In Rock Star Romance, book three in The Rock Star’s Wife series, Nat tours almost constantly with his band Dramatic Sneezer to make a living. He experiences periods of loneliness, jetlag and not knowing what day it is. These, and other details in the series, were taken from reality and the countless rock star interviews I watched before and during the writing process. I learned quite a bit and found many similarities between the music industry and the publishing industry. Here’s a primer on how the music industry works:
Running a band is running a business. Musicians must work with a number of people to promote songs and albums. Here are some examples.
A artist manager develops a musician’s (called an “artist” in the industry) career by serving as an adviser for business decisions. He or she also promotes the musician. Artist managers are paid between 10 percent and 25 percent of a musician’s income with 15 percent to 20 percent being is the most common.
A business manager oversees the income, expenses, and investments. He or she is paid 2 percent to 5 percent of a musician’s income.
A talent agent (booking agent) finds musicians work. He or she is paid 10 percent to 15 percent of a musician’s income.
Bands and solo artists also must pay their road crews.
Public relations agents employed to promote new music charge between $3,000 and $5,000.
DJ record pools, used to promote music before it’s released, charge between $200 to $2,000.
Contracts and Getting Paid
Musicians sign contracts with record labels. These contracts are legally binding and stipulate how much money the label will invest in a musician. The musician then owes the label a percentage of the income generated from record sales. Bands generate income through touring, record/streaming sales and merchandise sales.
Musicians are paid an advance on new singles and albums. Generally, the advance is deducted from future royalties.
While many musicians complain about their terrible contracts, it is nearly impossible to achieve any level of fame without a label’s marketing and mass distribution. That being said, the internet has begun to change this.
Royalties are paid for the right to use intellectual property. There are four types of royalties:
- Those paid for physical or digital reproduction and distribution of copyrighted works such as streaming services, digital downloads and CDs.
- Those paid when a musician’s live performance is performed, recorded, played, or streamed in public.
- Those paid when songs are played on television, in movies, in commercials, etc.
- Those paid when sheet music is sold.
Royalties are paid to songwriters, publishers, record labels, digital music distributors, and musicians.
Touring
When and where to tour is far from straight forward. Tours take months to plan and often there are last-minute changes.
Jameson Roper, manager for The Band Camino, explained the process on Twitter in June 2023.
Step one is to decide where to play. Bands must examine the market to see how well or poorly they performed previously in specific cities. Bands also look at social media and streaming services to see if they are “hotter” in some markets than others. There also are restrictions on where a band can play if it has played (or is about to play) in a market recently with a festival.
In addition, bands want to avoid playing in a market on the same night as bands that have similar or overlapping fanbases.
Step two is to examine venues. Is a venue too small or large for a band’s expected sales? Bands that did well in a market in a past often look to book a venue with a larger capacity. Sometimes a venue is perfect but it’s already booked, so the band must move on to another market.
Step three is to decide where the tour will begin and end. This is a matter of logistics and trying to make the drive as short as possible for the band members and the crew.
Becoming Famous?
For every band that seemingly becomes famous overnight, there are hundreds struggling to get by.
“Becoming recognized and noticed for musical talent has become considerably harder since the birth of the digital age. In this modern era, everyone has equal opportunities, so moving with the trends of forever-evolving technology and platforms is essential to succeeding,” MusicMissile says.
As a band grows, so do the complications, the website says, and it becomes more important to hire and work with reputable individuals.
Life on Tour For Rock Musicians
In The Rock Star’s Wife series, Nat spends much of the year on tour with his band Dramatic Sneezer. What is life on tour like for musicians?
“The honest truth is, life on the road can be brutal, especially for those starting out on shoestring budgets,” The Blogging Musician says. “If your group is heading out on a string of cross-country gigs and you don’t want to feel like a living zombie within the first week, you’re going to want to plan accordingly.”
This means musicians must make a conscious effort to take care of both their physical and mental health.
Don’t believe the hype, Luke Davis, the frontman for Wicked Snakes, warns.
