As a musician or an artist, you often hear comments like “It’s not a real job like a day job” or “You have fun so you’re not working”. These comments are very condescending to us, and they are not rare.
So, is being a musician a real job? The short answer is, YES!… It’s as real as any other job.
The misconceptions about musicians and artists in general
I admit that it’s not easy to see the full picture behind the musician performing on stage, entertaining the crowd, drinking beer, and smiling as if he’s having the time of his life. In most cases he’s really having fun, but was he having fun, 3 hours before the gig, lifting heavy gear, doing a soundcheck, with feedback in his ears?
The thing is, most people only see the good part of the job, a slight portion of the whole thing. And this is an act, this is theater, the musician plays the role of the entertainer, the rock star, the one that seems to be on top of the world.
What you see or hear is only a fraction of the musician job
For a typical Corpo gig, I leave home at around 1 p.m., I usually have a drive between 1 and 2 hours, and I’m never home before 2 a.m. So for 3 hours of the actual gig, then I will be away from home for over 12 hours.
It’s a little less than that if it’s a gig in a bar, the difference is that the soundcheck can be done later, even if the bar has customers. But with the bar gigs, I’m never home before 4 a.m., sometimes later, when the sun is up.
Unless the venue has its own PA system, or it’s a big gig and it’s dealt independently, you need to do everything, and it’s time-consuming. You need to travel with your own PA system, unload at the venue, install plus the instruments, do the soundcheck, play the gig, uninstall everything, and load the gear.
Someone pays you to deliver a service
That’s the definition of a job, one pays you to deliver something. Unless you’re doing self-funded gigs, someone will hire you to give value to the place you play. You’re not there to have some fun or to promote yourself (I’m not saying you can’t do that), you really there as an investment to give more value back to who’s hiring you. More money from drinks in a bar, or more appreciation from employees to the organization they work for.
On thing is cruelly sure, if you don’t give value back when you play, you will not be hired. Your reputation is really important in this business, you have to be on top of your game every time. With my rock band Eureka, we always ask at the end of the night if the profit from drinks was great. And for us, a great gig is when those who hire us are satisfied, more than the public.
You need to do the job even if you don’t feel like it
Let me tell you a story. In 2011, I played for 9 weeks in Casablanca, Morocco. I got a gig with musicians I barely knew (it’s better to do this with people you know, my advice) and we were playing 6 nights a week.
For some reason, my stomach could never handle the food from the 2 stars hotel I was living in. I’ll leave the details out, I’ll just tell you I had to go to the bathroom after every meal, and sometimes I needed to go in the shower because of something burning you know where.
I had to go play after that, usually, I had just enough time to empty myself before the gig, but I remember times I had to run to the hotel during my break just to evacuate. But during the 4th or 5th week I got really sick from influenza, I would stay the whole day in bed, freezing while I was hot outside. I didn’t miss a single gig, I don’t know how I did it.
So that’s to show that the musician you see playing is not always feeling good. He may be sick, he may be having a hard time at home, he may be dealing with a breakup. Unless a sub can replace yourself, you have to perform even if you don’t feel like it. It’s harder than a ‘real’ job, you can take a day off, you can be sad and still do your job. You can’t look sad if your job is to entertain a crowd.
You need to train to be able to work, not anyone can do it
Mostly anyone can learn the guitar or drums. But to get to the point where you learn hundreds of songs to perform them perfectly in a cover band, or you write music and people you don’t know are ready to pay you to hear your songs or see you play, a lot of work and time is needed.
As for any jobs where someone has to go to school and invest time and money to learn their craft, it’s the same thing for a musician, it is a real job you’re getting at. Some are naturals, they are born to play, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that only a select group of people can do this job. And they should be viewed as individuals who perfected their art to the point that they deserve to earn pay from what they do, not guys that are there to have some fun and are lucky to make a buck out of it.
This is a revenue and you need to declare it on your tax report
One other fact to consider when people ask if being a musician is a real job, is the tax report. To the eyes of the government, if you make money, you are working. Some people seem to think that the pay a musician receives is something like a gift you get at Christmas from your parents. It’s not, part of what a musician earns from his work will go to the government like everyone else.
One thing that is true though is that most musicians can’t make it by doing music only. A lot of us, myself included, need another job to bring food on the table. That’s the tough part about being a musician, only a few make it to a point they can survive. But that being said, the musician revenue must be declared with the other revenues.
Conclusion, being a musician is a real job, for sure
This post is an answer to the condescending comments I received over my 30 years as a musician. When you tell someone you didn’t sleep well, you have a headache and you need to drive 3 hours to do a gig, and that someone answers “But that’s OK, you’re doing something you like”, it’s frustrating. I hope it will give arguments to these people that don’t get it.
