It is. Without money you're nothing. I think everyone knows that and people that do not have money realize how much they fucked themselves and wish they could start over. I hate having a shit job and making no money, but am not smart enough to better myself. it sucks
What kind of cash do metal bands rake in anyway?
- Thread starter Reaping Clarity
- Start date
It is. Without money you're nothing. I think everyone knows that and people that do not have money realize how much they fucked themselves and wish they could start over. I hate having a shit job and making no money, but am not smart enough to better myself. it sucks
ThisIsACoolName
Member
Why not exactly? The only thing you really have to do for an endorsement deal is use the equipment and put a little note in your CD booklet or something. That's it. If you can get a few hundred or free equipment for doing basically nothing at all then how on earth is that not worth your while? Most artists only get endorsement deals for equipment they were already using in the first place so it's basically free money/gear. And loads of bands have endorsements for various brands, you don't seriously think that every underground metal drummer that endorses "brand X" cymbals is going to get $5,000 for that.
The equipment manufacturers look at it purely from a marketing point of view. Is the fact that band X endorses our product Y going to result in additional purchases for that product? For most underground metal bands it will be next to irrelevant (at best it might give the brand some underground credibility if they manage to amass a decent amount of endorsements from respected underground bands) and they are obviously not going to shell out large amounts of money for those.
And your royalties story is nice and all, but you do realize you need to sell a fuckload of records for that to really mean anything. Opeth sold like 80,000 copies of BWP and that was at a time when they were still barely able to live off of their music. The majority of underground bands don't get even close to those figures in terms of sales. And if you are an underground band you are not really in any position to demand anything from record labels in terms of royalty percentages. Both because you yourself are barely commercially viable and because the only labels that are interested in you will be relatively small/poor themselves. Until you break out of that (like Opeth did when they became more popular and signed to a big label like Roadrunner) you are pretty much stuck with whatever deal you can get.
In terms of the equipment endorsements what you forget is that musical equipment companies are using the artists names to make money. They are profiting from it therefore that artist's name is a asset that is worth something more then a few hundred dollars. And yes most only have mentions in their albums only of the instruments they use and endorse. But everytime they play a gig or festival metal magazine photographers are taking pics of you using that equipment which ends up in magazines such as Terrorizer, Metal Maniacs etc.. so it is a little more then just mentioning in your CD booklet what you use. Then you have the company's who run full page ads or even a small ad in a metal magazine, instrument magazine etc... with the picture of someone from let's say Opeth... you are again using the likeness of that person to sell instruments etc.. do you think the ones in Magazine ads should only get a few hundred dollars and some free equipment? .. The companies are making millions imo from these ads in the form of sales of instruments and other equipment. A smart artist would negotiate their endorsement for a company but for the matter most of these guys (and gals) are not very smart businessmen. They get ripped off constantly.
Now as for the Royalties part of your post. 80,000 (I would have to assume you mean total worldwide sales and not one country alone though it one country alone that would be alot imo) may not sound like many sales of a album but if you take my basic royalty example of my earlier post that would amount to $80,800 (80,000 x $1.01) which is not bad in my book and that is just for one album. If they get this from one album plus whatever royalties they get from their earlier albums it can add up significantly.As well as money from touring, merchandising etc. The smart ones who have some business mind are the ones who do not get screwed. And as I said it depends in which country you live and the cost of living in that country then whatever Opeth makes for example is enough to live on and not work a shitty dayjob.
And what I have been saying is that this only applies to artists whose name means something. Artists that the general public will recognize. For most artists and bands (and especially individual members of those bands) that doesn't apply and they therefor won't see much money from those deals. I'm sure someone like Dave Mustaine or Zakk Wylde makes tens of thousands of dollars from their endorsements. But outside of the confines of the underground metal scene, how many people know who Opeth are? How many people know who Mikael from Opeth is? Not many. And that is one of the bigger underground bands. Most bands are well below that level in terms of fame and exposure so they are even less commercially interesting.
