is for instrumentalists in bands like Tesseract when they're not the main writer.  

Greatape

I know it's the modern world, but anytime I see the words 'monetize' or 'income stream', a little bit more of me dies quietly...

Panama_Jack666

Greatape said:

I know it's the modern world, but anytime I see the words 'monetize' or 'income stream', a little bit more of me dies quietly...

The same for the use of "content" for me. Artists are expected constantly to produce "content" that can be monetized and then disposed of when more "content" comes out next week.

FarleyUK

Oooh, I've used Rhoom Studios a few times - pretty decent place (even if Reading is a shithole).

PolarityMan

FarleyUK said:

Oooh, I've used Rhoom Studios a few times - pretty decent place (even if Reading is a shithole).

I don't t remember it being that bad but haven't been back for yonks. Purple turtle then metal night at the Fez club was our Monday night ritual all through 6th form.

Caffeine_Vampire

The other way of doing it is to ensure you have a low cost lifestyle. No kids, small house etc. The trick isn't earning a lot of money, the trick is not needing to. 

Philly_Q

Since the death of record sales I've assumed most professional musicians would need additional sources of income, but I had little idea what they actually did.  This is the first time I've read such a detailed personal account, it's very interesting.

I suppose it's not too far from someone like Ola Englund who plays in two bands, releases records as a sort of cottage industry, has his own guitar brand and of course a YouTube channel.  All music-related of course, but the actual "bands" bit seems almost like a hobby.

skullfunkerry

Caffeine_Vampire said:

The other way of doing it is to ensure you have a low cost lifestyle. No kids, small house etc. The trick isn't earning a lot of money, the trick is not needing to. 

Definitely this. I read an interview with Doug Pinnick of King's X a while back and when he was asked who he'd like to collaborate with, said something along the lines of "Anyone, I just need to earn some money". Then he went on to explain that he hadn't had to do a job since he left school, but he'd basically spent all that time living hand to mouth while he made music.

Philly_Q

skullfunkerry said:

Caffeine_Vampire said:

The other way of doing it is to ensure you have a low cost lifestyle. No kids, small house etc. The trick isn't earning a lot of money, the trick is not needing to. 

Definitely this. I read an interview with Doug Pinnick of King's X a while back and when he was asked who he'd like to collaborate with, said something along the lines of "Anyone, I just need to earn some money". Then he went on to explain that he hadn't had to do a job since he left school, but he'd basically spent all that time living hand to mouth while he made music.

This will sound like sarcasm, but he's so skinny he looks like he hardly ever eats.

CavemanGrogg

Surely Gene Simmons is the most obvious musician who comes to mind when talking about the pros having to have a ''side hustle'' or second income stream to make ends meet, the guy is truly a genius at it and makes Joe Bonamassa look like an amatuer.  Air Guitar Strings for crying out loud, and thy don't just cost as much as real strings, like Ernie Balls, the limited edition versions cost more than a pack of their Slinky strings sets, and that's just one of his ''side hustles'', he has not just got the signsature instruments, merchandise, and the traditional things associated with celebraty musicians, but also franchies as in multiple and in different areas like a coffee chain and juice bar.

PolarityMan

CavemanGrogg said:

Surely Gene Simmons is the most obvious musician who comes to mind when talking about the pros having to have a ''side hustle'' or second income stream to make ends meet, the guy is truly a genius at it and makes Joe Bonamassa look like an amatuer.  Air Guitar Strings for crying out loud, and thy don't just cost as much as real strings, like Ernie Balls, the limited edition versions cost more than a pack of their Slinky strings sets, and that's just one of his ''side hustles'', he has not just got the signsature instruments, merchandise, and the traditional things associated with celebraty musicians, but also franchies as in multiple and in different areas like a coffee chain and juice bar.

I think that's a but different. He's almost certainly not involved in any of those projects and is just taking money in exchange for use of his "brand". Of course he can also only do this because kiss are already enormous. He almost certainly.also doesn't NEED to do it to survive.the change here is that newer bands actually need to actively work on other projects to supplement their income otherwise the musical projects would not be viable. 

CavemanGrogg

PolarityMan said:

CavemanGrogg said:

Surely Gene Simmons is the most obvious musician who comes to mind when talking about the pros having to have a ''side hustle'' or second income stream to make ends meet, the guy is truly a genius at it and makes Joe Bonamassa look like an amatuer.  Air Guitar Strings for crying out loud, and thy don't just cost as much as real strings, like Ernie Balls, the limited edition versions cost more than a pack of their Slinky strings sets, and that's just one of his ''side hustles'', he has not just got the signsature instruments, merchandise, and the traditional things associated with celebraty musicians, but also franchies as in multiple and in different areas like a coffee chain and juice bar.

