As EDM continues to grow and cross over into the mainstream, the public has adopted the perception that all DJs are traveling millionaires. Superstar DJs like Tiesto, Hardwell, and Swedish House Mafia perpetuate the notion that a DJs life consists of six figure gigs, constantly exciting travel, and virtually unlimited opportunity. However, this idea only applies to the upper-echelon of DJs, a mere fraction of all the hard-working DJs and producers in the world.
Nick Thayer, while not a household name, has gained fame through his unique producing style and his signing to OWSLA. He has played festivals like Ultra Music Festival, Shambhala Music Festival, and SXSW. Despite his assumed lifestyle, he struggles as much as any other hard-working musician.
In a revealing Tumblr post, Nick highlights how much money he makes and compares that to the amount of purchases of his releases and the number of listens his music has acquired. His post reveals a fact most probably do not consider: not all DJs live glamorous lifestyles filled with fame and fortune.
The post also emphasizes that not all producers aim to make millions. Thayer mentions that the passion drives him to continue to make music and urges everyone to support their favorite artists. While a DJ may tour and play massive festivals, their personal income can still suffer.
Nick Thayer succeeded in not only writing a potentially risky post but also showing people how their perceptions of producers and DJs fail to possess much truth. For an artist to succeed, passion must come from the artist and the fans. This passion creates a mutually beneficial relationship which ensures the artist’s success and an audience’s pleasure.
Read the entire post below:
Do you wanna know just how much money I make?
I wanted to take a second to break some numbers down for you. I’m doing this to be transparent. To let you know what the life of producer/DJ looks like from the financial end. People often think there’s a huge amount of money in this scene. There is, but it is very concentrated and in the hands of a very, VERY few people. The vast majority are on similar numbers to me, running on fumes most of the time to make this thing work. We do it because we LOVE THE ABSOLUTE SHIT out of writing music, playing music and sharing music.
Let’s start with a release.
Here’s the TOTAL sales breakdown for my Like Boom EP (March 2012). This is sales across all platforms (iTunes / Beatport / etc etc). Bear in mind this EP was the #2 overall release for thirteen weeks on Beatport so you can assume it was a comparative success.
Like Boom 2600
Facepalm 2932
Totalitaria 1125
Haters Gonna Hate 652
Top Of The World 710
What Props Ya Got 614
Rise Up 658
Like Boom Nick Thayer Rmx 1953
Facepalm Rmx 969
What Props Rmx 509So that’s 12,722 total sales.
For the sake of making this as simple as possible, let’s be generous and call these sales $2 each (most are a bit less). Then let’s split 50% (give or take) for whatever site you sell through, meaning the site takes $1 and there’s $1 left. Most labels these days run on a profit share arrangement which means you split what’s left of that down the middle too. Let’s also allow for any writing splits where other artists have been involved adding vocals etc. So here we have total income that gets to me after the site, the label and the other artists involved have all taken their cut.
Like Boom (50% to sample clearance, 25% share to three vocalists)
$162.5
Facepalm $1467
Totalitaria $562.5
Haters Gonna Hate (50% to vocalist) $326
Top Of The World (50% to vocalist) $177.5
What Props Ya Got (30% to vocalist) $158
Rise Up $329
Like Boom Nick Thayer Rmx (see above) $122
Facepalm Rmx (50% to remixer) $242
What Props Rmx (50% to remixer) $127So that’s a total income from the EP of $3673.50.
(I’m not going to include Spotify or YouTube here as they total less than the price of a beer overall).
At this point you pay your management 15% of what you have. Mastering comes in at approximately $150-$200 per track, so that’s $1500 total. Artwork is $1000 for anything half decent that’s usable across all platforms. A decent publicity campaign is about $300-$500. There’s a myriad of other smaller costs involved too. Some labels will cover these costs up front but it will be a ‘recoupable advance’ meaning you have to pay them back before they give you any money so it’s the same as fronting the money yourself.
So you can see at the end, this EP which probably represented a year of work at actually ended up COSTING me money (though not a lot) to release. If somebody said to you ‘put your heart and soul into this project for a year and at the end give us some money for the privilege of having us listen to it’, what would YOU do?
What about touring?
At this point people usually say ‘well you make a lot of money from gigs right?’. Well not really. Around six months after this EP came out, so in late 2012, enough time to potentially see the benefits, in the US I was earning between $1000 and $1500 for a show. That might sound like a lot of money, but that is TOTAL.
Let’s say I did a run of nine shows across three weeks (Thurs, Fri, Sat night x 3) at $1250. That’s $11,250. That’s A LOT right?? Well. Right off the bat the booking agent will take 15%. As an Australian in the US I pay 30% up front on tax too (this is reclaimable but Australia has a reciprocal tax agreement with US so it comes out of the amount of tax I owe here in Aus). So that’s down to $6200 straight away. Then I have to pay for travel. Let’s say return flights from Aus ($1500 economy fare) plus travel in between shows ($200 per flight if lucky) and we’re down to $2687. You can usually get the club to pay for a hotel on the night of your show, but that’s it. So that leaves maybe ten nights where you are covering it at $100 a night if you can find it. Often they will be much more expensive so you survive by sleeping on couches in friends’ places every second night. That’s $1687 left. Now pay management 15% and we’re at around $1434. Then there is food to pay for cause you can’t live on bar snacks for three weeks. At $30 per day (that’s $10 for b’fast lunch and dinner) for three weeks is around $600 and at that point all you’re left with is around $800 for three weeks’ work, which is not exactly a fortune.
So what?
This is not a sob story. This is me saying to you please, PLEASE support artists you like in any way you can think of.
– Buy the whole EP when they release it instead of just one song. You would not believe the difference this can make. Even buying two songs instead of one helps chart positions which creates exposure which means more people listen and the cycle repeats itself.
– Share the links to their music on your Facebook or Twitter or re-post them on Soundcloud or wherever you can. Promoters keep an eye out for whoever is being talked about the most across social media so instead of bugging your favourite artist to come to your town talk about them as much as you can and bug the promoters to bring them.
I want to say now THANK YOU for every single person who has supported me in any of these ways. Who has bought my music, shown their friends, stuck stickers on things, come to a show or whatever. THANK YOU.
Read the original post on Nick Thayer’s Tumblr here.
Photo Credit: Rukes
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