How do independent musical artists make make money via their craft?
April 3, 2023 6:05 AM Subscribe
Thanks to fings's post about Ren I have found out about an extremely unique and talented artist who makes stellar music videos without the backing of any label.
How do these folks make enough money to do this when they have no "day job" and no wealthy backers?
I'm not familiar with this particular artist, but more generally, the answer is some combination of having day jobs, having wealthy backers, and living in what most people would consider poverty (including public assistance). Paul Westerberg famously worked as a janitor, Chris Cornell was a waiter, and so on. These kinds of jobs are generally considered "unskilled", but with flexible schedules and no real commitments, they're ideal for touring musicians. It's perhaps not as common in music, but this is a common criticism for other creative fields - that the people who can actually take the low-paying (or unpaid) entry-level jobs are people with family money, and thus they're the ones who progress up the ladder. And yeah, "a living" is relative. There are innumerable musicians who subsist on ramen noodles while living on friends' couches. It's generally not a field people go into if they're expecting a comfortable middle class existence that includes home ownership, health insurance, etc.
Once musicians attain a certain level of success, it can become self-sustaining, but even then it's pretty precarious. I used to work with a guy whose band had been signed to a major label, gotten a video on MTV (this was a while ago), toured with other major label bands, etc. He got a "real job" because even that level of success was unable to cover his basic living expenses. The fact that the "real, stable job" was in a call center should tell you something about the economics of the music industry.
As I understand it, few musicians make money from streaming. I don't know about Youtube, but Spotify only pays a fraction of a penny for each play. You can have millions of plays and still not make minimum wage. Even at the highest levels, musicians generally make money by playing shows and selling merch. If you play 100 shows a year at $200/show, and you sell 10 t-shirts at each show at $20 each, you're grossing $40k. If you keep your expenses low, and supplement it with a couple weeks of washing dishes here and there, that's enough to scrape by.
With this guy specifically, considering his health problems, I would imagine he probably received at least some public assistance before "making it big". There's also a reference in the article to crowdfunding, which would indicate that he's not just doing things on his own anymore.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:05 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Once musicians attain a certain level of success, it can become self-sustaining, but even then it's pretty precarious. I used to work with a guy whose band had been signed to a major label, gotten a video on MTV (this was a while ago), toured with other major label bands, etc. He got a "real job" because even that level of success was unable to cover his basic living expenses. The fact that the "real, stable job" was in a call center should tell you something about the economics of the music industry.
As I understand it, few musicians make money from streaming. I don't know about Youtube, but Spotify only pays a fraction of a penny for each play. You can have millions of plays and still not make minimum wage. Even at the highest levels, musicians generally make money by playing shows and selling merch. If you play 100 shows a year at $200/show, and you sell 10 t-shirts at each show at $20 each, you're grossing $40k. If you keep your expenses low, and supplement it with a couple weeks of washing dishes here and there, that's enough to scrape by.
With this guy specifically, considering his health problems, I would imagine he probably received at least some public assistance before "making it big". There's also a reference in the article to crowdfunding, which would indicate that he's not just doing things on his own anymore.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:05 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I am also down the Ren* rabbit-hole in the last week or so, and while I can't speak to the larger question, I can tell you a few things I've learned about Ren in particular. He had undiagnosed Lyme disease for 7 or 8 years, at which time he was told his problems were all in his head and he was put on a variety of medications that caused their own problems while the Lyme ravaged his brain and body. He finally got properly diagnosed and offered a groundbreaking stem-cell treatment in Canada. A GoFundMe was set up for that.
He had a deal with Sony about 10 years ago but they dropped him because of his illness.
His millions of views are mostly recent, as the song Hi, Ren blew up soon after he posted it Dec 2022 (and rightly so - approaching 10M). He also chose to release the copyright for all the reactors to this video (of which there are SO MANY, and many of which Ren visited and thanked in the comments). I believe this helped all of his other videos as well. His new album dropped recently.
I think you can tell watching his videos that he has been doing this for a long time, and with a dedicated group of friends and musicians he works with. He's done a lot of busking and other live performances, as much as he could with the dreadful physical and mental health problems he suffered for years.
(Apologies if this doesn't really answer the question and if you already knew all this. If this comment helps people find his music, totally worth it.)
*Highly recommend watching this stunning, beautifully hopeful piece of art.
posted by Glinn at 7:21 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
He had a deal with Sony about 10 years ago but they dropped him because of his illness.