“Touring is fucking great fun in the respect that you get to hang out with your best friends (unless you hate your bandmates), hang out with cool bands (usually), and travel all over the place (unless your van breaks down),” Davis says. “That said, you’ll still struggle to get paid, you’ll smell even worse than normal, you won’t sleep, eat or shit normally and you definitely won’t get laid.”
New musicians often make no money other than a per diem each day for things like food and drinks. This can vary but is generally no higher than $100.
A band experiencing a moderate level of success could make $1,500 to $2,000 monthly per member before expenses. And there are many, many expenses include crew member salaries and transportation. Taking this into consideration, many bands are in debt by the time their tours end.
Sometimes a record label will provide bands with some financial support. This often ends when bands make enough to cover their expenses.
Headliners travel from venue to venue in a bus with a dedicated driver whereas bands starting out must drive their own vans towing a trailer of equipment. Buses average between $1,000 to $1,500 a day to rent.
Typical Tour Schedule
So what is a typical day like for a band? There is no hard and fast music industry rule, but this was the schedule of Nick Cesarz, former drummer for Vinyl Theatre.
8 a.m.: Awaken for the day.
9 a.m.: Leave for next venue.
Noon.: Lunch at a highway rest stop.
3 p.m.: Make it to the venue.
4 p.m.: Begin stage setup.
5 p.m.: The sound engineer arrives for soundcheck.
6 p.m.: Remove equipment from stage.
7 p.m.: Dinner.
9:30 p.m.: Take to the stage for the band’s set.
11 p.m.: Tear down the stage.
Midnight: Leave for next venue.
2 a.m.: Hotel check-in.
3 a.m.: Fall asleep.
And there you have it, the unglamorous life of a sleep-deprived rock star. As you can tell, it’s nothing like in the movies. Or most novels.
What Does a Tour Manager Do?
The tour manager for Dramatic Sneezer in The Rock Star’s Wife series is Terry Bergstrom, Nat and Nicole’s brother-in-law. He held this position long before he became Nadine’s husband. So what does a tour manager do, and why is his role vitally important to a band?
First off, what is a tour manager? He or she handles all the organizational and administrative support for a concert tour. But it’s much more complicated than that.
“At the most basic level, a tour manager is simply the person who handles or oversees almost every aspect of the lives and routines of musicians and bands while they are on tour,” Tour Collective explains. “In other words, a tour manager ‘runs the show’ while the band is on the road.”
Generally, tour managers are independent contractors who work for different bands, sometimes annually, while others work with one band their entire careers.
Tour managers are paid weekly and make between $46,000 to $71,000 annually. They also might be paid a per diem for incidental expenses and/or paid for expenses such as meals.
You may also hear tour managers called concert tour managers or road managers.
Tour managers wear many hats and must be patient, proactive, organized and detail oriented.
The following is a list of some of the duties they handle:
- Make transportation and lodging arrangements.
- Develop an itinerary for the tour. This includes not just venues and hotels, but every stop no matter the reason.
- Create day sheets detailing each day’s schedule and distribute them.
- Ensure everyone makes it to the next stop safely and on time.
- Coordinate sound check and set times.
- Ensure equipment is loaded and unloaded on time.
- Coordinate with security, event staff, and others to ensure shows run safely and smoothly.
- Ensure such things as the band’s rider requests, dressing room setup and backstage catering needs are met.
- Manage the tour’s finances to keep them within the tour accountant’s budget.
- Ensure everyone is where they need to be and on time for media engagements.
- If a problem occurs, resolve the issue.
On larger tours, more than one person might shares these duties.
How do you become a tour manager?
It’s important to know how the music industry works. Many start at the bottom, working for free for a friend’s band or they were musicians themselves. Still others begin as booking agents, promoters, equipment techs, sound engineers, festival staff, and other live-music roles.
Since tour managers are independent contractors, they often learn of job opportunities through networking and word of mouth.
A few managers have a degree in hospitality, tourism or a related field, but a degree is not necessary as experience is learned on the job.
How is a Music Video Made?
Cassandra, the main character in The Rock Star’s Wife series, travels to California in Rock Star Mom to watch Nat and Dramatic Sneezer film a music video. While I won’t give away what happens, I will tell you that they have a great time.
