Is it possible for indie artists to survive making music?

Maybe some of us had a few laughs at this thread. I am not a troll however my original post went off topic and I didn't really get the kind of answers from people I had hoped. I was simply curious about what drives you, the amount of sales, and fans you have gained. If you want to open this up for discussion on why I am the way I am I will try my best to explain it. People had a lot of things to say about what they consider success in this business as well as what every musician is currently doing in order to survive. I am not trying to be like everybody else. I am also not trying to just skate by and do this on the side as a hobby. I wanna be highly successful and I am determined to do so.

With that being said nobody is more critical of me than me. I am also my biggest fan. I like what im doing right now more than the majority of modern rock bands. Especially heavy metal bands since it's become this title wave of chuggy down tuned screamo. You probably know a lot of people who are musicians who work part time jobs. You know guys who were nominated for a Grammy that do it. Even though the achievement is often questionable and the artists who get nominations are usually shunned by music fans it's still somewhat success on a mainstream level.

What lead up to my insanity? I have had many 9-5 jobs that I hated. I have seen so many people give up on music to go do what everybody else is currently doing in society. Every 9-5 I ever had didn't earn me a sustainable wage to live comfortably. So it is not like I am nieve to being broke. I got used to being poor, only now im poor doing something I love instead of being poor doing something I hate.

I will say something that could hit a few rough patches with the recording engineers who use this website. I don't think you guys want people like me to blossum. If more artists realized their potential, realized their greatness, we will go on to do bigger and better things. When that happens we aren't coming back to your studio. Since this is what helps you pay the bills you need me to think smaller. When I think smaller im just this average guy who plays music for fun and isn't career driven. Reality is in the perception of the beholder. I don't want coworkers ever coming up to me again telling me they heard I was a great musician while I push a mop around. I can't be both. I am either a great musician, or im pushing a mop around full time and I give up on my 18 years of playing music.

I am out of my mind and that might be the best thing I have going for me as an artist. I believe my insanity will come out through my music. If that helps you guys better to understand how I tick I am glad to help. I want you all to be successful if you play instruments or you are currently in bands. I would wish you good luck but luck is an excuse we all give ourselves to accept people far less talented go on to do better things than us. Luck isn't real. Perseverance and dedictation to see this through is whats real.
 
Putting reality aside and assuming that you're not another weirdo-troll that site this site seems to attract more than any other...Even if any of that rambling manifesto were true, or mattered, you're still gonna be broke. None of us are trying to keep you down. It's not like yo're coming to our studios. It's not like any of us making a living from this either. Your 9-5 jobs didn't pan out because you clearly have no skills or education. You can still change that. What you can't change is being a middle-aged delusional rock star. The few people that still buy music to make musicians potentially rich don't buy metal music from aging throwbacks. And they especially don't buy metal music from a solitary aging throwback that makes his own shit from his bedroom studio.

What you could do is channel all that lip-service drive and focus into something useful...like learning a trade or furthering, or getting, an education. Then you can actually make some money and still pursue your pipe dream. Hey, maybe you can be a plumber and do both!
 
stringbender05 said:
Maybe some of us had a few laughs at this thread. I am not a troll however my original post went off topic and I didn't really get the kind of answers from people I had hoped. I was simply curious about what drives you, the amount of sales, and fans you have gained. If you want to open this up for discussion on why I am the way I am I will try my best to explain it. People had a lot of things to say about what they consider success in this business as well as what every musician is currently doing in order to survive. I am not trying to be like everybody else. I am also not trying to just skate by and do this on the side as a hobby. I wanna be highly successful and I am determined to do so.

With that being said nobody is more critical of me than me. I am also my biggest fan. I like what im doing right now more than the majority of modern rock bands. Especially heavy metal bands since it's become this title wave of chuggy down tuned screamo. You probably know a lot of people who are musicians who work part time jobs. You know guys who were nominated for a Grammy that do it. Even though the achievement is often questionable and the artists who get nominations are usually shunned by music fans it's still somewhat success on a mainstream level.

What lead up to my insanity? I have had many 9-5 jobs that I hated. I have seen so many people give up on music to go do what everybody else is currently doing in society. Every 9-5 I ever had didn't earn me a sustainable wage to live comfortably. So it is not like I am nieve to being broke. I got used to being poor, only now im poor doing something I love instead of being poor doing something I hate.

I will say something that could hit a few rough patches with the recording engineers who use this website. I don't think you guys want people like me to blossum. If more artists realized their potential, realized their greatness, we will go on to do bigger and better things. When that happens we aren't coming back to your studio. Since this is what helps you pay the bills you need me to think smaller. When I think smaller im just this average guy who plays music for fun and isn't career driven. Reality is in the perception of the beholder. I don't want coworkers ever coming up to me again telling me they heard I was a great musician while I push a mop around. I can't be both. I am either a great musician, or im pushing a mop around full time and I give up on my 18 years of playing music.

