What happens after the show is over?

For most musicians, the reality of a music career isn't private jets, sold-out arenas, or million-dollar record deals. It's long drives, inconsistent income, side gigs, creative fulfillment, and the constant challenge of making a living while pursuing a craft they love.

In this episode of Backstage Money, host Jason K. Powers sits down with Franz Nicolay — musician, writer, educator, current member of The Hold Steady, and author of the acclaimed book Band People: Life and Work in Popular Music.

Named one of Rolling Stone's best music books of 2024, Band People explores the lives of the working musicians who make up the backbone of the music industry. Franz shares lessons from decades on the road, stories gathered from musicians across the industry, and his work advocating for artists through organizations such as the Future of Music Coalition, including bringing the concerns of working musicians to Congress.

This conversation dives into the realities of building a sustainable music career and why musicians need to think beyond the stage if they want longevity.

Topics Include:

• What Franz learned from interviewing dozens of career musicians
• The concept of the "musical middle class"
• Why musicians often struggle to talk about money
• Touring, side gigs, and the realities of making ends meet
• Songwriting, publishing, and long-term income streams
• Band dynamics and career longevity
• Music advocacy and taking musicians' concerns to Congress
• What younger artists should know about building a sustainable career

If you're trying to build a career in music, this episode offers a rare look at the people who make the industry work, even when nobody sees their names on the marquee.

Follow Franz Nicolay

Website: https://franznicolay.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/franznicolay/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/franznicolay/

Book: Band People: Life and Work in Popular Music

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Free Guide for Musicians

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https://1024wealth.com/music

Jason K Powers: Welcome to Backstage Money, where music and money collide.

I'm your host, Jason K. Powers, and this is the show where we pull back the

curtain on the business side and money side of life in the music industry.

Every episode, we sit down with working musicians and industry insiders who

have been figuring it out in the trenches so you can learn from the

people who are actually making it work.

So today's guest, I am excited to have Franz Nicolay, a musician

and writer living out in New York.

He's been a member of the Cabaret Punk Orchestra, World Inferno Friendship

Society, a keyboardist with what many call the world's best bar band,

The Hold Steady, a touring member of Against Me, and has recorded and

performed with dozens of other acts.

His most recent book, Band People, was named one of Rolling Stone's best music

books of 2024, and New Yorker called it one of the most honest books ever

published about the rock and roll life.

He also teaches at Bard College, writes for New York Times, Wall

Street Journal, and beyond.

And just recently, he sat in front of Congress and testified about the Live

Nation/Ticketmaster antitrust case, making the case that working musicians, not

just superstars, are being squeezed by monopoly power in the live music industry.

Franz, welcome to Backstage Money.

Yeah, I appreciate you being on.

You, you have a lot going on.

No grass growing under your feet, as we say.

Yeah, nothing… You're not getting bored.

That's, that's what it sounds like.

Well, I wanted to dive in.

I always love to start with just kind of how did you get into music to begin with?

How did you… How did all this begin for you?

I mean, you've been at this 30 years, right?

Plus.

And, and-

I mean, how it began, as I'm told, is that I saw Itzhak

Perlman on Sesame Street and asked for a violin and it went from there.

Playing piano around s- six years old, and got into-- I had a one

of these cassette box sets of, you know, lives of the composers narrated

with, interspersed with their

classical music.

And then,

Jason K Powers: Nice

One thing led to another, and I, you know, I picked up

guitar when I, you know, as a middle schooler, as you do, and to New York and

in

Jason K Powers: Yeah, and then

took off from there.

How'd you get into… Were you into writing early on?

I mean,

I

Jason K Powers: you've kinda, you've done a few books now

Yeah,

I was into reading.

read a

Jason K Powers: Okay?

espe- especially on tour.

Once I started touring full-time, you know, there's a lot of

travel time,

Jason K Powers: Sure

in, in strange cities.

And so I s- I started making side quests of used bookstores and

my bunk with books.

And

Jason K Powers: Yeah

eventually, got inspired to start documenting time on tours,

you know, keeping r- more and more extensive tour diaries, as I realized

that my memory was not gonna be as

I had

be.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

And, you know, started getting some of that stuff published,

and one thing led to another, and it seemed like the next challenge would

be to attempt a book-length manuscript, and that became my first book, "The

Humorless Ladies of Border Control"

Jason K Powers: Well, I, you know, I happened upon you picking up the

copy of your book, Band People, and I, I went through it before we

even, long before we even connected.

