Entheos vocalist Chaney Crabb has one very solid piece of advice for any band that's looking to make it in the long term – get your finances under control.
In an interview with the She's In The Band podcast, Crabb detailed all the things that bands should be thinking about and educating themselves on in order to sustain their careers. It's an interesting insight into the inner workings of making a band succeed, and likely sheds some light on things that maybe smaller artists haven't considered.
"Learn about finances. That's not something that any of us ever care about when we get into music at all. I accepted from the beginning [that] I play a super niche genre of metal. I never expected to even make a dollar off of playing music. So that's not something you prepare for.
"When it comes to who you're giving your money to, how much of a cut you're actually getting, budgeting before tours, being smart about when to bring in people to work for your band, when to get management, when to get a booking agent – all of these things are really important to learn about because at the end of the day, it may seem like you're working for all of these people as an artist, but in reality the people are working for you. You really have to become a savvy business person in order to to see your band succeed for the long term.
"You can get a really awesome contract from a label when you're 19 years old and not really know what to do with it, and then for the rest of your life you're bound to this contract and you're not really making money off of your band. I think now more than ever, the resources are available. You can go on YouTube and you can learn about management, you can learn about every aspect of being in a band – how to make money off of Spotify how to make money owning your own music, owning your Masters and all of that stuff. It's really important to educate yourself as far as all of that stuff goes, because that can be the make or break factor in your band.
"I've seen many amazing bands fall off because they just couldn't afford to keep going. It's one of the saddest things to see this artistic, amazing, and creative thing just stop because they can't afford to keep going, but it happens all the time in metal. We see band members switch out of metal bands all the time, and a lot of the time that has nothing to do with the the inner emotions of the band. It has more to do with at a certain point, people have to decide whether they want to go and get a real job and provide for their family or continue doing the band thing figuring that out as they go.
"So I think that the more well-equipped you are to deal with all of that stuff, the better off you'll be in the long run."
