Last week, Jack Conte of Pomplamoose published an article rallying against the notion of "making it", addressing the fallacy that they have "made it", all the while outlining how they lost money on a tour where they pulled down low six figures. While I did appreciate that Conte was trying to explain that he wasn’t in fact a "famous" musician who’s found success, the facts remained:
"$135,983 in total income for our tour. And we had $147,802 in expenses.
We lost $11,819."
It’s weird. All the figures Conte provided to show just how unsuccessful he is, are actually showing something else. Now, one take away from this is that these young people are horrible with money, and/or really, really bad at booking and planning a tour. Morever, what is evidenced is not how hard it is these days to be a touring band, but what happens when a band is bad at managing their own expectations.
Let me get a few little disclaimers out of the way: I’m 37, a little cranky, and I don’t normally care what other bands do, or how much money they make, or spend. So don’t think I'm just picking on Pamplamoose because they're young and dumb. My opinion here is based on my own experience in music. I am in a weird metal band called Old Man Gloom that occupies a little cubby in the heavy metal lower middle class. We play 300-500 person rock clubs. We occasionally play to bigger crowds, and occasionally, smaller. I have been touring since around 2001. I have been in a bunch of bands, and also toured with bands I was not playing in. I am not claiming to be an expert, but I can take the things they detail in their article, and hold them against my own experiences. Online, the majority of comments fellow musicians have made about this article are aimed at one component of Pomplamoose’s listed expenses:
"$17,589
Hotels, and food. Two people per room, 4 rooms per night. Best Western level hotels, nothing fancy. 28 nights for the tour, plus a week of rehearsals."
Most of the people I associate with are salty, bearded metal dudes who couldn’t wrap their heads around that. "Sleep on the floor!" or "Sleep in the van!" was the general consensus. I actually completely disagree; hotels are a kinda reasonable expense. Old Man Gloom stays in hotels on tour. As a 37-year-old guy who works his ass off at home and on the road, I want a clean bed and a hot shower. My days of sleeping on the floor of some kid's house are behind me. Way behind me. Maybe if you have a good friend in a certain city who can accommodate everyone, that’s fine, but sleeping in the van? No chance. That’s not to say new bands full of 20-year-olds who are touring with all their stinky buddies shouldn’t. They should. They have to. If you’re like Pomplamoose, and playing 1000-plus capacity venues, no one should be sleeping in a van.
Here’s where it does get weird for Pomplamoose, though:
"$48,094
Salaries and per diems. Per diems are twenty dollar payments to each bandmate and crew member each day for food while we’re out. Think mechanized petty cash."
In the article, they state that the two members of Pomplamoose draw a salary of $2,500 per month each. They also say their salary for their crew (four people in the band, one tour manager, one sound person) on this tour is $8,794 a week. That breaks down to about $1,465 per person per week. We have to assume it’s not equal, as in someone playing in the back up band likely is getting less than the tour manager and sound person. For the sake of argument, let's just divide it equally. That means each person walked away from the tour with around $6,000. That’s fucking nuts. It’s your band, and you’re self-righteously not paying yourself, but paying a hired gun $6,000? This is extremely confusing.
"$26,450
Production expenses: equipment rental, lights, lighting board, van rental, trailer rental, road cases, backline."
So, you’ve hired a back up band. You think these folks are the shit, and they’re gonna deliver an "awesome rock show" to your fans. You’re certain they’re the best choices around. These people don’t have instruments? These hired guns don’t have cases for those instruments? These maybe weren’t great choices. Even flyers at Guitar Center always end with "Pro gear, pro attitude. Own transportation a must." You know why? Because meeting a person who is a really good musician is not that hard, but finding one who can keep their shit together enough to not sell their guitar to make rent is kinda hard. It’s the eternal struggle.
Then there’s lights. You don’t need lights. You just don’t. No one really does. Clubs always have lights. You WANT lights. Ok. Fine. But can you afford lights? Well, the article seems to say "no". It also says you got two laptops to run your light show. That’s a complicated light show you have. Luckily, for Pamplamoose, they got a corporate sponsor that makes laptops that power the light show. (Look out for my next article "Indie: I don’t think that word means what you think it means anymore").