You know, I was like marking it and, you know, I got all these little

bookmark thingies in it, and I'm like, "Cool, cool, cool. I lo-" You know.

And so I really appreciated that book, and wanted to kind of, you know… Well,

obviously I wanna, for my listeners, I want you guys to check it out as well.

But I wanted to kick this book off with a quote I read in here.

It says, it says, "Every band is a foreign country with its peculiar customs

and dialects, slangs and standards.

But every band is also, when it works, a small business, a romance,

an employer-employee dynamic, a hierarchy, a creative collaboration,

and something between a family, siblings or cousins, something literally a gang.

The rules governing those relationships and hierarchies are

usually unspoken, unique to each collective of personalities, and have

to be developed and negotiated from the ground up in each situation."

I think that was one of my favorite things in the book, just kind of,

it really encapsulates bands, right?

Just gives you this, this perspective on what band life is like.

Thanks.

Yeah, I think bands, we take them for granted because they've been

such a feature of the cultural landscape for, you know, 50 years now.

But, you know, there was a time before rock

bands and, uh,

Jason K Powers: Yeah

it's, it's a k- pretty unusual institution in all kinds of

ways, and I guess in the ways that

to sum

Jason K Powers: Yeah, yeah.

I love it.

So when, when you came up with the idea for the book, I guess, what, what

question were you trying to answer, you know, when you started writing the book?

Well, there's a way in which I was trying to answer what is this

thing that I devoted the first 20 years of

adult life

to.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

' Franz Nicolay: Cause, you know, there was a period when I became a father

and I came off the road, and you know, coming off the road is, you know, you

sort of take that plunge, it's hard

off the treadmill, really

Jason K Powers: Yeah

and disorienting.

you know, n- not least because you have to make up all that money and sort…

And, you know, if you've been on the road for 10 years, that's a pretty long gap in

CV that you have to

Jason K Powers: Yeah

explain and try to justify to people.

And so, you know, I guess it would call it a

mid life crisis.

Jason K Powers: No, yeah

Um, you know, and also I was trying to figure out what

the next book project w- would be.

and so this was a way of sort of s- po- you know, taking advantage of the time

at home that I had to talk to other people who are in a similar situation

and ask them, you know, check in.

You… Because we don't often have these conversations across band lines.

And to say, you know, "Here's the, here's some things that I've thought about

what my working life is like, and maybe you've thought about them too, but maybe

you've answered them in different ways

Jason K Powers: You use the phrase m- musical middle class.

Can you define that for our listeners?

Well, yeah.

I mean, I think the conversation around music and the culture

industry so much revolves around the very rich and the very famous.

But that's-- doesn't describe the vast majority of people who

are engaged in making music.

There's amateurs and semi-amateurs.

There's people who don't expect to make a living out of it, obviously.

There's, you know, teenagers and college students and, you know, people in their

early 20s who are gonna try it for a little while and move on with their lives.

and then there's this huge, lumpy group of the rest of us who for better

or for worse professional musicians.

in this particular case, you know, professional rock musicians.

in a world in which the giant sloshing pools of money that created the lifestyle

that people imagine when they think of touring rock bands in the s- you know,

'70s and '80s and even into the '90s, that doesn't really exist anymore.

And the people who are in touring rock bands, you know, b- both

sides have contracted, right?

There aren't… the rock ecosystem is not creating giant bands anymore.

Like, right?

What are the stadium headlining bands?

There hasn't been a new one probably since, I don't know,

Foo Fighters, Green Day.

Like, those guys

in their 60s.

so even the most successful rock bands now are living middle-class lifestyles

and with all the sort of, precarity, and responsibility that comes with sustaining

Jason K Powers: So you talked to a lot of people and, and quoted

a lot of people in the book.

What was maybe one of the most surprising things you heard

across all of those conversations?

I guess the thing that surprised me, you know, was that the

questions on which people with total certainty came down on the opposite

sides of a particular question.

I would propose a question like how much do pr- you prioritize

being easy to get along with?

Like, how much do you prioritize being a good hang?

some people would say, "Absolutely, that's the most important thing, more

than being a good musician." And other people would s- as if that was obvious.

And then other people would say, Absolutely I prioritize being a

more interesting musician over being easy to get along with.

