side hustles

17 Indie Artists on Their Oddest Odd Jobs That Pay the Bills When Music Doesn't

"When is information technology gonna be when I have to get a real job? is always in the back of my head. But having a financially stable career is not why you make music."

"I don't really understand how whatever musician can afford to stay in one place," indie veteran vocalizer-songwriter Cass McCombs told me during an interview for Vulture earlier this twelvemonth. "We don't make enough money to afford an apartment. I know pretty much half of the musicians in existence take a side chore of some sort." One of the most common misconceptions in the social media age — a time in which you can log on and see your favorite indie musicians partnering with brands, playing festivals, and posting selfies on bout as if they were on some endless vacation — is that the pes soldiers in the industry itself are brimful in capital letter.

The truth is that nigh indie artists — from some of the nebulously defined genre's biggest stars to its buzz-making heat seekers — rely on multiple sources of income outside of their music career to pay the bills and put food on the table: "Wavves Is a Landlord At present and Anybody Is Freaking Out," a headline read on Exclaim earlier this year subsequently the pop-punk deed's forepart man Nathan Williams posted an Instagram listing advertising vacant rented space on a holding he owned. But why was everyone freaking out, other than in reaction to a commonly mistaken gear up of expectations regarding indie musicians' fiscal statuses?

Indeed, when I brought upward Williams'southward property-owning non-troversy to artists I spoke to for this full general survey — which covers what said artists exercise for a living to sustain their ain musical careers, likewise as the fiscal realities that come with making music in 2019 — they expressed non indignation, simply a sense of adoration that someone in their field could fifty-fifty own property. (Near none of them endemic belongings themselves.) What follows are 17 testimonials from working indie and indie-adjacent musicians near what they exercise when they're not making music, how they perceive their financial time to come in the industry, and how much coin they make — or, much more often, lose — in the procedure.

Tamaryn
Side hustles: shipping for a fragrance visitor; Refinery29 red-carpet-event setup; secretarial assistant for a psychiatrist's part

"For the by year, my principal chore has been running the aircraft department for a fragrance line. I do a agglomeration of other things, too — I'm always hustling for jobs. Some other task I practice is setting up the backdrops for reddish-carpet events, which is my favorite job because I vesture a tool belt and drive a behemothic truck. It'southward a task that men predominantly practise, only I got information technology because it'southward for Refinery29, which is primarily a women-run company. It's pretty cool. During my first album, I worked every bit a secretarial assistant in a psychiatrist'due south office, which fabricated for good lyrical content.

There'southward this self-shaming perspective I've seen in a lot of my peers in that they feel similar they're a failure of an artist if they take another job. I experience the opposite way about it. I think yous're more of a failure if all you exercise is play in a band for the balance of your life, honestly. What a limited view of reality. I've institute that the discipline and schedule of having a job only helps the artistic phases of my life. It's like working out — it fuels your twenty-four hour period and gives you more energy. Touring is another story, of course, and it's hard to get a job when people Google yous and see that y'all tour.

Annihilation emo or metal is gonna brand merch — that's the style to make money. For the bulk of time making music, I've lost coin. There are a few moments where I've seen making music through a careerist lens, and I regret it. I want to proceed it as a sacred space to heal myself through. I have friends who are famous stone stars who struggle financially. Any other job makes more coin than being in a band. Even if you're working full-time at McDonald's, y'all're gonna make more money than a lot of my peers. The industry structure is built against the creative person. It'south not a lucrative dream. I still consider information technology a full privilege and luxury to be an artist. It'south not something that makes me coin."

Cass McCombs
Side hustles: truck driving; worked in bookstores, record stores, movie theaters, delicatessens; painter on the Trump Tower; demolition work; stable mitt; projectionist; folded and licked invitation envelopes

"Equally a musician, in the early days you lot're supposed to cutting your teeth and pay your ante to the road. Only then that turns into a decade, or two decades, and yous're paying your dues for life. It never really turns into a grown-up'southward job. There is a musicians' spousal relationship, but for whatever reason the majority of us musicians are excluded — it's relegated to symphonic musicians and late-night talk-show bands. But how do you unionize ducks? They're difficult to corral, if you've ever tried to corral ducks.

This is a shitty affair to say, just maybe musicians don't deserve to make a living. Maybe it should be a hobby. But if that'south truthful, I don't want to come across some talentless pop stars making what they brand, while quality living museums of folk-music knowledge get paid nothing. That's non cool. But I'm not the one to decide. It's good for people to know that, when they come out to see a evidence, these people are putting their whole life on the line to give their heart and soul. It means something more than money."

