The pros and cons of making money doing what you love
I’m in a blogging mood today. Fridays are slow days in the industry. Even though we have a full house with artists (aka, all the rooms in the studio are working and the artists are here with their entourages [instead of just the engineers like normal] plus label people here to listen to tracks), Fridays are still slow. Fridays are the days you call up your friends at labels and management companies, rental places and bands and just shoot the shit. You catch up on people’s babies, their love lives, what their weekend plans are… and you do it because they are your friends but you also do it for work. Everyone knows that. You’re genuine friends but you also work together. If I put in a call to my friends over at Interscope, I’m doing it because they are my buddies. But while we’re on the phone we also catch up on the projects we’re working on together, future projects we might work on, and any projects past that still have open issues. Work is always there. It never goes away. You are never ‘off’.
You go to shows to network. You go to shows to support your friends but that support isn’t just standing there. It’s watching the crowd and cataloging responses. It’s bringing other people who might be able to help the band. It’s sitting around at dinner after and discussing the show, the band’s future and how we can all work together to advance them. You don’t go to shows to relax anymore. I don’t think I have anything that I do to relax. Even sitting at home watching TV, I’m on my laptop emailing people or texting people or calling my studio to ensure the night sessions are moving along. I get booking calls at 10pm. I get calls about sessions wanting to extend at 5am. I don’t sleep and I don’t turn my phone off. Hell, I don’t even put it on silent. I don’t know how.
You discuss music constantly. I can’t count the number of times we’ve talked about music today. Paris Hilton in jail? We talked about her album sales. Somehow talking about my new watch led into a conversation of disappointing sophomore album follow ups. Smoking a cigarette talking about weekend plans led to talk of friend’s band who wanted to hang out and how said bands don’t have a single and how we’d write a single for said bands.
What was once your entertainment becomes your business. And you still enjoy it. You still love it. But you get jaded. You have to. Jamision is watching live Linkin P… oh no, it’s Nine Inch… oh no it’s Linkin Park covering Nine Inch Nails… anyway, LP live. And we’re talking about how it was rerecorded and when you can hear the autotune and how you can tell where they kept the live guitars. The mystery is gone yet music still holds an allure to me. Its odd. ‘The business of entertainment.’ Is it an entertaining business? Lord only knows.
I love my job, my line of work, my industry. But it’s weird to take a step outside myself and realize there is never a day when I am not… I don’t know. Working. People tell me I’m all business and I know it. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe other people in my line of work aren’t like this. But… they are. I mean, really. They are. All of them. It’s not like I always initiate these conversations…
A man I used to work with by the name of Jay Baumgardner once said the wisest thing I may have ever heard – “The music industry is filled with people too smart and too motivated to do anything else.” And it’s true. The people who excel are the people who always look for the challenge. Clive Davis is a multimillionaire and an old man. He could retire and live the rest of his days bathing in caviar, though he would smell very bad. But he keeps working because he loves it. He loves the challenge of making The Next Big Thing.
My best friend is annoyed with me. Weekends belong to him. We both have Monday-Friday jobs so the only time we can spend together is during the weekends. Last weekend, he was busy and we couldn’t hang out. This weekend, I have shows I have to attend. I am going to support my friends’ band because I love the band and I love the friends. But I am also going to network. I was specifically invited by the band to go and network. The text message? ‘Maybe u can network a bit w us.’ Shows become non-optional. This is a lifestyle.
You have to blow off your friends a lot, industry and non-industry alike. When you first start out, you don’t have a set schedule. You are always on call, 24/7. I think there was one stretch where I worked 29 days in a row with no day off, 18 hour nights minimum. We were short staffed so I was setting up and breaking down one, two, or even all three rooms by myself. During those 29 days, there were several days back-to-back where I came in at 5pm and, at 2pm the next day, lay down on the floor of the tech shop to catch a nap before starting my shift 3 hours later. I was like a ghost to my friends. I cancelled things en route to them because I got called in.
I really want you to understand how hard this business is. Every business is hard and you have to work to break in and work to advance. Hell, if you want to be a doctor you routinely work 40 hours straight with no sleep. But I don’t think anyone thinks, despite all tales, that being a doctor is a fun, cool, and easy path to being rich and famous. There is a weird glamour that surrounds this industry and we make it that way. And it is glamorous but it’s tough. I wish I could get across to people how long and hard you have to work and have nothing or less than nothing to even begin to make it… and how easily you can lose it. This industry is SHAKY and big name cats lose their shirts on a daily basis.
If you want to do this, know your reasons. Know your motivations. Do it because you love music. And know that that love will be tempered and tested until it’s almost an abstract… or maybe pragmatic. Either or. If music is your solace and your sanctuary, know that you will lose that. It will never be yours ever again. It will never be a comfort the way it is to you now. You will never be able to go to a show and cut loose ever again. Know that, with certainty, the way you appreciate music will be forever lost to you. In return, you will gain the ability to be a part of music you desperately love (and sometimes loathe). You will be able to slightly sway the tides and, if you have perfect timing, help a band that you love (and sometimes loathe) make it’s mark a little (and sometimes a lot) higher. When you hear those notes, the music won’t be a comfort – it will be a commitment, a conquest, a calling.
Why do bands that make it big get so bitter? Because from the ground floor, being huge looks awesome and the problems that those bands have look petty. But when you’re there and they are your problems… well, no problem you have ever seems petty to yourself. I’m not bitter. But I’m realizing I am little jaded and that goes with the territory.
I’m also realizing that I’ve made all my phone calls, made sure my producers and staff are set and its time to go home.
End stream of consciousness.
- E