Like, I'd rather put my foot down on a piece of artistic principle than

sort of go along to get along," as

was equally obvious

Jason K Powers: Yeah, Yeah, we've actually had a lot of conversations

around that idea in, in past episodes and just be- being a good person,

right, to, to those around you and those that you're crossing paths with.

I mean, yes, in relationship to your fans, but also band members, right?

And, and making it in the industry is, and making those connections and, and

you can't really be a butthead about it if you wanna keep making forward and

keep building relationships, you know?

That's true, although I guess I'm s- there's

a slight nuance to that, which is, you know, just saying yes and

agreeable to everything.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

You know, obviously people take take people on tour that

with, right?

'Cause you're an hour on stage

Jason K Powers: Yeah

or two hours on stage and 22 hours off stage.

On the other

Jason K Powers: Yeah

the idea of being agreeable and sharing a set of values can sometimes

reinforce a set of values that you don't necessarily wanna reproduce, right?

So the question of gender imbalance in the rock world is one that comes up, and the

women I spoke to, for the most part, with one exception, tended to take the stance

of, "Look, it's not a problem. You know, we all have the same stinky ass feet in

the bunk beds." and I think that hidden behind that is a l- is a little bit of

a a sel- a selection, a self-selecting process that happened somewhat

earlier in everyone's careers, right?

w- where if you're the kind of female musician or musician who of any gender,

I suppose, who objects to some of the ambient sexism that persists in the

rock world that s- some people may interpret that as if you object to

that vocally, some people may interpret that as being hard to get along with

And, do you see what I mean?

Jason K Powers: Okay.

Yep.

Yep

So there are ways in which like, b- you perceived as easy to get

along with or not easy to get along with

mask for,

other things

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

wanna perpetuate.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Yeah.

a good point.

There, there's so many different environments, seems like, that, that

people get put in and, and it really… It's hard for, I think, most people to

back up and w- we have the, you have the general public perspective, you

know, and this, I, I think why I enjoyed this so much was it really takes you,

gives you kind of an insider look.

You're getting an insider opinion, to other insiders, right?

If that makes sense.

Yeah Yeah

Jason K Powers: You know, a-

the

Jason K Powers: a- and

analogy that I made f- make for rock bands is

that it's, it's like being in

the military.

That

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm

y- you're, a small group of people, in ho- you know,

traveling in hostile territory, and you have to trust each

have each other's back.

And

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

you, you know, you've done that for a bunch of

years, you have experiences that you're, you can only ex- talk about

with other people who've had those

same experiences.

You know, that

Jason K Powers: Yeah

you sort of, need a VFW hall for

musicians

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

maybe that's

Jason K Powers: It's true.

are I

Jason K Powers: Sure.

That's funny.

So we have a whole chapter here on, the artist and the artisan, money and

credit in here, which I, I enjoyed.

Talk to me a little bit about, you know, things you kind of unpacked in that

chapter and, and what you learned or what you wanted to kind of get across

Yeah, I mean, this is where the rubber

right?

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

musicians have a hard time talking about money for the most part.

The ones who are, they're… Some of the rough conclusions I came to is

that there are, a little bit of a genre divide and an, a- and a class divide in

terms of what kinds of musicians find it easier to value themselves or to talk

openly about money.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

that tended to track onto people who came up through jazz or class-

or classical music and went through you know, went to conservatory or went

to jazz school or had professionalized training that inculcated in them the

ability to, think of themselves as professionals who deserve to be paid

as pr-professionals, if you see what I

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Whereas people who come up through punk and indie rock, ideology is

that, or was, you, that if, to talk about money or to prioritize money was somehow

to, take away from your authenticity or to be focusing on the wrong

kind of thing.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm

and so those, a lot of those people never become comfortable

thinking of themselves as professional musicians, I think to their detriment

in terms of having these discussions.

You know, it's a, it's an American pathology in general,

the idea that it's rude to ask someone how much money they make

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

it's specifically a problem, it's particularly a problem

in the arts, in the culture industries where such a priority is put on

over

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

if

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

can be

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Yeah.

You have a quote in here, Rick Steff says, "If musicians were better about

money, we would be accountants."

That, you know

I, you know, I teach college and I teach music students,

and i- in my songwriting workshop, I always take a class or two and walk them

through the business of songwriting.

Like, here's how publishing works.

Here's where you need to register your songs.

Here's how copyright understood in the American legal system.

