So you wanna be a rock and roll star? Really? Why? Fame? Money? Health insurance? Well, guess what, you are getting one of the above. Take Brooklyn indie band Grizzly Bear. They have a highly respected, pretty well selling (35,000 units the first week) new album, sold out Radio City Music Hall, considered elder statesmen of the Brooklyn indie scene. Hey, we lead with their Radio Show one day -now that's making it.But, according to Nitsuh Abebe, in this weeks New York Magazine interview with Grizzly Bear, even a pretty big indie band isn't very rich. certainly not the size you'd expect:
"People probably have an inflated idea of what we make,” says Droste. “Bands appear so much bigger than they really are now, because no one’s buying records. But they’ll go to giant shows.” Grizzly Bear tours for the bulk of its income, like most bands; licensing a song might provide each member with “a nice little ‘Yay, I don’t have to pay rent for two months.’ ” They don’t all have health insurance. Droste’s covered via his husband, Chad, an interior designer; they live in the same 450-square-foot Williamsburg apartment he occupied before Yellow House. When the band tours, it can afford a bus, an extra keyboard player, and sound and lighting engineers. (That U2 tour had a wardrobe manager.) After covering expenses like recording, publicity, and all the other machinery of a successful act (“Agents, lawyers, tour managers, the merch girl, the venues take a merch cut; Ticketmaster takes their cut; the manager gets a percentage; publishers get a percentage”), Grizzly Bear’s members bring home … well, they’d rather not get into it. “I just think it’s inappropriate,” says Droste. “Obviously we’re surviving. Some of us have health insurance, some of us don’t, we basically all live in the same places, no one’s renting private jets. Come to your own conclusions.”
My conclusion is they don't have a retirement plan and if they aren't bringing down, say 250K a year, what are they doing? $100K? $125K? It is really weird to discover how damn middle class rock and roll has become. A serious little rock and roll band like Grizzly Bear don't appear in it for the shits and giggles, they are, what's the word, artists. Artists without a 401K. And the point isn't GB really, but an entire industry where you might make more money as a telemarketer.