...then you can claim the dole. Of course, many bands in the first flush of success neglect the boring stuff like tax and NI in favour of groupies, drugs and expensive vintage guitars.

This can come back to haunt them :-)

Your point is similar to an ongoing thought I've had recently in regards bands who were succesful for fifteen minutes. If you were in a band who had (say for example)had a top 5 album on a credible indie label, maybe a couple of tail end top 40 hits - what sort of royalty payments would you receive today? Is it a monthly cheque or quarterly etc? Would it enable you to go on hoiday on the money or would it allow you and your wife/husband to go out for a meal etc?

Foopballers too. Things I learned this week: John Aston's next career move after helping Manchester United to win their first European Cup was to open a pet shop in Stalybridge.

the number of reformed middling indie bands clogging up the live circuit to see the answer to what they do next is: not much.

Imagine you're recruiting, you get a CV from a 30-something bloke whose qualifications, since leaving Uni a couple of years into his degree, are playing drums for a bunch of also-rans for the past decade. Not going to go to the top of the possibles pile is it? Post split life must be frankly terrifying for many if there's no financial cushion built up.

Seem to remember the singer from the godawful Shed Seven, when asked why they were reforming a couple of years back, replying that he was borderline destitute and had no other choice... Ouch.

of S Club Jnrs and now in The Saturdays was interviewed in the Metro yesterday. After Jnrs split she worked in Frasers at a perfume(?) stand.

...that most of them never actually give up. They're always working on some demos somewhere.

...they work in a well managed, professionally-run corner of the industry where everyone is open about it all being about the money and the artist is treated as a mere employee.

They get to see how the management side of things should be done and, in some cases, realise that's where the real money is.

I suspect that the members of a traditional rock and roll band are, in general, more interested in being in a traditional rock and roll band (girls, drugs, vintage guitars, red snappers) than learning how the business works and protecting their long-term career prospects.

There are of course, notable exceptions to this - I'm looking at you Mick and Feargal.

What if you belonged to a band like the Roaring Boys?
Back in the mid 80s I was completely unaware of them then suddenly they were all over the place, having sprung from nowhere. They were being giving the big push by whatever record company had signed them. No doubt there was a large advance, all the fringe benefits that go with being in a high(ish) profile band. However we failed to care about them, buy their records, go to their gigs. Young girls didn't appear to love them. They disappeared as quickly as they'd arrived.

....a guy in a band I played with was offered the bass gig in 2000 with a popular mid 90's guitar band, well known name, major label, some chart action, plenty of evening radio play, festival and European tours, sessions, TV shows, decent sized fan base. Apparently they were totally broke and he ended up getting an office job at the local council instead for the steady income.

I've also done a bit of guitar for a singer after he'd been in a similar sized band from about the same era. He had no cash at all and was back on the dole..

Unless you have a song of 'There She Goes' type status or you manage to pick up some decent session work then you'd not looking at much income for the future..

bit on buzzcocks is in the "line up" were some failed by 90's boy band member or mid 80's bass player says "they are still working on new material and touring with their new band ....."
surely their new band should be called The "look what you could've wons" and their new lp " we were number 5 in Denmarks you know"

here's the whole story live from Royston vasey

I don't think this lot made much money, cos the lead singer had to get another job. Ironically enough, the new job gave him the chance to meet Noel Gallagher, which probably wouldn't have happened if he'd stayed with the band.

During his interview on the Red Bull Music Academy website http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/video-archive/lectures/peter_hook__ne..., Peter Hook says that the head of the PRS once told him that only 2,000 musicians in the UK make enough money to make it their primary job. Quite a sobering thought really.

This is going back a bit, but I remember having my hair cut at Tony's barber, in Gosport, Hampshire, in the 1970s, by Tony himself. While chatting, he told me that he had been the drummer in Simon Dupree and the Big Sound but had made so little money that he left just after their sixties hit, Kites, and gone back to finish his hairdressing apprenticeship, There were teenage fans coming in for the first week, but after that it quietened down. He thought he had made more as a barber than he ever would have as a musician.

The rest of Simon Dupree were made up of three brothers called Shulman, who went on to form the core of Gentle Giant. There may not have been that much money in Prog either, as I believe one of them went on to run a souvenir shop, and my sister is convinced one of them was a maths supply teacher she had for a time, also in Gosport.

I dare say many of the people being discussed above were so young that they went on to secure reasonable jobs and have fulfilling careers. Their brush with fame was so fleeting and joyful it's probably the same as us mere mortals recalling our gap years or University life - ie saw a bit of the world, had a great time with my mates, shagged a few women, got drunk a lot, felt wealthy even though we had nowt... Let's face it, not a bad life-CV, good tales for grandchildren and a great dinner-party conversation piece.

I used to take pleasure (and not a little envy) in reading the Q magazine Where Are They Now features where a 'failed' band member went on to form their own successful company or secure great job. A case of 'had cake and ate it' if you ask me.

Sadly I forget who it was, but a rock insider explained that musicians, even those generally perceived as very successful, earn far less money than you would think.

After you've paid back the record company advance, producer's royalties, and countless other fees that the average listener has no idea about, then divided the remainder between four or so band members, songwriters, etc, the money from a million-seller doesn't go so far.

Not only that, but by all accounts it can take ages (sometimes years) for the money from your first hit to trickle into your account.

That said, it could all depend on how lucky or well managed you are. A friend who used to work in a bank told me how one of their customers was a member of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. Many years after they had a few hits, and when he seemed to have no other income, every quarter he would pop in and deposit a substantial cheque for enough money to live a comfortable life. Nothing flash, but enough that you wouldn't have to worry about next month's gas bill.

