How do bands afford to tour?

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chamelious

www.thesunexplodes.com
Just wondering if anyone has any idea. Seems to be so many bands hiring vans and touring, my band struggles enough affording fuel in cars to one off gigs, arranging time off from 5 peoples full time jobs. I'm friendly with the local venue and i know that even big bands filling the venue are only getting paid £50-200 odd. Never understood how bands are able to do it.
 
If you mean the known and/or signed acts...they often get funded by whoever signed them, against their gig/CD sales (present and future).
Some of the bigger/older acts have their own promo companies and there's enough money coming in from endorsements and ad sales that piggy off the act to fund some of the touring.

If there ain't money coming in to fuel it...you ain't touring big time.
Lots of bands tour their asses off and have very little $$$ to show for it...it's all about build towards that bigger, final goal of "making it"...many don't reach it and end up poor even though they are well known and toured a lot.
 
Whe I was on the road the bands made little and lived off the kindness of their stripper girlfriends and parents.
 
ido1957 said:
...bands made little and lived off the kindness of their stripper girlfriends
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hear hear, the good ol days!!
today its 3 grand a month just for the bus lease... plus driver, fuel, miles, tolls and hotel!! then theres beer, and stripper girlfriends dont come cheap either!
 
3000 a month?? What band are you in? Our school bus cost that much and lasted several years. What kind of gigs do you play and how much do they pay?
 
I toured with an 'industry' band for a while and I had very little idea where the money actually came from. We had studio time, car service, hotels, plane flights, gear waiting for us at the gig, etc and I never touched a dime in the process. Artist management handled all of that for my (somewhat established movie star playing the rock side-dream who's name I won't disclose) lead guy and us, his 3 band mates and engineer/soundguy/producer. I never saw a single transaction or contract I was just along for the ride, if I needed cash I just told my 'assistant' (who was also responsible for making sure I was on the plane on time or getting guitar strings or whatever and probably got paid more than I did). I guess what the experience of an 'industry' gig is. I kind of hated it it being so out of my decision making, but hey it was a great opportunity to travel and rock and live the good life on someone else's dime.

Back down to earth though, in all my DIY bands, we would... well... not pay rent and either live with girlfriends or parents or (for a while with one of my more successful projects) in a campsite under a bridge with tribes of squatters while not touring, or sleeping in the old ambulance we used as a band and spent all the extra money on getting us to the next show, beer, cigs, eat for free at the bar.

I think it's best to work with other bands when doing this approach. If you are buds with guys in other bands who can spit the bill for rental gear, take turns doing the Tshirt/CD table for the other band, or doing sound, or share a mutual bandwagon for transit. If you have several gigs booked in places spread out within a days driving distance from each other (we used to go down and up the west coast for instance, starting seattle, then portland, then san fran then LA, then back up and this was with my broke homeless band and out suburbanite buddies 'sister' band. We would be on the road for 2 weeks tops and play almost every night as long as we booked in advance and brought some sale-ables with us. We would do this every 2 or 3 months and lived off of it (due to not paying rent for anything but our practice space and studio) for almost 3 years.

just some thoughts based on my own experience. Take it or leave it. It's not an easy job, so either get nice girlfriend, be blessed with rich parents, or be prepared to scum it.
 
ido1957 said:
Whe I was on the road the bands made little and lived off the kindness of their stripper parents and girlfriends .
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hmmmmmm.......I bet you didn't invite them to career day at school. :D:D:laughings::laughings:
 
My bass player filled in on tour with a well known death metal band on a good size label for 9 weeks. He was paid $9 a day for food, cigarettes and beer. I could not make $570 last for 2 months.
 
Sounds awful to be honest. Think we'll just stick to playing 2-5ish one off gigs a month.
 
Ran into the lead singer of a major shock/theater/rock group in a restaurant one day.

When he had a break from bussing tables he filled me in on their recent 3-month European tour...
 
I think it comes down to the law of diminishing returns (probably not using the right term here)

If a band wants to do music full-time without supplementary income from side jobs, they have to be able to cook the books and figure out where the balance between travel/production expenses and gig income exists. When you're talking the basic level of gigging, there aren't many bands who could survive without doing some sort of job on the side.

When you're talking the biggest bands of the world, the touring expenses are often picked up by brand names who "Present" the tour. Even for a major record label, a huge touring production can be too expensive...so you leave it to Budweiser or KC Masterpiece who can shill their product, comp important people and share in the gate.
 
villaininwhite said:
My bass player filled in on tour with a well known death metal band on a good size label for 9 weeks. He was paid $9 a day for food, cigarettes and beer.
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That's utterly ridiculous ! You can't buy a 20 pack of Silk cut in the UK for $9 !! You can't even get a boring old cheese and tomato pizza at a seedy unhygenic hovel for that......unless you do the lunchtime 'eat as much as you can vomit' buffet. But you can get a good sixpack that'll have you burping and stopping every 40 minutes for a little 'relief'. It's not called 'getting pissed' for nothing, you know.
 