Eva Hendricks, Charly Bliss
Side hustle: stocking milk in java shops

"None of united states have jobs correct now, simply our new record was the commencement fourth dimension nosotros've made a record without solar day jobs. When I was working at a coffee shop while we were making Guppy, I was writing songs while stocking milk. But the financial reality of being in a band is … not awesome. Correct at present, we're in a position where we're just able to potentially make it work without twenty-four hours jobs, but that can plough suddenly, and then it's hard to become a brand-new job when you're explaining the realities of being away all the fourth dimension.

Financially, nosotros've got null to lose. [Laughs.] We attempt our hardest to make sure that, at the end of every month, we can give every person in the band a $i,000 payout. My rent is $950 a month, and then there'southward no jerk room. Some months nosotros're able to practice $1,500 or — very rarely — $2,000, merely it's really difficult. It definitely makes you lot wish y'all were a trust-fund kid, but unfortunately none of us are. If I didn't believe that doing this full-time was a potential reality, I'd stop doing it. On some level, I have to believe that."

Matt Batey, Ruler
Side hustle: email marketing for Alaska Airlines

"I'g unemployed now, but my job was kind of perfect. I worked remotely on the email marketing squad at Alaska Airlines, and so I was able to work on bout. All the financial worries that come up along with going on tour — because no i ever makes any coin going on tour — weren't there. Most people who keep tour are either using paid time off or unpaid time off, so they're trying to lose as little money as possible while they're out. For every other job I had, [making music] has been incommunicable. Spending late nights playing music and trying to be creatively engaged doesn't lend itself to working a full-time chore.

I didn't profit in any way last year. I probably lost — conservatively — $15,000. It would have been more than than that, merely the shows were meliorate and I got signed to [Barsuk]. I've been doing this since 2005, and the loss has grown every year. Just when you think it's gonna get better, it gets worse. I even so love making music, but I can't look to make coin from it. Information technology's never been a sustainable business. This is like a really expensive hobby for me."

Adia Victoria
Side hustles: high-end article of clothing boutique; personal stylist

"I piece of work at a boutique in Nashville that deals in high-terminate wearing apparel for liquidation, and I have a side hustle in which I style clients personally. I go to their home, clean out their closets, and help them build a wardrobe. I love my co-workers at the boutique, and so being able to take friends who aren't in the music business is really cool. Information technology helps me to have perspective. If y'all're only doing music, you lot can lose your sense of reality.

I'm bankrupt. I had to downsize my life this by twelvemonth. I moved back home with my family merely to take off the added stress of making rent in Nashville. Information technology'southward really good for me to have the support organisation — I don't know how people practise it without family. I want to meet this as paying my dues, and you promise that one day information technology volition pay off, and so we'll see. If information technology doesn't, then I had fun living in a van for months at a fourth dimension. There'south such a high threshold you have to meet, though, and I have non met it yet. But I remain hopeful that I can practise information technology because I don't have a trust fund and I don't have a rich dad funding my career."

Peter Richards and Andrew Hall, Dude York
Side hustles: bouncer; Amazon Music

Richards: "I've been working at [Seattle venue] the Showbox as a bouncer for years, and I dearest information technology. I used to work at Amazon Music, and when my contract was up I decided to coast on savings. That was a bad decision. I spent a twelvemonth trying to write and record a vocal every twenty-four hours, and I was in a dangerous position financially. In this facsimile of the music industry — which I call 'the liquor promotion industry' — it's magic if you lot can become yourself to a stable place. We've ever had a tacit understanding that we wouldn't take chances on the band with our money. That said, we don't make money."

Hall: "Every monthlong U.Southward. tour nosotros've washed, we've made or lost near $one,500 and oasis't recouped yet. My royalty bank check last year from [rights-management organization] SoundExchange was, like, $14. Any money nosotros've ever taken home has come from weird one-off shows like individual holiday parties. Doing a U.K. support tour last summer toll the states double our anticipated upkeep — I'll describe the loss as depression 5 figures. As a band, we lost a moderate four-figure sum last year and accept had to back up ourselves entirely from other piece of work since that bout. The U.K. is probably the worst-paying market in the earth, so breaking fifty-fifty at that place is all only incommunicable. British music fans are really supportive, and doing those shows can lead to other things, simply the touring market itself is brutal."

Katherine Paul, Black Belt Eagle Picket
Side hustles: product; talent heir-apparent; ticketing manager

"I work for Mississippi Studios and Revolution Hall in Portland — I really merely left the position I was doing for a long fourth dimension so I can get on tour for most of the twelvemonth, but I'1000 still working with them role-time to work in production and box function. I was a talent buyer and ticketing managing director. To be honest, I'm a niggling worried, only I've got a lot lined up, so it should be okay. It's hard to be creative when you lot're e'er on the road and tired. The travel element of touring inhibits feeling like a musician, merely this is my job and it's what I do right now.

