How much do musicians make who didn't make the REALLY BIG TIME?

[Garden Dreamer]

I came across this video interview of Jay Jay French of Twisted Sister and watched it today. Pretty interesting and paints a pretty accurate picture of what is was like to be in a successful band and some other funny and serious anecdotes and stories.

I used to see them when they were a bar band, 1976-77, but didn't like them when they made albums with their own material. WOW... even if you don't like the band, this interview is a MUST SEE. A very likeable guy. He doesn't look at all 61!

[cavgator]

Not to derail too heavily, but if you make $34,000 or more per year (after taxes), you are in the top 1% of income earners in the world.

Also, Genesis invested in Vari-Lite concert lighting technology that has been heavily used by many bands in the 80s through today, and they made quite a bit of coin from that as well.

Yeah, but not many people are rushing to Haiti to buy that 3 bedroom 2 bath ranch in Port-au-Prince for $3,000...

[jkelman]

Not to derail too heavily, but if you make $34,000 or more per year (after taxes), you are in the top 1% of income earners in the world.
.

Sure, but it,s all relative. If you make $34k/year in Estonia you're doing very well. If ylu're making $34k/yr in Oslo? Whole 'nuther story.....

[Adrian]

Regarding album sales, I was reading the Innverview with Mike Kennealy (there's a new thread on it today), and Mike says Paul McCartney sold about 66,000 copies of his last album in the USA. He says that was good enough to get the album to #3 on the charts, and that just 10 years ago that album would have sold five times as much. And that was Paul freakin' McCartney, with his legend, name recognition, and huge marketing push behind the album -- just 66,000 copies.

Given that, unless your band's name is Yes or Rush, I think it's crazy to imagine that any prog outfit sells more than several hundred copies of an album these days, at best.

[Esoteric]

I can assure you that there are plenty of prog outfits selling a lot more than several hundred copies, although not many selling more than say 12'000 copies and lots selling between 750 and 3'000 copies. Wealth wise though there is indeed a massive variance and a lot of it comes down to if you were the songwriter or at least get a share of songwriting , that's money that keeps on being paid especially with airplay, comps etc

[firth5th]

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Steve Hackett is worth $20 million . I wonder how they come up with these estimates?

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/ric...ett-net-worth/

[mozo-pg]

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Steve Hackett is worth $20 million . I wonder how they come up with these estimates?

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/ric...ett-net-worth/

If this is true, he earned every single penny.

[trurl]

I wonder how they come up with these estimates?

The phrase "pulled out of ass" comes to mind. They probably try and estimate a cut of album and concert revenue but they have no way of knowing what rates they got for publishing and/or mechanicals, let alone what kind of expenses and outlays of cash these people have had over the years.