Music videos are both a creative outlet and a marketing tool. They also are YouTube’s most watched content, and they sometimes are how fans discover bands and solo artists.
“Music videos are an essential outlet for artists and musicians alike, acting as a platform for cross-promotion and rampant creativity,” Rey Film says. “They are also a fresh breeding ground for innovation, given their liberation from the constraints of realist narrative cinema—often ditching elements like continuity, rationalist lighting, and even, often, photographic representation. Allowing for special effects, cinematographic oddities and whacky ideas to run amok, inspiring millions in their wake.”
The average music video takes from 2 hours to 10 hours to shoot, edit, and finish per minute of a song. Like movies and televisions shows, music videos have directors and professional camera, light and sound people. They may include actors, the band members, or a combo.
Before filming, the director and/or the band will create a storyboard, a sequence of drawings representing the planned shots. The film schedule is based on the storyboard. Videos can be completely original material, a performance shot during a concert, a staged performance where the band pretends to perform (this allows the band’s movements to be synced with the audio track), stock footage or a combination. The focus should be on originality and keeping within a budget.
“You can never have too much footage, and the re-take may capture something that you hadn’t noticed the first time around,” LiveAboutDotCom says.
Once filming is complete, the video must be edited to complement the music. During this process, the band will be sent a draft for feedback. After editing completes, the video is ready for distribution by the artists or their record label.
The Anatomy of Guitars
Rock Star Romance, book three in The Rock Star’s Wife series, introduces us to Dramatic Sneezer, the metal band fronted by Nat Hardwick. He also is the band’s lead guitarist. His twin sister, Nicole, plays rhythm guitar while Jerome Williams plays bass. Kaleb Wood rounds the band out on drums. Guitars are essential for any rock band, but have you given them much thought? Here’s a short introduction in the anatomy of guitars.
Guitars fall into two categories, acoustic and electric, and there are different types of each.
Acoustic guitars are hollow. When the strings are plucked, resonance produces sound.
Electric guitars use magnetic pickups underneath the strings to produce sound. The pickups send electric signals to an amplifier that projects the sound. Pedals can be attached to change the sound.
There also is a combination, acoustic-electric, which is an acoustic guitar with a pickup clamped on it.
Rhythm guitars come in four, five, six, eight or 12 strings.
Bass guitars, like rhythm guitars, can be either acoustic or electric. They are an octave lower and have a slightly different shape. They come in four, five or six strings.
Professional musicians tend to use guitars manufactured by Fender, Les Paul, and Paul Reed Smith. Although there are numerous manufacturers, these are considered top of the line.
Both acoustic and electric guitars have the same basic design. The parts are:
- Head (also called headstock): Supports the tuning pegs.
- Tuning pegs (also called a machine head or a tuning machine): Used to tune the strings.
- Nuts: Controls the spacing of the strings
- Neck: Attaches the head to the body.
- Fretboard (also called the fingerboard): Glued to the head. The strings are pressed into it. Thin metal strips called fret-wires run across it.
- Frets: The space between fret-wires. Used to alter the length of a string.
- Strings: Come in different thicknesses.
- Body: Contains an acoustic’s guitar’s sound box or an electric guitar’s pickup combinations.
Electric guitars also have electrical components.
The Impact of COVID-19 on the Music Industry
Sometimes there are downsides to being The Rock Star’s Wife, specifically when your husband’s livelihood is threatened by something you can’t see. The COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of dozens of music festivals and concerts, album release delays and financial heartache galore. Let’s examine the impact of COVID-19 on the music industry.
The music industry was the second most impacted industry with the majority of musicians losing most, or all, of their income. Musicians make 75 percent of their income from live shows. The rest of their income comes from physical music sales, merchandize sales and streaming.
“The music industry is one that has many players involved, especially when it comes to factors like distribution,” radio station WQHS explains. “Much of the money that artists make from album sales or music streams gets distributed to parties such as their music labels, songwriters, streaming services, and publishing companies. Because of this, many artists rely on touring and other live performances to earn the majority of their money.”