There are always those will do well: Nine Inch Nails' $300 limited edition of Ghosts I-IV sold all its 2,500 copies, grossing $750,000 for Trent Reznor, in less than a week. Nice work if you can get it.

Big Brother or the Jungle thingy seems to be a fleeting few weeks of "remember me? I used to be in A1/Blue/Toto Cuelo! Available for panto..."

Ray Dorey who used to play guitar for Edison Lighthouse is now Director of an International Mechanical Seal company based in Slough - in what I am convinced is Wernham Hogg's building. Nice line in John Lennon anecdotes, but rather more vague on how he got from rock and roll to mechanical engineering.

Stan Cullimore of the Housemartins has an excellent "how to be a rock star" book where he says one of the happiest days of his life was when they had their 3rd hit - and therefore would be entitled to an annual performing rights cheque for the rest of their lives. He now writes children's tv.

In the early 1970's an album appeared on the Deram label by a group called 'Paper Bubble'. They were discovered and produced by Strawbs mainman Dave Cousins. The backing musicians on the sessions were the initial electric line-up of the Strawbs before they actually went out in that form.
Today that album has never been re-released, or the second album recorded by mainstays Terry Brake and Brian Crane ever released. The album still continues to have an increasing monetary value in the 'Record Collector'.
A few years ago I approached Dave Cousins on a Strawbs reunion tour to discuss the album. He stated he had thought about releasing it and seemed interested when I told him about reel to reel tapes of that never released second album.
To date zilch even though various contact details were given to Dave.
The whole point of this is that Terry is now a best selling business author and guru, domiciled in the States, travelling the world with his financial economic theories and a long forgotten career in popular music. Brian lives somewhere in the West Country and Neil the bass player featured on the album sleeve lives around the corner from Terry's Dad in Shrewsbury.
Strange world we live in and the album has stood the test of time.

Julian was the violinist in the group Spirogyra in the early 70's. He's the one at the front of this group photo with Barbara Gaskin by his side.

When compiling their MySpace page I came across his new career, funnily through Forbes.com. "Julian Cusack will be appointed Aspen's Chief Operating Officer from April 17, 2008." This is a $1.8billion insurance company based in Bermuda.

http://people.forbes.com/profile/julian-cusack/7834

The boy done good. Mind you, so has their manager, a fellow student at Kent University where the band was formed. Max Hole is President, Asia Pacific Region and Executive Vice-President, Marketing and A&R for Universal Music Group International.

Who needs to be in a band? Well it's a start...

...I interviewed a guy who'd applied for a job as a shift manager in a 24h / 7 day a week warehouse. He had a suspicious gap in his cv from late teens to mid-20's so I diligently but diplomatically enquired about it.

"Ahhh...." he said, "Well, it was the usual teenage stuff, y'know..."

"Uh oh," I think to myself, making assumptions, "here we go: TWOCing, drugs, thuggery..."

"A bunch of us had a band, thought we'd give it a go, and here I am."

"I take it you weren't that successful," I said (rather unkindly and rudely in retrospect).

"Well, we had a number 1 single here and in America." That stops an interviewer in his tracks, I can confirm.

"What was the band called?" I enquired.

"Oh, before your time, you wouldn't have heard of us," he replied (and not even in smarmy interview mode - he seemed genuinely modest about it).

He turned out to have been in Edison Lighthouse and played on "Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes" and a few LP's worth of songs. I leant over the table, shook his hand and asked how come someone who helped make one of the greatest pop songs of all time was now living in Slough and looking for a job in a warehouse. It was the usual late 60's / early 70's tale of dodgy contracts, lots of touring and fun but no actual money and a subsequent requirement to get a real job and re-join the human race. To his great credit, he didn't seem at all bitter about it.

And I regret to say, he didn't get the job - although thinking about it he'd have been a good choice for organising the Xmas party.

reading an article about a Financial Adviser in my local paper. The company he joined made a big thing about him once being in the band Eire Apparent, whose album was produced by Jimi Hendrix. I suppose it depends on the jobs you are going for.

I used to work for a brewery and they routinely employed former footballers/sports people as sales reps/managers. Most of the people they were selling to were only happy to rap about their good old days. I remember seeing the likes of Tony Hateley and Vic Faulkner popping into the canteen for a cuppa. Probably why many ex-band members go into A & R.

that at least these musicians who've had a go and done something in a band, can hold there heads high and be safe in the knowledge that, unlike the majority of the population, they have experienced what its like to be in band, no matter how fleeting their brush with fame might have been.

It is according to Prof Brian Cox of CERN, and formerly of D:Ream. Speaking as a former Physicist, I have to say that being a rock star must be pretty grim if he is correct.

In my day job, at a certain Broadcasting Corporation, I've come across several former rockers who are now studio engineers - I guess that it's one of the few jobs for which a life in the Business we call Show is actually worth a few CV points.

Like my colleague Martin Slade, the poodle head front centre, ex of NWOBHM stalwarts Tokio Rose. He's still waiting for the call to reform, though the Spandex pants may be a problem

must be a bloody good income for Alabama 3 as it appears as the opening in music for all series of The Sopranos. It probably pays for them to continue their crazy lifestyle.

...but this reminded me of the first time I heard Song 2 by Blur. The Radio 1 DJ made some quip about it being 'commercial suicide' or similar (as, to be fair, a lot of critics considered the 'new direction' to be) - how much money must that song still be making from adverts, soundtracks and airplay?

More on topic: According to Wikipedia, as of 2003 Every Breath You Take was still earning Sting $2000 per day in royalties 20 years after its release.