And also, here's how to do… here's some basic things to know

about filing freelancer taxes

You know, that's the sort of

Jason K Powers: Uh-huh

don't, you never

in music

Jason K Powers: Yeah,

yeah.

So on the topic then of, of making money and maybe even keeping

the money you're making, right?

What have you found to be useful or helpful in your own career

and that you've gleaned from others even in writing this book?

Well, it's important to hold a line around-- That, I mean, this is

not news to anyone who's read books about

the rock industry, but songwriting credits are important.

And if you can get some songwriting credits and hang on to some songwriting

credits and whenever possible, the publishing, that's extremely valuable

stuff, The songwriting credits and publishing is where and the disparity

within bands between those who have and those who don't is one of the

main things that historically has introduced class tension within a band.

Because it's an income stream that's available to those who have access to

the songwriting that's not available to oth- to others in the band.

and so as I lay out in the book, one of the ways that manifests itself, because

of the way songwriting was understood legally you know, going back to the late

19th century when the standard model was a songwriting team where you would

have two guys, guys, one person who wrote the melody and the chords, and

the other person who wrote the lyrics.

so songwriting copyright ever since then has been fundamentally legally based on

the kind of on lyrics and a melody, right?

That can be written down in a lead sheet.

And the rise of rock bands after The Beatles with the expectation that

they were gonna be creating their own material doesn't map very neatly into

that into that format because the expectation is that, you know, four or

five people staring at each other in a practice room, each contributing various

parts, and then you know, call it…

And then it gets very fuzzy between what's arranging, what's songwriting

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

does the person who write the lyrics automatically

take 50% of the song, and then everyone else splits the other 50%?

Do you try to split it equally?

There's no tried and true model for how that works.

And so, for example, in terms of the things that are legally creditable

about songwriting, drummers, for example, are structurally excluded

they, because of the instrument they

play, they're not contributing

Jason K Powers: Look

melodic or harmonic

elements.

Jason K Powers: Sure

have to be in a particularly generous band

for, for drummers to have access to songwriting credits

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So unpack that a little bit for those who obviously haven't read the book

and, and are hearing this idea maybe for the first time, kind of how, how

the dynamics of, you know, you have the songwriting credits, which then

produces what that produces over the long run versus just, say, touring, right?

I think the contrast was just touring and, and you get the short-term pay versus

the long-term pay and things like this

Yeah.

I mean, this gets a little bit into the weeds, but it is one of those things.

Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker has said a couple times that, you know, reading

the history of breakups always ends up being a story about publishing,

about how publishing works

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Um, so there are two kinds of copyright that you

can have on a rec- Let's say you make an album of original material.

There's a copyright that's based on the recording of those

songs, that's called the master.

And then you have the copyright on the songs in the abstract, and that's

the songwriting and publishing.

So, for example… And those are two different royalty streams.

And the royalties from the ma- from the master go either to

the recording artist, i.e.,

the band as the people who recorded the songs, or often to the record label.

It- because it's premised on who paid for the recording, right?

you paid for the studio time, you own that recording.

So that's the sort of th- that royalty stream, at least in theory can go to the

band and be split evenly among the band.

The songwriting credit, refers to the lyrics and the song in

the abstract, divorced from a particular performance of it.

So a famous example, right, Jimi Hendrix records "All Along the Watchtower,"

which was written by Bob Dylan.

So the royalties for the master recording go to the Jimi Hen- when that song

gets played on the radio, go… I won't get into the weeds on radio royalties.

But in theory, when that so- when that recording is played in public, the

royalties for the master go to the Jimi Hendrix Estate, and the royalties

for the songwriting go to Bob Dylan

right?

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

so if you're in a band you don't split the

songwriting royalties equally.

Let's say you have, in the very traditional model, a guitarist and a

singer who are writing all the songs.

They have an entirely separate and royalty stream that comes to

them that does not come to the rest of the members of the band.

So that's additional money.

If they get a song- an advance from a from a publishing company, an advance on

those royalties, that advance often comes sooner than the rec- record royalties,

royalties for record sales trickle in.

And so for a band on the verge of having their first big hit, those

songwriters will have, will get their couple hundred thousand dollars

befo- well, you know, while the,

before the rest of the band does.

And so that

can

Jason K Powers: Okay.

create a lot of resentment.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

also what's the other big stream, revenue stream, right?

It's, it's performance, it's touring money.

It's the money you get from ticket sales, it's the money you get from merchandise

that you're selling at your concerts.