I haven't lost coin [on music yet] because I'yard trying to be strategic about it. I'1000 in hustler mode. Whenever I'm on tour, I take to hustle my merch considering it'due south the only way to make a profit. Every bit an emerging artist, touring and support fees aren't a lot — and a percent is going to my agent, and my manager, and my band members. I make $60 or $lxx a mean solar day playing a show."

Daniel Salas, Versing
Side hustle: spider web-content manager for Seattle's Freedom Socialist Party

"I piece of work at a Seattle-based socialist political party called the Freedom Socialist Party. I'one thousand their spider web-content manager. They're really cool with me taking time off for touring — they're a bunch of chill socialists who have been in the game for a long time. But they don't pay me very well, and I don't work full-fourth dimension for them. I do have benefits, though. Information technology could be a lot worse. Nosotros used to lose a little scrap of money as a band every year — probably in the hundreds range — and selling music is a nonfactor, which is the biggest bummer. Later on a few years, we were able to break even. Making art is really expensive, particularly to get it to the expected standard of music present. It's impossible to make money."

Steve Lamos and Steve Holmes, American Football game
Side hustle: college professor; senior director of operations at ADP

Lamos: "I've been a professor at the University of Colorado for 14 years — I teach belligerent writing. The band revolves around school schedules. We all have younger kids, and so we tend to be more open to touring in the summer and on breaks. We do 25 to 30 days of touring a year at max. That's the most we could pull off. When we reunited, information technology was staggering how much more than that seemed to exist worth than annihilation we ever dreamed upwards when nosotros were doing this in 1998. Now that we're a 'real ring,' the money has changed somewhat.

The ring is a overnice supplemental income — it helps mitigate the fact that my married woman is abode raising our kids full-fourth dimension. Only it's not a lucrative lifestyle. We've generated profit from the band since reuniting, simply from 1999 to 2015, there were fairly small-scale royalties and they've dwindled because of the internet. I would tell my own kids to pursue things that matter to you because they make life more electric, only I'yard grateful for my parents maxim to me, 'You tin can do music, only damn it, you better have something to do, too, because this is an up-and-down globe.'"

Holmes: "I'm a senior managing director of operations at ADP, which is primarily known for payroll. I've worked at that place for 13 years. I'd never considered a life in music as a thing that was even possible equally a career — it was more just something fun to do with friends. I'm squeezing this stuff in on weekends and using vacation time, which is hard. My married woman is at the betoken where she'due south like, 'When are we going to go on a existent vacation instead of wasting all your vacation days on the band?' Which I totally get.

It's impossible — almost unheard of — to be a middle-course musician. That's why about bands are total of young people. At that place are a handful of middle-aged bands who have figured out how to make a long career out of it and are also more or less indie artists, but they're very rare. Also, if you're a solo act, it's fashion more economically feasible than when information technology's four or v guys. Bands don't make coin. People would exist shocked if they saw the remainder sheets. Even when y'all go high guarantees, there's so much overhead."

Stina Tweeddale, Honeyblood
Side hustle: snooker hall

"The terminal full-time job I had earlier the band took off was at a snooker hall, for about nine months. You lot don't have the time to commit to your starting time love, then trying to write and record while you lot're working a full-time job tin can be actually difficult. I'm nearly to release my third album, and by the finish of a release campaign, your finances can take a striking considering you're not actively working if you're not touring. You're just squirreling away money at whatever opportunity yous can for dry out spells when you're not actively performing or getting greenbacks from merch. When is information technology gonna be when I accept to become a existent job? is always in the back of my head. But having a financially stable career is not why you brand music."

Kevin Olken Henthorn, Cape Francis
Side hustle: video editing

"I'm a video editor, and I've been working permalance at a financial institution. That has roughly subsidized my music and given me enough money to put out a record every twelvemonth. Next month I'yard gonna keep tour, which is unremarkably chill with my job. My new album, Deep Water, is centered around the divergence between work life and music life, which I've struggled with for a long fourth dimension. There's a lot of shame around existence a musician. When I become home for the holidays and I become asked what I do, I say I'm a video editor. This culture is all nigh whatever really pays the bills. Information technology's fucked, but that's how it's been.

I've never had a savings account. Any coin I've had has gone toward music. I try to go on it as cheap as possible. For bout, I go into a petty flake of debt on my credit card. My label helps a little bit, but I notwithstanding get striking. By the time y'all think you lot're stable, you spend a agglomeration of money on making another record. I couldn't tell you lot how much I've spent, it'due south just been constant. When I was a kid, I thought I would exist a rock star, merely information technology doesn't await like what it looks similar. My new album'south about coming to terms with that: If I actually love this matter, information technology doesn't matter whether I'thousand working a day job for the rest of my life. In this line of work, we're all gonna have to get a lot more artistic if we want to arrange."

