Sure could! My last couple of columns have been about ways to spend money, ways to make money, and doing things at a level that’s right for you. I’ve been writing about how a record label is like a band, and I’m gonna back that up right now by explaining exactly what happens when you sign your deal and how all this money stuff ties together.
If you’ve been thinking that when you get signed a guy in a suit will hand you the keys to a Cadillac and make all your troubles vanish, think again. Unless you’re a band that has had some success previously or are the subject of a “next big thing” – type bidding war, your life probably won’t change that much upon signing. It’s fairly difficult to get money out of a label, and, outside of signing bonuses, pretty much any money you get is recoupable. Here’s where the additional members of your team come into play. Every deal is different, and it’s up to your manager to negotiate a good one for you. You’d like to assume that you have certain “rights” when you sign: the right to some money to live on, the right to make a video, the right to spend enough money in the studio to get everything perfect, the right to buy decent equipment and the right to tour support (I’ll explain that in a second).
These things are not automatic, but are determined by the deal you cut. As far as this band or that band signing a “million dollar deal” goes, don’t believe that either. You might eventually get a million dollars (to split between the members of your band, less half or so in taxes, less your manager’s twenty percent, your accountant’s five percent and your legal costs), but spread out over the release of however many albums you’re signed for, if you don’t get dropped first.
After White Zombie got signed, I was washing dishes up until the night before we went into the studio to record La Sexorcisto. For a while I managed to live on the meager advance I got, but our release date got pushed back and I had to get another crappy job until it was time to go on tour. There’s the reality of my rock and roll dream-guitar player in a signed band, trying not to get mugged on the subway on my way home from work.
So we’re clear on what the term “recoupable” means, right? You may get money to live on and to buy gear and road cases, but you gotta pay it back. You want to go into a real studio with a good producer, and depending on recording budgets specified in your contract, you can do that – but you gotta pay that money back. (Multiply $150 an hour by four or five weeks and then add 30 percent on top of that to pay your bigshot producer!)
As far as videos go, what was a sure thing ten years ago isn’t at all true today: unless your label really believes that you’re the next big thing, chances are that you won’t make one – and why would you? Videos are enormously expensive to make (a $30,000 video is considered a bargain) and since there’s really only one major outlet (MTV), most videos don’t get shown. Recoupability for a video breaks down in different ways, once again pertaining to what kind of deal you signed, but a common practice is for the band and the label to split the cost evenly. Do you really want to spend 15 grand to maybe appear on MTV once at 4:00 a.m.?
Of course, there are lots of cool local shows and The Box, and most bands do end up making some kind of video, but I’m thinking about what may be a coming trend as the market becomes more and more saturated and heavy music gets driven further underground. Have you noticed that you didn’t see a video from the last Pantera album? That’s because they knew their music wasn’t going to fit in with what the media deems acceptable right now, and a video therefore wouldn’t be aired. They decided to rely on their fan base for sales and forego spending crazy amounts of money on a video nobody would see. Smart!
Another important part of your dealings with a record company is tour support. When you put your first album out and need to go out on the road to publicize it, the label may provide some money to help you stay out there, be it to hire roadies and a soundman, buy a van, rent a bus and pay a driver, or whatever. You guessed it: you gotta pay it back. Some bands break out on radio and MTV right away, but the other 99.9 percent of us have to try to become known through touring, and the best way to play in front of a lot of people is to open for an already popular band. This is great work if you can get it, but unfortunately, for you as a new artist who’s adding absolutely nothing to the drawing power of the tour, the pay is usually shockingly low. If you’re trying to live somewhat decently (hotel rooms, showers, somebody to help carry your bass player’s SVT cabinet which feels like it’s filled with cement), you’re going to go into debt very quickly, and tour support can keep you going until you hopefully can build up a following a start making a profit.
If you’ve developed a self-sufficient lifestyle for your band and have decided to go the major label route, you’re going to have to start giving up control of certain aspects of what you do. It’s just simple math – if you’re out on the road, you can’t print t-shirts (we’ll talk about merchandise deals next month), set up future gigs (we’ll also talk about booking agents), figure out how to feed the band and crew and where to get gas, and keep in touch with everything that goes on at your label all at once. What you can keep under control is what happens to your money. Don’t be afraid to ask exactly what’s going on, what things cost and who’s paying for what. Remember, there never has been, nor will there ever be, such a thing as a free lunch.
