After all, the business mindset is poison to the art mindset. They’re just completely different things.
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Is a Band a Business?
People love to say “A band is a business.”
This refers to the idea that any successful, self-sustaining band needs to earn a lot of money. If you want to put four people on tour for six months a year, plus a merch guy / tour manager / whatever, that alone necessitates a huge amount of income.
It feels intuitively correct, if a band needs to generate money to survive, it has to be a business, right?
I’d argue NO. A band is not a business. Business is pretty much the opposite of music.
Business vs. Music Mindset
Listen to a few business podcasts. Reid Hoffman has a good one, “Masters of Scale.” Or just go to the top 10 on iTunes and pick whatever looks best. Skim around and hear how they speak.
Now go listen to some artist interviews. It doesn’t matter who, just pick your favorite artist and find them being interviewed.
Compare those two listening experiences. Do the business people and the artists think the same way? They don’t, at all.
Business people think about money. They create products, test them against the market, and try to find a profitable model.
Musicians think about music. They create art, with no real idea of how people are going to like it, acting by their own compass of what feels good and will make an impact.
Where Music and Business Intersect
What about when a band needs to do business, for example to handle distribution, promotion, tour routing, whatever?
The smart ones get other people to help. Managers, booking agents, even just friends who want to chip in. It’s rare for any moderately successful to band to retain "independence," whatever your definition of that is.
After all, the business mindset is poison to the art mindset. They’re just completely different things. Artists look deep within to find their truth, while business is all about external concerns. They’re different from head to toe.
For musicians who have to do their own business, I’d recommend the approach that works for me: Minimize the business. Think about it, get organized, come up with a plan - but don’t try to be a genius. Just get the basics covered and then focus on making the great music.
When the music is great enough, it only takes a small push to get the momentum going.
What do you think? Is a band a business? Do art and business work together, or are they opposing forces?