Whether you bring one mic stand or a whole drum set and PA, each member does what they need to make sure
the show goes on'. You see, you really can't rely on an instant payback from your personal investments. At least, not if you want the band to last.
I'm going to go back to my cover band days and an almost unbelievable series of events that took place...
We had a drummer, the kind of person who likely sits at home with a foil hat on smoking pot swearing that the government is out to get him (they ARE). He left the band I was playing in. After he left the band he decided to sue us for the time and effort he put into making the band's website. He assumed that if we had hired a professional website designer we would have paid something like $3500 for the design work and time.
I wasn't about to argue the cost of the work, which he apparently had a highly inflated sense of given it was a very basic set of web pages with images and text, no, I had one point to make when it was my turn to tell the judge how unfounded his lawsuit was. When you play in a band, you do things without the expectation of getting paid 'extra' for them.
This particular drummer didn't have a car, so he had to be picked up and we had to haul his drum set to shows. We all agreed to do this 'extra' without compensation requirements, because we liked playing with him... But onto the lawsuit. You see, the website was created on the singer's computer, and she owned the DBA which was clearly stated as the rightful owner of the website and its content (as noted by the copyright mark on every page). The singer would pick the drummer up and bring him to her house to make updates and changes to the site using Microsoft Frontpage, a WYSIWYG (What You See IS What You Get) editor where any monkey could drag and drop elements to create the page we had. If he were to be owed the same amount of money that a 'professional' web designer would have gotten, it would throw off the entire balance of how bands actually work. Plus, he had not asked to be paid for the work beforehand, instead implying that he was free to do it and had the time available... so in my book it was absolutely ridiculous claim I've ever heard.
I went on to point out that the sound system, about $5,000 worth of gear that we absolutely needed to do the gigs we did, was owned 100% by the guitar player. If the drummer were due any compensation for his web design work, the guitar player was definitely due compensation for the use of his equipment, yet he had no expectation of being paid any more per gig (of course, we all helped set it up and load it out!) beyond what his cut was as an even split for each gig. He even made sure to keep up the equipment and to upgrade it as our needs changed, and never once said 'and I better get paid more per gig because it's my stuff'...
Furthermore, I advised the judge that I worked (at the time) doing live sound professionally (I was doing on-call shows and working for a few shops) and for a show of our size I could easily charge $100-$150 per night for a show that I walked into and set up someone else's gear and ran it all night, yet I didn't expect, ask or require any compensation beyond what I was promised as a member of the band.
It's not that I didn't want to get paid. We all want to get paid. It wasn't realistic for either of us to demand more money per show for the stuff we did. It is a labor of love, that we happened to get paid for each night!
Should grown adults behave like little kids do? No.
We all make investments to make sure we have what we need to make music and make a little extra scratch while we're at it. Guitarists invest in their guitars, pedals and amps. Bass players invest in their basses and amps, drummers have drum kits and accessories, etc... (except for the odd singer who might invest just a couple hundred for a microphone...) Heck, since I joined Beau Hodges Band, I've easily invested over $2,000 in new gear in addition to the guitars, pedals and amps that I already had. I don't look at anyone to compensate me for that. I wanted to build up my guitar rig, having been a bass player for many, many years before this.
I hear the discussion all the time on forums and with my musician friends. in my 20 years playing it's come up more than once. My take on the whole thing is that unless you have an agreement beforehand for any situation where someone is providing 100% of something 'extra' to be compensated in some way, that person cannot expect to be paid more for it. It's just what we do. . . If they are really interested in playing in a band, they won't expect it. If you want your musical endeavor to last, you will count the investment as a personal investment and any amount of scratch you can pull for a night will be enough as an even split.
that's my rant for the day. I was just thinking of the situation because a few times this week the phrase 'tin foil' and 'aluminum foil' came up, and that reminded me of that drummer...
Happy thanksgiving, y'all!
the show goes on'. You see, you really can't rely on an instant payback from your personal investments. At least, not if you want the band to last.
I'm going to go back to my cover band days and an almost unbelievable series of events that took place...
We had a drummer, the kind of person who likely sits at home with a foil hat on smoking pot swearing that the government is out to get him (they ARE). He left the band I was playing in. After he left the band he decided to sue us for the time and effort he put into making the band's website. He assumed that if we had hired a professional website designer we would have paid something like $3500 for the design work and time.
I wasn't about to argue the cost of the work, which he apparently had a highly inflated sense of given it was a very basic set of web pages with images and text, no, I had one point to make when it was my turn to tell the judge how unfounded his lawsuit was. When you play in a band, you do things without the expectation of getting paid 'extra' for them.
This particular drummer didn't have a car, so he had to be picked up and we had to haul his drum set to shows. We all agreed to do this 'extra' without compensation requirements, because we liked playing with him... But onto the lawsuit. You see, the website was created on the singer's computer, and she owned the DBA which was clearly stated as the rightful owner of the website and its content (as noted by the copyright mark on every page). The singer would pick the drummer up and bring him to her house to make updates and changes to the site using Microsoft Frontpage, a WYSIWYG (What You See IS What You Get) editor where any monkey could drag and drop elements to create the page we had. If he were to be owed the same amount of money that a 'professional' web designer would have gotten, it would throw off the entire balance of how bands actually work. Plus, he had not asked to be paid for the work beforehand, instead implying that he was free to do it and had the time available... so in my book it was absolutely ridiculous claim I've ever heard.
I went on to point out that the sound system, about $5,000 worth of gear that we absolutely needed to do the gigs we did, was owned 100% by the guitar player. If the drummer were due any compensation for his web design work, the guitar player was definitely due compensation for the use of his equipment, yet he had no expectation of being paid any more per gig (of course, we all helped set it up and load it out!) beyond what his cut was as an even split for each gig. He even made sure to keep up the equipment and to upgrade it as our needs changed, and never once said 'and I better get paid more per gig because it's my stuff'...
Furthermore, I advised the judge that I worked (at the time) doing live sound professionally (I was doing on-call shows and working for a few shops) and for a show of our size I could easily charge $100-$150 per night for a show that I walked into and set up someone else's gear and ran it all night, yet I didn't expect, ask or require any compensation beyond what I was promised as a member of the band.
It's not that I didn't want to get paid. We all want to get paid. It wasn't realistic for either of us to demand more money per show for the stuff we did. It is a labor of love, that we happened to get paid for each night!
Should grown adults behave like little kids do? No.
We all make investments to make sure we have what we need to make music and make a little extra scratch while we're at it. Guitarists invest in their guitars, pedals and amps. Bass players invest in their basses and amps, drummers have drum kits and accessories, etc... (except for the odd singer who might invest just a couple hundred for a microphone...) Heck, since I joined Beau Hodges Band, I've easily invested over $2,000 in new gear in addition to the guitars, pedals and amps that I already had. I don't look at anyone to compensate me for that. I wanted to build up my guitar rig, having been a bass player for many, many years before this.
I hear the discussion all the time on forums and with my musician friends. in my 20 years playing it's come up more than once. My take on the whole thing is that unless you have an agreement beforehand for any situation where someone is providing 100% of something 'extra' to be compensated in some way, that person cannot expect to be paid more for it. It's just what we do. . . If they are really interested in playing in a band, they won't expect it. If you want your musical endeavor to last, you will count the investment as a personal investment and any amount of scratch you can pull for a night will be enough as an even split.
that's my rant for the day. I was just thinking of the situation because a few times this week the phrase 'tin foil' and 'aluminum foil' came up, and that reminded me of that drummer...
Happy thanksgiving, y'all!