In 2020 alone, the live-events industry lost more than $30 billion in revenue, according to concert trade publication Pollstar. Losses included not just tickets and merch sales, but local economic activity connected to live events such as restaurants and hotels.
In March 2020, Bustle published an article examining the impact of the industry closures on smaller acts:
- Marisa Dabice, vocalist and guitarist of the punk rock band Mannequin Pussy, estimated she had lost around $80,000 after her band canceled the end of its tour.
- Vistas, a Scottish band that was booked to play South by Southwest, lost nearly $7,000.
- The band Torres was in Germany when President Donald Trump suspended travel from Europe to the United States and was forced to use crowdfunding to raise the $10,000 to $20,000 per plane ticket to get home.
These are only three of countless examples.
“As some cities impose capacity bans and others close down nonessential businesses like nightclubs altogether to prevent the virus’ spread, musicians are not only losing out on money for gigs, but also on opportunities for exposure,” Bustle says. “In the increasingly crowded musical landscape, timing is essential to a musician’s success — it’s easy to lose momentum and get lost in the shuffle if you’re not constantly touring and promoting your work.”
Other Impacts of the Pandemic
The industry shutdown affected not only musicians, but the people who work for the venues, promoters, artists’ road crews and others.
The mental toll of isolation from the community and worrying about money affected everyone in the industry.
“For many artists, performing live isn’t just a necessary creative outlet, but a vital part of their artistic identity,” Our Culture says.
Many in the music industry survive pay check to pay check. Prior to the pandemic, only 17 percent of musicians were able to pay their bills every month, according to Our Culture.
In addition, it wasn’t only live music that was affected, music streaming declined as high as 9 percent in some markets. Why did streaming drop in 2020? Shouldn’t it have increased since people were staying at home? You would think so, but people also were watching their spending and streaming services became a luxury for some.
Does Your Favorite Music Genre Reveal Something About Your Personality?
Our favorite bands and solo artists tell the rest of the world something about us, but it goes beyond individuality and personal preference. Studies have shown a connection between music preferences and personality.
A multi-year study of 36,518 people, found not only a connection to personality, but that people become protective, even defensive, of their favorite genre. This is because study participants were able to make accurate assumptions about others’ musical tastes based on a list of 10 favorite songs.
“… people define themselves through music and use it as a means to relate to other people,” Verywell Mind explains. “A criticism about their music feels like a criticism of them.”
Here’s what the study found:
Rock and Metal
Fans of hard rock and metal are introverted, creative and gentle but often have low self-esteem. Dr. Adrian North, the music psychologist who conducted the three-year study, called metal fans “quite delicate things” and said they were “basically the same” as classical music fans.
Classic rock fans are at ease with themselves but are self-centered. They also are hard workers.
Punk rock fans are intense, energetic, but not very empathetic.
Indie rock fans are introverted, intellectual, open to new experiences, and creative, but have low self-esteem, are passive and anxious, and less hard working and gentle than other rock fans.
Pop
Fans of pop are outgoing and sociable, have a high self-esteem, and are hard working, but also tend to be more nervous and less creative.
Classical
Classical fans are introverted, creative and intelligent with a high self-esteem. They also tend to be affluent and skew older demographically.
Rap and Hip Hop
Rap and hip hop fans are extroverted with a high self-esteem. They also are more impulsive and more willing to take risks.
Country
Country fans are extroverted, empathetic, unpretentious and hard working, but they also are politically conservative and less open to new experiences.
Jazz, Blues And Soul
Fans of jazz, blues and soul are extroverted, at ease with themselves, reflective, open-minded, creative, and intelligent with a high self-esteem. They are politically liberal.
Cassandra, the main character in The Rock Star’s Wife series, is a metalhead as am I. Her sister, Vanessa, enjoyed pop artists in high school. How about you?
This article is part of the reader's guide for The Rock Star's Wife series by Melina Druga, a contemporary fiction series about sex, family, and rock & roll. The series follows Cassandra from her teen years into her 40s as she navigates relationships (both romantic and platonic) — all with music playing a prominent role.