FunkDaddy said:
When you're talking the biggest bands of the world, the touring expenses are often picked up by brand names who "Present" the tour. Even for a major record label, a huge touring production can be too expensive...so you leave it to Budweiser or KC Masterpiece who can shill their product, comp important people and share in the gate.
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KCearl is a major international business magnate and mogul ?:eek:

Props, man ! :p
 
I don't know if that's true. The Internet killed off getting a living from selling CDs, but plenty of regions still have happenin live music scenes. NYC, Austin, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Columbus are the ones I have seen first hand and they are all hoppin live music towns with outlying college campus towns as another good place to get gigs while in the neighborhood. The thing about the internet is that it can give you some publicity so you can be more likely to get a crowd even in a place your band has never been before. If you can get a crowd, you can get money. If you know the region a bit you can plan little mini-tours for a week and make some money.... like after gas cost maybe get home with $100 bucks profit for your week's hard work heh.

Another solution: kick out half your band. 3 people need less gear less gas less lodging than 5 and only split the earnings 3 ways. I feel sorry for the funk bands with their 3 person horn section and keyboardist and percussionist and so on.
 
thing is ...... musicians and bands get paid the exact same that they got 40 years ago when I first went full time.

In 1969 I made 100-150 bucks a night ....... now I make 100-150 bucks a night. :eek:
40 years ago 100 bucks a night was decent money ........ now it's less than minimum wage once you look at the hours you put in.

A lot of it comes from the fact that club owners can, in fact, get people to play for nothing since there are always LOTS of players who don't depend on it for their living.
They just want to play and if they just make beer money from it ...... that's fine.

I'm not critisizing them for it before someone starts calling me elitist or anything.

If I had a day gig and simply wanted to get to play I wouldn't care how much I got either ....... I truly understand that.
But nonetheless ....... it's a big component in why wages haven't grown at all in 40 years.
 
percentage of the door. That's the only way you will hve any leverage. Internet gives you a bit of DIY advertising posibility, but if a club owner knows every time you play there his door is 1000+ people paying cover and buying drinks you better believe you have the negotiation upper hand. I was soundman for a bar (a big big bar) in a college town who had a local touring dead-cover-band who were a staple every month. They packed the place to fire code violation levels every time. They played once a month at MY venue, excluding the other places they played on other weekends. Think $5-$10 cover, about $10-$20 in drinks... x 1000 people = $15000-$30000 for a night. A 5% cut of that is still $750-$1500 for the band. . They got a percentage. Everyone was happy. If you can bring the crowd, milk the cheese of being a tribute band, you can be bringing home a few hundred bucks each member for a gig. 'tis what the problem is to get established enough to be a 1000 crowd regular draw. And working min wage still pays better. Until you can guaraauntee a crowd that comes for YOU instead of for the venue, enjoy your leaky roof and Ramen Noodles... staple of rockstars everywhere.

When I toured Europe and played at the Cannes Film Festival a couple of years ago, I had plane flights, 5* hotels, etc all paid for... but I was spending about 5-10 euro a day between cheap handrolled cigs, transit fare, and cheap wine. Gotta love living large. Oh yeah I once worked a telemarketing job with the drummer from Metal Church back in the early 90s. While he wasn't on tour or making a video for MTV. I bummed rides to band practice from my housemates for a band who was offered almost $1,000,000 budget for a video... of course it wouldnt be OUR 1000000 video it would be the company. after a while you just get used to the idea that you put in WAY more than you get out, even if you are a public celebrity, unless you are a megastar, you're probably still scumming it. After I played the movie release at cannes for the film we did the soundtrack for, I had to bum $2 for the subway to get home from the airport when we got back to new york, and get an advance from my manager for the rent money I was short because I had been gone a month and not working my bike messenger job. Point is, even at the 'reasonably successful' level, you still don't make shit.

Best way is to be a stupid tribute band and play college campuses. Those Grateful Dead cover guys never got to fly all over the world, but they sure made a lot of money for themselves doing 2 sets in 1 night 1ce a month for a hip college town club.
 
Lt. Bob said:
If I had a day gig and simply wanted to get to play I wouldn't care how much I got either ....... I truly understand that.
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This would be me...

I have a lot of respect for anyone who's made a career out of actually playing music... it was always too hard for me. If you think the logistics of touring a band "on the road" in the US are hard, imagine a country the same size, with only 22 million people, mainly scattered round the edges... it's positively brutal - this country (Australia) has had some wonderful bands and musos... very, very few ever make a going thing of it, many try for years but eventually when the reality of the financial situation cuts in they seek other ways to live, often still associated with music, but not trying to do the "rock star" thing.

Occasionally a band hits it big and sustains it either at an Australian or international level, for one reason or another, but it's rare.

I've had several attempts to go "pro" but fundamentally I don't like the poverty side of it, so I've given up these attempts, and now work in business analysis and web development at a major financial organisation for the $ and have for years. The upside of selling my soul is that buying gear isn't a problem! :D

I play in a duo that's just starting to make a bit of headway and I could give a rat's arse at this stage if I get paid or not... not that there's any money on offer anyway... it's all about the songwriting and performing...

But as I said, having read Lt Bob's posts for years, I have great respect for his ability to do the music thing over such a long time - you should write a book LT... I'm sure you have some great stories to tell.. :drunk:
 
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