I am out of my mind and that might be the best thing I have going for me as an artist. I believe my insanity will come out through my music. If that helps you guys better to understand how I tick I am glad to help. I want you all to be successful if you play instruments or you are currently in bands. I would wish you good luck but luck is an excuse we all give ourselves to accept people far less talented go on to do better things than us. Luck isn't real. Perseverance and dedictation to see this through is whats real.
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You admit it - insanity. Seek help. A support group, a therapist. If you are truly goal driven, you need to actually set a realistic business plan to achieve that goal. As Greg says - a solo metal artist in his bedroom is not going to have much success. Is posting on a home recording forum helping you achieve your goal? NO! You're just wasting your time. If you've been playing for 18 years now, I assume you started when you were 14/15, so that puts you in your early 30s already. Time's running out, dude!
 
The only problem with your theory that we don't want you to succeed is the fact that every well known engineer was a nobody up until the point that they worked with an artist that went somewhere. Even if the artist didn't go back to him, it still elevated the engineer's status and got him looked at by people who could throw him more and higher level artists.

Working with a nobody artist at the moment they becomes somebody is pretty much the only way to become a name engineer/producer. Hell, I don't even have a studio anymore and I still get a half dozen albums to mix a year from Eastern europe, simply because I produced an album for an ex guitar player from Manowar...
 
No one is in anyway trying to hold you down. If you were to make it big (and others), it would be a benefit to the backup support industry of the music biz.

Right now there are a lot of people who are not prospering in music related jobs because of the lack of new artists "making it"

Long ago, I ran a rehearsal studio in Hollywood.

People from all over the country came to La to make it, and follow in the footsteps of bands like GnR and Motley Crue. I had 50 bands a week.

Seattle came along, and they stopped coming. The scene shifted.
I saw the writing on the wall and got out before the inevitable dry up.

Whenever you have a thriving scene with people making it, everyone benefits.

Nowadays the music scene is such a clusterfuck, with so few making money.

No, no one is trying to piss on your dream. Go for it. Just be prepared for the quite real reality of poverty and obscurity.

So far however, all we hear is talk of your greatness. Let's hear some of your music.
:D
 
The industry isn't making any new rock stars. Name one band that has debuted in the last 7 years that can headline an arena by themselves and a single opening act. You can't, there aren't any.
 
Basically there's no more original-material musical middle class. The very tippy top makes money, even off shit like streaming. The regular joe can't make shit off streaming. The only people making money in music are the top people and their handlers. The original material nobody stays that way because you're a nobody. It's a double-edged sword. You're a nobody so no one is interested, and you can't become somebody because no one is interested. To make it worse, you wanna be a solo recording-only guy. Lol. Good luck with that.
 
Farview said:
The industry isn't making any new rock stars. Name one band that has debuted in the last 7 years that can headline an arena by themselves and a single opening act. You can't, there aren't any.
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Some of those artificial mallcore bands could. Five seconds to death punch or whatever they're called. They could probably fill an arena. That's what non-pop kids are into. Fingerless gloves mallcore.
 
Farview said:
The industry isn't making any new rock stars. Name one band that has debuted in the last 7 years that can headline an arena by themselves and a single opening act. You can't, there aren't any.
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The Sheepdogs (2006 - not 7 years, but close)
Royal Blood

That's all I got though...
 
Farview said:
The industry isn't making any new rock stars. Name one band that has debuted in the last 7 years that can headline an arena by themselves and a single opening act. You can't, there aren't any.
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Yeah, what the hell happened?

Did they just figure since nobody buys music they will invest in only those most likely to appeal to the most people? They used to take gambles on bands that had cult followings, but you don't see it anymore. I haven't followed the "why" behind that, but I'd guess it has to do with lack of sales. BUT, I have heard itune et al downloads do pretty well, so while people aren't buying CDs, they are buying music. I think?
 
Imagine Dragons is the only example I can think of...Are there any good bands that could do this?? Probably not :(

Edit: I forgot to include the quote, but this is in reference to a newish band that could headline an arena.
 
I just looked at the sheepdogs tour schedule, they don't seem to be playing 10,000 seaters... (I did say arena, didn't i?)

You did get me with Imagine Dragons

I did pick 7 years on purpose. Right around 2008-2009 is when everything really imploded and record companies stopped investing a ton of money in rock bands that weren't already big earners. Once the investment stopped, so did the rise to super-stardom.

I have this conversation quite a lot, everytime someone comes up with an indie artist that has sold gold, I can usually find out that someone had spent a ton of money to pay a promotion company to promote them, like record companies used to. So they got record company results by acting like a record company used to. But who knows if they were able to recoup...
 
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Farview said:
I just looked at the sheepdogs tour schedule, they don't seem to be playing 10,000 seaters... (I did say arena, didn't i?)
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Whoops! Sorry about that.

Well, they should be filling arenas because I absolutely love them. Every album front to back.

I am happy for my mistake because I am going to see them in March and I just realized that the venue only holds 2000 people. Stoked.
 
For some reason, it seems to be easier (easier might not be the right word) or more common for acts to play bigger places in Europe than in the US, at least in Hard rock and metal.
 
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