Sasami
Side hustle: music instructor

"Simply recently did I outset doing music full-time, just every day chore I had in the past was music-related — teaching Mommy and Me music classes, picking up substitute instruction gigs. I did that for four years. The fiscal aspect of beingness a musician is as fantasized as much every bit every other aspect. Everyone says, 'Oh, y'all must have a bunch of likes on Instagram and you're playing a festival! You lot must exist happy, rich, and getting laid.' Merely guess what? Very frequently, none of those are true. Financially, having a twenty-four hours job was a necessity because I have educatee debt, similar about man Americans.

So I'grand in a lot of debt nevertheless, but because the music industry is so spread out now, it's not like a few major labels are the gatekeepers to having a music career — there are so many avenues. There are so many things that determine whether you 'brand it,' just the master thing is working super hard. I'm too putting out my outset album right now, so even though I'thou doing fine right at present, my next album could flop and I could never make music again. There'due south an element of uncertainty, which is why I'grand super lucky my dad convinced me to get a music education caste."

Brian Profilio, the Budos Ring
Side hustle: art teacher

"I'm an art teacher in a New York Metropolis loftier school, and I've been doing it for 17 years. The biggest downside is that I can't tour for more than a weekend. Some of my friends who are professional musicians are on the route for months at a prune, and life on the road is not easy. I don't think of myself as a professional musician at all; I await at it as a hobby. I don't make nearly enough money off of information technology to sustain myself and my family. My biggest paydays are from when people sample our music or utilise it commercially. On the road, maybe we make $150 a night each. We've never fabricated a ton of money touring."

Eli Kasan, the Gotobeds
Side hustle: art director

"I'm an fine art director at IDL in Pittsburgh. The biggest perk is that my 24-hour interval chore in design helps inform the band when information technology comes to making tour posters. In that location's definitely some contention at work when I demand to exist on tour for long periods of time, but I try to be a practiced worker so they miss me when they need me. Nosotros've been able to purchase a van, fund our merch. Once it was an expensive hobby, at present it pays a little — only we definitely jam econo. We don't stay in hotels, beverage complimentary, swallow gratuitous. If we have whatsoever extra money, it heads directly through our bellies and into the urinal. We've paid ourselves once after a tour — $100 each. Truthfully, there'due south more money in the ring'due south banking concern account right now than in my personal bank account."

Ryan Mahan, Algiers
Side hustle: refugee project work

"I work on refugee projects that focus on preventing children from existence exploited. Most musicians inside my realm are members of the working class. Information technology'southward hard to survive and make a living in the music industry, or whatever artistic manufacture unless you play into the wider expectations of the capitalist economic system. I of our friends in Daughters couldn't go on tour because of his solar day job. There are e'er merchandise-offs, and the mental, psychological, and economic fatigue wears on the torso and listen. Virtually musicians invest their own coin into making something happen. Until people in the creative arts are recognized as cultural laborers deserving of a living wage that supports their work, we'll be forced to have multiple jobs.

We've been performing for five years, and in the first three nosotros lost a considerable amount of money. We're lucky enough to accept a record characterization that pays us to make records, merely our biggest show nosotros've ever played in united states of america was probably 400 people in Seattle. We lose money every fourth dimension we tour. Luckily, we've been able to brand a little fleck of money from publishing. I might've made nigh $fifteen,000 in the last year on that, which is but getting by. I don't have a domicile in London, so I sleep on friends' floors when I can, and I don't accept a car or whatever possessions like that. I'g lucky enough to have wellness insurance through [the U.K.'s National Wellness Service]. I've had to cut back on work to bout, and the typical income in my profession is £25,000, which you surrender half of to be in music, as well as the rest of your time and sanity."

CC Honeymoon
Side hustles: Carpentry, the service industry

"I'thousand a carpenter. I've been doing it on and off for 10 years now. My dad was a carpenter, so I worked with him from historic period 14 on. I was lucky to learn a trade through him. When I started making music, I worked in cafés and restaurants. I got dorsum into carpentry considering I wanted to be self-employed, which has its benefits. I don't have to ask anyone to take off to go tour. But financially, information technology's tough. Later working a long day, I'm messy and covered in sawdust, and finding the inspiration to sit down and write a song is hard. But I've come to learn that y'all can't strength inventiveness.

London'due south an expensive city to live in, but the main reason for me to exist hither is to practise music, not carpentry work. After paying 1,000 pounds for rent and 500 pounds for a workshop, it gets me downwardly a bit. I tin see myself sticking it out a couple of years, though. I've got some friends who are musicians and don't work considering they alive with their parents or have money in their family, and I used to feel biting about that, but now not and so much. When my previous band toured the U.Thousand. and Europe for 6 months, that put me in nearly vi-8,000 pounds in debt. That'southward why I don't feel music owes me annihilation. It's a passion I make sacrifices for. If I didn't want to spend that money on it, I wouldn't."

How Indie Artists Actually Make Coin in 2019