Gambling in the Music Industry

The toughest part about working in the music industry is the amount of gambling required. It’s not just enough to have good songs, but you need to invest every ounce of yourself in to something that you may or may not see some kind of recoupment from. Every show is a gamble (Will anyone come out?), every album is a gamble (Will anyone buy it? Like it? ), every little detail you spend money on is a gamble (Will this press kit actually get me shows?) and the faith required to hold yourself together is pretty astronomical.

That said, one of the biggest wagers that an artist will make in their lifetime is one that most don’t see coming – or think they can avoid. Oh, but it’s there. Looming in the distance ready to decide your future whether you want it to or not.

It’s the big “T”. Time. The number one non-renewable resource that you can’t escape.

And it’s waiting for you to place your bet.

I’ve had my wrestling bouts with Time. I worked forty hours a week as an administrative assistant way-back-when. Getting a Friday afternoon off to travel to Halifax for a show was like asking for a vegetarian option at a Texas cook-out … it just wasn’t happening. And Chris was working five night-shifts a week – not exactly conducive to creativity. We had reached a point where we had gone as far as we could and we had to make a change. We had talked to a friend of ours, Jodie Ferneyhough, who told us pretty bluntly that artists that weren’t ready to quit their day jobs and be in the industry full time were never going to be that - full time artists.

His argument made sense. If we had no steady income to rely on then we were going to be on the hunt for gigs and music opportunities. We were also going to be available for any last minute prospects that popped up and we would be immersing ourselves in the scene. We’d also be leaner and meaner in learning to budget and making less feel like more and we wouldn’t be racking up expenses for toys we couldn’t afford. However, we would be giving up a lot too; short term financial security, a regular life, normal living, sleeping and working conditions and the all coveted “disposable income”.

So, when we hit our crisis we were faced with either living the normal life or rolling the dice and betting it all on black and hoping the house didn’t have the wheel tilted in their favor. We decided to go for it – but did so with a lot of planning. We saved up our money, got a P2 Visa, quit our jobs and went on a four month tour across Canada and down to California. Booked and managed the tour ourselves with no grants, no funding … and we not only survived, but we created a network of dates that we have kept playing throughout our album releases.

I see people just like Chris Colepaugh - Steve LeBlanc, Ross Neilson, Alex Madsen, Samantha Robichaud , and Dominique Dupuis whose majority income is music based – and I am so proud for them. It’s a hard old world out there for music, especially in the Maritimes. Gambling on a future in the music industry is not the easiest way to make a living. These artists not only do their own music, but also do sessions and teach to keep their feet firmly planted in the music industry. Others, like myself and people like Robin Anne Ettles and John Maher who perform music and also do other industry related jobs like producing, film, management, internet etc are doing alright too. We’ve diversified enough in the music industry to make our living out of several related fields.

We risked it all. Not sure of what we’d find, but we made the bet regardless.

So, when I meet with artists that have great tunes, huge potential and are full of fire and ready to take on the world - all I can think of is their next leap of faith. Are they ready? I find myself digging in my conversations with them to see if they have recently bought a new car, or maybe have a mortgage, are parents or are newly married . . . just so I can get a sense of how comfortable they are in their life and what responsibilities they have to themselves and to those around them.

And then I ask them if they have ever bought a lottery ticket.