His millions of views are mostly recent, as the song Hi, Ren blew up soon after he posted it Dec 2022 (and rightly so - approaching 10M). He also chose to release the copyright for all the reactors to this video (of which there are SO MANY, and many of which Ren visited and thanked in the comments). I believe this helped all of his other videos as well. His new album dropped recently.
I think you can tell watching his videos that he has been doing this for a long time, and with a dedicated group of friends and musicians he works with. He's done a lot of busking and other live performances, as much as he could with the dreadful physical and mental health problems he suffered for years.
(Apologies if this doesn't really answer the question and if you already knew all this. If this comment helps people find his music, totally worth it.)
*Highly recommend watching this stunning, beautifully hopeful piece of art.
posted by Glinn at 7:21 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
So among other sources, Ren has written a book (in 2017 even) about how he makes money. Youtube is a big pull for him now, but he also sells CDs and digital downloads, busks when he is healthy enough, and is also currently living on a gofundme to pay for some experimental treatment in Canada for his health issues. As far as I remember, he lives with his parents (for health reasons in particular) generally.
A lot of indie artists use crowdfunding to put together the cash needed up front for studio time and the costs of initially providing digital downloads and physical CDs. Anything you sell beyond the crowdfunded run is mostly profit aside from administrative costs.
I think Ren's youtube success (which probably had not been anything like a paycheck until this year, and still probably about equivalent to an okay bartending job) is fairly extraordinary for his genre, though I think there are indie hip hop and Spanish-language artists with similar numbers. And I think like those kinds of artists he's making extraordinary videos with similarly-talented young filmmakers and taking advantage of cheap locations (like the abandoned building where a lot of his recent videos were made, or on the street).
I don't know if this is true for Ren in particular, but I do know from various musician friends that if you can drum up even local popularity then private gigs start becoming an option and they pay more/more reliably than some club gigs, and if you can get enough attention - even super-niche attention like some people I know who have a multi-genre nerd fandom, touring won't make you rich but it will pay out something like a modest monthly salary, but the amount of touring you have to do to pay rent and bills for the whole year is...a substantial part of the year, and they still keep their fingers crossed for those private gigs, fandom cruises, and enough youtube fame to maybe spin up a Patreon.
None of the working musicians I know only have the one job. Most of them do semi-flexible or seasonal work - teaching of various kinds, business- or industry-related marketing for other creative entities, gig work. I have a friend who is a mobile notary, hours-a-month bookkeeper for a bunch of tiny businesses, and for a while had a tremendous run as a guitar-playing Elsa for children's birthday parties; I have another friend who owns a used book and record store and I believe this year is putting in a summer stage outside and a room for teaching music lessons.
Most of the working musicians I know have a traditionally-employed spouse or partner, even if the important aspect of their employment is just benefits and enough on-paper recurring income to secure a lease or mortgage.
One of the most critical lifelines for your average musician is the networks they build so that work is flowing to them from all kinds of odd corners. My husband very occasionally gets a chance to hire one of our friends to make or license a few seconds or minutes of music for his television projects, or recommend them to other colleagues. This might well make them a contact who later hires them for a wrap party or a theme song or more incidental work. I think most of the musicians we knew in LA had done multiple turns in the background as "the band" on TV and in movies, and occasionally we would bump into them at live podcast shows that had live backing music.
This is why you have to have MASSIVE hustle to even semi "make it". The number of tiny little jobs you have to do and hats you have to wear to even make survival money is staggering. Especially for super-indies who have to be an accountant, business manager, project manager, people manager, either an extrovert or super thick-skinned for knowing and keeping up with a ton of people, cultivator of the art and talent of people around them (and receive the same in turn), someone who shows up and plays even sick or hurt or sad, and then also be some kind of inspired creative genius in the leftover minutes.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:57 AM on April 3, 2023 [9 favorites]
A lot of indie artists use crowdfunding to put together the cash needed up front for studio time and the costs of initially providing digital downloads and physical CDs. Anything you sell beyond the crowdfunded run is mostly profit aside from administrative costs.
I think Ren's youtube success (which probably had not been anything like a paycheck until this year, and still probably about equivalent to an okay bartending job) is fairly extraordinary for his genre, though I think there are indie hip hop and Spanish-language artists with similar numbers. And I think like those kinds of artists he's making extraordinary videos with similarly-talented young filmmakers and taking advantage of cheap locations (like the abandoned building where a lot of his recent videos were made, or on the street).