The list keeps going with things like Facebook ads, paying your band a salary while they’re rehearsing, insurance, and paying a "business manager". That particular line item I find very confusing, as Conte goes to great length saying they planned the whole tour, and did all the "business" of it themselves, yet also pay a business manager. Shouldn’t that person have spoken up and said "this is bad fucking business, dudes"? If a business manger just cuts checks to your band, they aren’t a business manager, they’re a payroll company, and yet another expense you just don’t need. Cash money, suckers.
Ok, Pomplamoose. By your article, you seemed to have justified all of this, and rationalized all these nutty expenses. To anyone else, who is taking their word for it that being an "indie" band is really hard, and "making it" is virtually unattainable, you’re wrong. It’s pretty easy. These people just need to manage their expectations.
What’s hard about being a successful musician is getting people to come to the shows. Pomplamoose have done this. Everything after that is all about living within your means. You don’t need to pay a back up band a salary. If they like your music, and want to create it with you, then they will be willing to roll the dice with you, and take a predetermined cut of whatever the profit is at the end. Not everyone will do that, but plenty of folks will. You don’t need to have a fancy light show if you can’t afford one. You should rely on your music to be good, and the primary focus of the person attending the show. If you have to distract them with lights and pander to their short attention span, maybe you aren’t confident in the music you’re presenting. If you’re good and people like it, they will come back. That’s it. It’s really that simple.
This article is like a lot of things in 2014 that give young people all the wrong ideas. This is an extension of things like "American Idol", or "The Voice", in that it distorts people's perception of what it means to create music. Some young musician will read this, and think they just can’t afford to go on tour, or that it’s virtually impossible to come out ahead in the music world. It’s not true, young person! Pomplamoose is claiming all of this is an investment into the future, so that the next tour will be even bigger. Well, again, time to get your ego in check, because the next one could be smaller. There could even not be a next one. This may have been the one. The one where you all came back with $8,000 in your pocket. You want to make art, and you want to do that for a living, guess what: you’re currently doing it. You just don’t seem to think this is what it’s like to be successful, because other bands have been MORE successful. That thinking, in my opinion, is poisonous, and will hamper your ability to wholly experience the amazing ride you’re currently on.
Here’s a brief example of a tour I was on, and I hope my bandmates don’t get angry at me for revealing our secrets:
Old Man Gloom toured the west coast in 2012. I don’t have every figure, but I can estimate. We are 4 people, plus a front of house sound guy. We played 6 shows. We played the Echo in L.A., Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, and other clubs in Portland, Seattle, San Diego, and Chico, all at around 350-capacity. All of the shows were sold out, or very close. We each paid for our own plane tickets, around $350. We rented a van from another band in Seattle. Here’s the thing about vans: a lot of bands have them, and for the most part they sit and wait for someone to take them on tour, which makes it easy to rent them from another band (assuming you know other bands). We also rented our gear from other bands on the west coast. You always assure the person that if anything happens, ANYTHING, it will be fixed, and they will get it in the state they gave it. Same goes with vans. We stayed in hotels every night, even while rehearsing, and paid our front of house guy what he asked for (including airfare). We sold our own merch, and gave per diems. We didn’t have a tour manager. Normally one of us does the tour managing duties. No biggie. At the end of the tour, we each walked away with around $2,500. Playing in bigger rooms, to more people, well, that means you make more money, as nothing really needs to change when you’re bouncing up to 700-1,000 capacity rooms. We’re happy in our place, and feel lucky to still be playing to people. We’re also totally stoked to walk away with that much money for a weeks' worth of shows. Even adding a tour manager and a person to sell merch, which are reasonable things for people to do, shouldn’t affect your bottom line too much when going to the 700-1000 size rooms.
The point is, in my opinion, Pomplamoose should be living within the moment they exist. A band should absolutely ride their momentum, but don’t do everything assuming that things will only get bigger and better. It kinda says you’re not satisfied with how awesome things are right now. Although, after that article, and how universally hated it is, things probably aren’t that awesome for them right now. They’re probably super embarrassed. Which also has value for a young band, as far as I’m concerned. Better luck next time, Pomplamoose.
Santos Montano, amongst other things, is the drummer in Old Man Gloom.