As for royalties, I think saying that an underground band gets $1 for every album they sell in royalties is being generous. You generally don't even get royalties at all until your sales hit the break-even point (where the cost of recording/producing/distributing/marketing and possibly even touring for the album have been covered). Then there's advances, if your recording contract includes those (meaning you get money up front to live off of while you record your album) that also get taken out of your royalties afterwards.
So you have to take whatever is left after all that, and then divide it up between the band members (generally 4 or 5) and you end up with your actual earnings. For that to be enough to comfortably live off you need a good record deal and you need to sell a lot. Both of which generally only apply to the bigger bands. Lesser known bands get crummy record deals and do not sell all that many records.
1. I think there is enough underground fans around the world to know who Opeth is and more important the ones who count are the fans who are musicians or aspiring musicians not just the regular fan. All I'm saying is if a band member's pic is used in a full page ad that they should be compensated for it for more then just a few hundred dollars.
2. Dude, trust me I know enough about the music business to know what advances are. I'm currently trying to start my own business with a partner. But anyways in my basic royalty computation i did put a disclaimer saying that it didn't take into account other expenses such as recording costs etc. only packaging i included in my example and was just to give people a general idea of how it is calculated.I know $1.01 per album sold is generous. But any expenses that are taken off the top by the label to cover costs including advancements is summed up in one word : RECOUPMENT. And btw labels do not include touring, distributing and marketing as recoupment imo. Only production/producers, recording costs, packaging, advances (if any)etc. Only the actual manufacturing of the album itself. As for advances, for the most part underground bands do not get that or none that I have heard about but if they did it would be considered recoupment.
3. Yes, i know whatever is left over is divided up by the band members if and only if they all own the band name collectively. And if they all have the songwriting credits equally. For the most part the main songwriters get the bulk of the money. And sometimes some band members are just hired guns and get a flat rate salary because usually they are not actively involved in writing the actual songs. Usually the band leader is.
4. Yes i know they need to sell alot but what they do not need is to sell alot in just one country. If you have 10 markets (10 countries for example) and sold 10,000 CD's in each of those markets that is 100,000 CD's sold. That is not a bad sales goal. So you make some money from the royalties, songwriting etc. then you make additional money from touring, merchandising, DVD's of live concerts etc. etc.. A smart band can make a decent living. Yes the small crummy bands get lousy deals because they do not have a business sense or good legal representation and get screwed for it. But nonetheless they could improve with a better label , management and deal etc. ....
Most metal bands probably can't make a living off of their music. I read on the Norther boards that Kride, the lead guitarist, pays the bills as an IT guy. If these guys were in it for the money, they'd start bands like U2 or something of the sort.
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
Oh yea, Malefic makes a ton of dough.
Too true.
I like your avatar. Wolves in the Throne Room style, eh?
Reign in Acai
Of Elephant and Man
The Heartbreak Kid
Afterimage
ohiogrinder
New Metal Member
- Mar 15, 2006
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most of the bands I listen to probably don't make enough to break even. Its not my fault people listen to shitty music and go to concerts by worthless bands.
Matt
Active Member
ohiogrinder
New Metal Member
- Mar 15, 2006
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Each member of C.C. (one of the biggest names in the DM genre)makes roughly $25000 per year off everything associated with the band (merch, tour, etc.)
there's some mansions and ferraris for ya!
wooooooooooooooooooo, partaaaaaaaayy!
V.V.V.V.V.
Houses Ov Mercury
Aren't you like cool with the Florida bands or something? I guess that's where you get this info? (Not being a douche, actually wondering)
yeah, Chief did. but that was right around the Nephren-Ka album/tour. they've signed a shit deal and basically had to fork over everything they made with Nile except what they got in t-shirt sales.
you should hear his new band, they practice about 45 minutes from here. he should've stayed in Nile.
I guess, depends what your definition of "cool" is...
A lot of them aren't as cool as you'd think.
But that info came directly out of Alex' mouth.
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