I don't know if this is true for Ren in particular, but I do know from various musician friends that if you can drum up even local popularity then private gigs start becoming an option and they pay more/more reliably than some club gigs, and if you can get enough attention - even super-niche attention like some people I know who have a multi-genre nerd fandom, touring won't make you rich but it will pay out something like a modest monthly salary, but the amount of touring you have to do to pay rent and bills for the whole year is...a substantial part of the year, and they still keep their fingers crossed for those private gigs, fandom cruises, and enough youtube fame to maybe spin up a Patreon.
None of the working musicians I know only have the one job. Most of them do semi-flexible or seasonal work - teaching of various kinds, business- or industry-related marketing for other creative entities, gig work. I have a friend who is a mobile notary, hours-a-month bookkeeper for a bunch of tiny businesses, and for a while had a tremendous run as a guitar-playing Elsa for children's birthday parties; I have another friend who owns a used book and record store and I believe this year is putting in a summer stage outside and a room for teaching music lessons.
Most of the working musicians I know have a traditionally-employed spouse or partner, even if the important aspect of their employment is just benefits and enough on-paper recurring income to secure a lease or mortgage.
One of the most critical lifelines for your average musician is the networks they build so that work is flowing to them from all kinds of odd corners. My husband very occasionally gets a chance to hire one of our friends to make or license a few seconds or minutes of music for his television projects, or recommend them to other colleagues. This might well make them a contact who later hires them for a wrap party or a theme song or more incidental work. I think most of the musicians we knew in LA had done multiple turns in the background as "the band" on TV and in movies, and occasionally we would bump into them at live podcast shows that had live backing music.
This is why you have to have MASSIVE hustle to even semi "make it". The number of tiny little jobs you have to do and hats you have to wear to even make survival money is staggering. Especially for super-indies who have to be an accountant, business manager, project manager, people manager, either an extrovert or super thick-skinned for knowing and keeping up with a ton of people, cultivator of the art and talent of people around them (and receive the same in turn), someone who shows up and plays even sick or hurt or sad, and then also be some kind of inspired creative genius in the leftover minutes.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:57 AM on April 3, 2023 [9 favorites]
The one musician I know who makes money at it is a session/cover band player who is proficient on multiple instruments and ready to gig out on request -- a "pocket" player. He also takes day jobs. He happens to have grown up in an entertainment city and has family support there, including a relative who's been his landlord. He's a very fast learner and has about 30 years of experience. He's put out a couple albums as an indie. He's by no means well off but he's happy.
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 10:19 AM on April 3, 2023
posted by Beethoven's Sith at 10:19 AM on April 3, 2023
Best answer: A friend of mine supports Wolf Loescher, so I know a bit about how he raises money. He does kickstarters for his CDs, where if you donate a certain amount, he'll play your house next time he's in town. (In fact, the last two times I've seen him, it was at our friend's house. Admission was free, but there was a tip jar.) He also does a Saturday night stream, with tip jar.
Another musician who's played my friend's house is also a SF/Fantasy author. I don't have any of her music, but I did buy one of her books.
posted by Spike Glee at 11:50 AM on April 3, 2023
Another musician who's played my friend's house is also a SF/Fantasy author. I don't have any of her music, but I did buy one of her books.
posted by Spike Glee at 11:50 AM on April 3, 2023
The real answer is most don't make any money to live on at all. The ones with videos like you asked about...yeah, they are content creators and more like influencers in that regard.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:04 AM on April 4, 2023
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:04 AM on April 4, 2023
I also know Wolf Loescher (he played bagpipes at my wedding yoinks ago) and his wife (alum of my high school) and she's got a professional job. My husband used to run sound for local Celtic/Celtic rock bands, including some bands Wolf played in, in Houston in the 90s about the time when I started dating him. We're still friends with folks from that scene and of the ones still working as professional musicians, most of them have day jobs or spouses with jobs that cover money and insurance. (This is similar, fwiw, to the SFF authors I know these days.)
posted by gentlyepigrams at 10:02 AM on April 4, 2023
posted by gentlyepigrams at 10:02 AM on April 4, 2023
« Older Can ChatGPT make my internet time more efficient? | Grammar Pros Please Check This Prose Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
Youtubers can make millions each year. I don't know this artist, but they have millions of Youtube views for each song. Each million will bring in US$2000 in income, give or take. Then sponsorships, ancillary income, Spotify streaming, etc, makes up the rest.
posted by moiraine at 6:41 AM on April 3, 2023 [1 favorite]