That money, only comes when you're an active band, when you're actively touring.

Meanwhile, the- if you're lucky enough to have songs being played on

the radio or played on television, that, in theory, continues

whether you're on the road or not.

So if you take a year off to write a new record, there's

no income coming in for your

musicians, but

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

are still getting money in the mail.

band breaks up, you know, doesn't do anything for 20 years.

The, all that performance royalties go away, but the songwriting

royalties keep on coming in

People call that

that mail

Jason K Powers: mail money.

that's y- you know, that's the

musicians 401(k).

You know,

Jason K Powers: Yeah

live on it for the most part unless you have a big hit.

But in, you know, a radio hit, right?

That's what separates your mid-level

bands from your bigger bands

is having a radio

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

hit.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

gets you into a different level of songwriting

royalties, but that's the difference.,

Jason K Powers: Yeah, yeah.

I think that's a great consideration that many forget in the industry.

We kind of just… Because the conversation these days is

really focused on get out there and do the live music, right?

Because the streaming issue right now with streaming and the lack of pay

in the streaming world that they're getting, or the requirement to get

anything substantial, and now it becomes live music and merch, right?

And then everything else kind of gets forgotten

yeah.

I mean, even merch is a little bit of a problem, you know.

There's the vaunted indie touring circuit of the '80s, '90s, aughts was

essentially premised on the idea that you could make a CD for a dollar and sell

it for

That, you

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Right.

Like if you're, booking a tour, you knew in advance

what your guarantees would be.

You know, you do the math on how much gas you were gonna spend and how much your,

you know, if you rented a van, right?

So you could sort of plan a break-even tour based on that.

What you couldn't plan is how much merch you were gonna sell, so that was your

profit for the tour, was that dollar cd

that you sold for 10.

And

Jason K Powers: Yes

they were light and compact, and you could travel

with hundreds of them, and that's what made those tours work.

And then once that piece went away know, that's a piece of the difficulty in

touring, the collapse in touring that I don't see people focus on as much.

But to me, that's the crucial ele- that's the, that's lynchpin

that held it all together.

Jason K Powers: you mentioned radio.

What's your opinions right now on, you know, we have this Fair Play Fair Pay

Act that's been out there, and I think you actually, you were… Didn't you

get involved back in, back in that?

Mm-hmm.

10 years ago.

I think when they reintroduced that bill under a different name.

This is a loophole in radio performance world.

This, again, I don't know, this is a little

maybe your listeners are interested

Jason K Powers: Yeah, we like weeds.

um, you know, s- there's a, it's a long-standing loophole in

the way royalties get paid for radio play such that the songwriter…

That's why I hedged a little bit around the

Hendrix example.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

because the status quo in the United States is that performers

do not get paid royalties when their recordings are played on the radio.

Only the songwriter gets paid the royalties.

when this, when the royalties were established, when the radio industry was

coming into being in the 1940s and '50s, in terms of playing recordings on the

radio, obviously radio existed before that, but you weren't had live musicians

until the post-war era.

Jason K Powers: Yeah

the assumption was that getting your record played on

the radio was a, was free advertising, was promotion, and therefore you

shouldn't get an additional royalty.

That the radio stations were provi- since they were providing this free advertising

for your record, they shouldn't have to pay an additional royalty.

And that prerogative has been jealously defended

by Clear Channel.

And there's bipartisan backing for at every step for closing that loophole

so performers can get paid when their recordings are played on the radio.

That royalty exists for satellite radio, because satellite

radio as a new technology,

grandfathered into this royalty structure.

And so it's only for your terrestrial FM radio

this

Jason K Powers: FM AM.

Exists

Jason K Powers: Yeah,

yeah.

Yeah, I listened to

every time the bill comes up Clear Channel pays a bunch of Lobyists

a lot of

it

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it was interesting.

I listened to the last round of it and, and, you know, you had Gene Simmons on

there, and it was pretty interesting.

I think, I think for the listeners it's worth a look if you haven't looked

into it, just seeing that conversation.

I mean, it's an interesting issue You know, m- music rights bills

in Congress have an unusually bipartisan appeal for-- in sometimes unexpected ways.

So in 2016, when I went to lobby for the Fair Play Fair Pay Act, the sponsors I

think were on the Senate side, Franken on one side and Marsha Blackburn of

Tennessee on the other, because she represents Nashville, and the musicians

in Nashville really care about that.

on the House side, I forget who the Democratic sponsor was, but the

Republican sponsor was Darrell Issa of Southern California, who was

particularly interested in intellectual property issues because he made his

fortune on a car alarm patent, on the Protected by Viper car alarm patent.

