Should You Be A Solo Artist, Or Start A Band?

As a music producer, I've come across this situation more than a few times: an artist is solely handling all writing, booking, managing, and financing their 'band'.

My immediate reaction is usually something like, 'Why are you giving away a majority stake in your business to people who do nothing more than play your songs?'.

It's an obviously crazy decision when you think about it that way. Take the scenario described above and apply it to a 4 piece band (which is a real scenario I've seen), and the sole operator/songwriter has agreed to give the other musicians equal stakes in the business - meaning that every member in the band is getting 25% of the businesses revenue, even though they aren't doing anything other than performing your songs.

Don't get me wrong - performers deserve to be compensated fairly - but are they really contributing to the growth and future of the business? In most cases, no - and instead they should be paid for their services, as a fee rather than in ownership.

In this episode we break down:

Why solo artists are often too afraid to bring this up with their musiciansThe importance of discussing this with your band as soon as possibleWhy it might be better NOT to go solo (in a lot of cases)And much, much more!

Listen to the podcast now to find out more!

PS - if you enjoyed this content and would like to support Your Band Sucks (At Business) please share this episode with someone who you think would appreciate it, and consider becoming a Patreon member by clicking HERE!

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Stuff We Mention In This Episode:

Band of Rascals (Marcus and Malcoms band)

Canva (what we use for graphic design)

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Stuff We Use / Affiliate Links:

Distrokid (our recommended music distribution service)

Close.IO (Malcoms recommended CRM)

Transistor.FM (A great podcast hosting platform)

BackBlaze File Backup Services (Malcoms recommend data backup service)

Printful - Print-To-Order Merchandise Service

Quickbooks Accounting Software (What we use to run our books and process credit card payments)

SquareSpace Websites

Malcom started a DIY Recording Youtube Channel and you should go subscribe and check out the videos! You can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/@malcomowenflood

And Marcus is killing it on the road with multiple bands! Keep up to date with him via his website, here: https://www.marcusmanhas.com

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