It never fails, I do an electronic repair on some piece of musical equipment for somebody, and they instantly think that I’m interested in playing in their band. “You playing in a band these days?” No, nor am I working at any other minimum wage job. Local bar bands around my area work for total shit pay, and most of them believe that playing free gigs is a great way to “get exposure“. No, you’re honestly just telling everybody what you think you’re actually worth.
I don’t care how much of a friend my employer is, I’m still not writing their code for free, or saying “sure, I’ll take a pay cut on this project so you can impress your friends and family”. The moment that you do anything for free or a cut rate, you just screwed yourself out of future pay raises because this will be brought up when you ask for one. Exactly what makes you think that the same work you do today – is suddenly worth more than what you did for free last year?
Quite a few years ago, I decided that I don’t charge for playing music. I charge for drive time, setup time, layover time, and tear down time. So, if you want to provide me with a chauffeur, roadies, and pay me a wage to be there in person, then I’ll play for your little bar band. Don’t bitch, I’m giving you a bargain, I’m not asking for a guitar and keyboard tech. LoLz!!! So, as you can clearly see, this has nothing to do with me thinking that I’m some kind of high dollar musician.
I realize that there are some people who absolutely have no other means of impressing their friends and family. Being the hometown celebrity is all they have to aspire to because the only real skill they have is a mediocre level of musical talent. Sorry, I’m just not interested in that. Bar flies are no challenge to impress at all, they’ll scream and holler over redundant 3 chord shit songs and bar bands always seem to think that’s some kind of actual musical accomplishment.
Take the amount of pay per member that bar bands earn these days, divide it by the total amount of time from when you leave home and walk back in the door after the gig. You’re lucky if you’re earning minimum wage, so this is really not a whole lot more than a hobby. Street musicians actually earn far more money and don’t have to deal with all of the setup and tear down grief. Sorry, my hobbies require far less work and I don’t have to deal with annoying bar flies.
If I really want to earn 8 hours worth of minimum wage, I could just as easily write and record one song per month and upload it to various streaming services, then try my hand at getting them into playlist rotation. Same amount of money per month as playing in a bar band around here, no driving to a gig, setup, playing 4 hours, tear down, and driving back home. So, tell me again, why exactly would I want to bother playing in any bar band ever again?
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