Six a.m. comes early, earlier then usual when you were up till 3 a.m. After rushing through a shower and choking down breakfast, I’m out the door by 6:50 a.m. I fight my way through the morning rush hour with the window rolled down and the music turned up. On a typical day, I’m at my desk by 7:30. By 9 a.m. my ears are still ringing from the night before and the day feels like it should be done soon.
Some people can’t reconcile how my two careers – bassist in an up-and-coming band called The Shakedowns and a desk job in financial services – fit together. But the two complement each other, and not just because my day job pays the bills. The success of the band depends on all the things that any business does. Marketing, accounting, finance and leadership make the difference between playing the Royal Canadian Legion on a Tuesday night and scratching together the money to record and promote an album.
[The Shakedowns hit the road]
Band expenses usually outweigh revenue, like many other small businesses in the first few years of operation. The variable and fixed costs a band incurs include instruments and instrument maintenance (if, say, baby needs a brand new bass), fuel and vehicles to get to gigs, recording and distribution, marketing (posters, merchandise, business cards, websites), as well as food and the occasional nerve-settling formula (alcohol in various forms). The A&R talent scouting of the golden era in the music industry is long gone. Without a music label funding us, we’re the ones footing the bill.
The trick, like with any business, is to offer a product or service that no one has heard about and bring it to places frequented by your target market. In our case the music is the service and the target market hangs out at concert halls (which, it should be said, are hard to book and pay poorly).
The band needs to become as efficient as any business, collaborating not just on songs but also on maintaining our website and our MySpace and Facebook pages. Then there’s booking gigs, writing songs, writing blogs, sending out demos and networking.
Late in the day, when we finish a show and I head home, I can hardly call my second job a job. Sure, there’s the mundane worries of any business – in our case these problems typically involve resources (e.g. the van is low on gas and we hope we’ll make it to the venue) and staffing (the soundman didn’t show up again). But when these kinks work themselves out – and they work themselves out in a miraculous way when we all come together minutes before the show – we step foot on stage not knowing exactly what the crowd expects. And remember why we do it.
Music@Work
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You can also listen to some of theirs songs on their CBC Radio 3 profile page.
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In Unlimited’s National Magazine Award-winning story, musician Kris Demeanor chronicles his checkered past through all the gigs (landscaper, sandwich maker at the Olympics, construction worker…) while he waited for the big gig.