I think that's a but different. He's almost certainly not involved in any of those projects and is just taking money in exchange for use of his "brand". Of course he can also only do this because kiss are already enormous. He almost certainly.also doesn't NEED to do it to survive.the change here is that newer bands actually need to actively work on other projects to supplement their income otherwise the musical projects would not be viable. 

He did when they started out though, he' been at it for decades,, even Paul Stanely credis Gene's financial forsight, and so does Ace who famously regrets not taking Gene's advice and trade marking his lightning bolt guitar strap design.   The band have mentioned in numerious interviews how much they owe to Gene's financial foresight and ''side hustles'', and Gene himself has talked about their need to do it from the start to make ends meet.

Teetonetal

All the pro musicians I have ever met have done a combination of taught, composed, done add work, porn sound tracks, some kind of covers project, originals band, taxi driving etc.

The number who have the luxury of Ed Shereen, going to work on song writing for himself day after day, is close to zero.

Look at Steven Wilson, multiple band projects, remastering, touring.. he's a busy chap.

fastonebaz

I can't be the only one that was halfway through the post still thinking

" wow I didn't realise @axisus was the drummer in tesseract "

darthed1981

The old music industry died with Napster.  Any business that doesn't adapt and change is going to die and that's that.  They seem to sort of have a kind of undead-life with streaming, in the long run though the return to artists makes it surprising that everyone is on board with it.  Many complain, few have the power to make any change.

The new generation who have really nailed it seem to be a lot like the drummer in the OP, making a living as a musician through a lot of different routes.

As was discussed in the Mary Spender thread the other week - patreon is a huge way of making money now.  Basically formalising "oh you like me any my stuff?  Give me some money then, ya buggers!" and even a bit of very basic maths makes it look like she gets about 30k a year just from patreon, probably more.

So you have your output, what you want to do...

Recorded music

Gigs

...and sources of revenue...

Streaming (teeny for most).

Physical media (decent return, but still small, big initial outlay).

Radio play (can be very nice).

Gigs (easy to lose money here...)

Merch (if venues don't rob you)

Youtube channel

Patreon

Endorsements and ads (if you don't mind shilling, here lies a pot of gold for some...)

Lessons, meet and greets, VIP packages

A real boring 9 to 5 job...

It's tough but for people who want it, it's a dream.

darthed1981

Teetonetal said:

The number who have the luxury of Ed Shereen, going to work on song writing for himself day after day, is close to zero.

Exactly - even if you get everything right as Ed did (really, his career since he made it big is a "how to" make it big, like all the collaborations, if your fan base makes X and theirs makes Y, working with them gives you X+Y....) your odds of global success are still almost nil.

Although a lot of Ed's songs are prety good, in reality there are probably a 1000 songs written every day that could end up as good as "Bad Habits" if put through his team...

Trying to be Ed Sheeran is a bit like wanting to shag Scarlett Johannsen...

1.  Will almost certainly never happen, like odds of winning the euromillions twice unlikely.

2.  The reality isn't what we think anyhow, both a bit of product well removed from what they are as people.

digitalscream

fastonebaz said:

I can't be the only one that was halfway through the post still thinking

" wow I didn't realise @axisus was the drummer in tesseract "

I've just added a source attribution to the post

Philly_Q

Teetonetal said:

All the pro musicians I have ever met have done a combination of taught, composed, done add work, porn sound tracks, some kind of covers project, originals band, taxi driving etc.

The number who have the luxury of Ed Shereen, going to work on song writing for himself day after day, is close to zero.

My stepsister, the self-styled "singing poet", hasn't had a job for at least 20 years, she thinks she has to be free of such things so as not to compromise her "art".  Needless to say she's never made a penny out of singing or writing.

I do know* one pro musician.  He's a drummer - mostly function band stuff, but I think he's done some session work.  For a while he managed two function bands with the same name, filling in on drums himself depending on who was available.  He also teaches drums and has a sideline in photography.

(* Actually I work with his girlfriend.)

axisus

fastonebaz said:

I can't be the only one that was halfway through the post still thinking

" wow I didn't realise @axisus was the drummer in tesseract "

I thought the giveaway was naming the drummer in the post title personally, but I guess I credit too much intelligence to the readership around here!