How to Love Failing at a Career in Music
I play music for fun. In truth, it's the only reason I've ever done it. It's sure not for the money. I've spent way more money on music gear than I will ever make performing, and it's not even close.
Among musicians, there's a well-known cliché/joke that goes like this:
How do you make a million dollars in the music business? Start with 5 million.
Ba-dum tss 🥁
On Not Making It
When I was younger, I took a decent run at "making it". I was in a reasonably well-known band in the Denver, Colorado area. We had some regional following. We mostly played in Denver, but we would occasionally travel to some other places within a day's drive. We made a pretty good (I'd go so far as to say great) record, and then, when we were trying to build momentum for the record, we broke up.
That happens a lot. Because...
Being in a band is hard. Lots of competing egos and agendas. You spend copious, sometimes ludicrous amounts of time together. Unless you're very lucky, somebody (or multiple somebodies) is going to rub you the wrong way, just as you are probably going to be the wrong-way-rubber to someone else.
Making a record is hard. Those egos and agendas are dialed up and under the microscope like never before. "You play your part like that? Wow...never noticed that before. That's not at all what I'm doing." You might also have a producer telling you your songs need to change. Sometimes this is welcome advice, sometimes not. Depends on the person, the song, whether the part being criticized is yours... et cetera.
Promoting a record is hard. You have to play all kinds of places for all kinds of people who maybe don't care that much about you. Why would they? They don't know who you are. It's your job to put on a show that blows people away. Get them to remember you, spread the word, bring their friends... All of this is hard.
So, we broke up while trying to sell the record we had just made. For every band that makes it, there are a thousand that don't. I wasn't one of the Lucky Ones, to quote a Canadian rock band from the '80s.
But here's the thing: you can fail spectacularly at having a music career and still have a great time as a musician, if you adjust what success means to you.
Shouldn't You Be at the Office?
To make it as a musician, you're going to want to be hot, and cool, or at least weird in an interesting way. Charismatic. Those descriptors have never been applied to me. I've always looked more like an IT guy than a musician. So it's appropriate that I started my non-music career as an IT guy, I guess.
Making it was always going to be an uphill battle. But luckily I figured that out early on. Since I knew my odds weren't great, I was able to adjust what I wanted out of playing music. Once it wasn't about making a living, and just became about having fun with friends, things shifted for me.
Do It Because It Makes You Happy
Do you have fun playing music? Do you enjoy being around the people you play music with? Are you proud of your performance? To me, those are all markers of success. And they're all things you can control.
Sure, it's nice to play for a large crowd. The reason we do this is to be heard and appreciated, and the more people that are there to hear you, the better. Of course I'd rather play for 1,000 people than 100. But to me, ticket sales are secondary to the other things.
In my mid-50s, I'm in the back-half of my music career. But I've had some great moments. I got to play at Red Rocks! That's definitely a career highlight.
I'm not a religious, or even a spiritual person, but the closest thing I've ever had to a spiritual experience was being on stage, playing "Us and Them" by Pink Floyd. It's a floaty, ethereal song, and there was something about that song, on that night, that just clicked. It was like I wasn't playing, I was just in the music. It was one of the coolest things I've ever experienced, and I've been chasing that feeling ever since.
I have no plans to stop until I can't do it anymore, whether that's because I age out willingly or nobody will hire me anymore. I used to worry about being the Conspicuously Old Guy on stage but I do not care about that anymore. I am the Conspicuously Old Guy. Oh well. I'm having too much fun to stop now.