And so he had a particular interest in getting people

paid for Intellectual Property

Jason K Powers: Yep.

Yep.

And that, that actually, to clarify that it was the Fair Play Fair Pay

Act, which has been updated now.

They call it the American Music Fairness Act, I think now.

Right Yeah

Jason K Powers: It got reintroduced.

Yep.

So speaking of Congress, you had a, a recent visit just not too long ago, what,

two weeks ago or something like that,

Yeah

Jason K Powers: where you, you

gave a congressional statement and you said…

This was regarding the Ticketmaster Live Nation issue.

And, you know, you said, you, you gave a statement and you said, "Artists are

the face of ticket sales, and fans can't complain to Ticketmaster. Uh, you know,

they can come to your Facebook page instead." That's how you put it, you know?

And so give me, give me some examples of what you hear.

I think we all know, like, what's going on.

What have you found to be the most problematic issue in kind of dealing with

that kind of thing where, where, you know, you're having to play middleman artists

are having to play middleman in effect and calm down the fans that, you know

Sure.

Well, I'll give you an example from our experience, from the Hold Steady's

experience, is that, you know, we do these weekends where we set up a

residency in a particular town, and we'll have multiple nights of shows.

But we'll also have, we'll afternoon activities.

We'll do guitar workshops.

We'll do pub quizzes that the band attends.

You know, we'll do meet, you know, and

meet & greet sound checks and stuff like merch bundles.

And so the problem was when we played venues that Ticketmaster-- that were

exclusively Ticketmaster venues.

T- you know, Ticketmaster will come in and say you can o- make these deals

with venues, say you can only use us as opposed to eTix or s- you know, some of

the other independent ticketing companies.

That… And it hadn't always been this way.

This was a post-pandemic policy that they… and because they, Ticketmaster,

an important thing to know about their business model, and I think a lot of

people can intuit this, is that they're really making their money off of fees

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

the fee- the fees

Jason K Powers: Sure

added the the transaction fees that get added

at the end of the transaction and are sometimes quite opaque.

They made it so that you couldn't sell bundles, right?

So if a person wanted to come see two shows and a guitar workshop and buy

a merch bundle, they would have to pay a separate fee for each of those

Jason K Powers: Yep

including the merch bundle, which Ticketmaster

had no role in manufacturing

or fulfilling,

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

All that was like they ran the credit card, and then

somebody brought a printout of their ticket to our merch guy and

gets handed a poster and a T-shirt.

And these were really adding up.

You know, we have people who wanna come to all the shows and, you know, all the

events and get the merch bundle, and they were coming to our management and

saying, "Look, I'm paying, know it's a $50 concert, but I'm paying $45 in fees

You gotta do something

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Right

And y- you're caught in a bind, right?

Because there-- You don't have unlimited venue options or promoter

options in a particular city, right?

Like, sometimes you have to-- you're you have to work with a particular

person, or you've always worked with a particular person, or there's only one,

you know, th- thousand cap room and th- and that's where you're gonna be.

but they have a deal with Ticketmaster, so what are you gonna do?

You know, it took us a couple years to figure out the best workaround.

And again, like, not to get too deep in the weeds, what we eventually

settled on is not an ideal solution.

But it is true that in any ticketing situation, including a Ticketmaster sit-

situation, the artist can set aside 10% of the house to do whatever we want with.

You know, we could sell those tickets for $500 if we wanted.

We could give them away if we wanted.

so what we ended up doing was setting up a fan club.

You know, on-- This is, y- you know, Pearl Jam really innovated this

model, where you set up a fan cl- a subscription model fan club, and then

give those fans access to the bundles

Because we, what

Jason K Powers: Okay

is the people who are buying multiple things on these weekends

are al- are already the people who are

super fans.

And

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

if we price it such that they're, you know, th- okay,

they're gonna pay a monthly amount or an annual amount that's gonna

be way less than they were already

spending on us

Jason K Powers: And the-- yeah

get r- and we can make it so they're not spending these fees 'cause

we can bundle, you know, if it's a, if it's a thousand cap room, we have 100

tickets that we can offer to those people with their merch bundles and whatever.

Which is a pretty good solution, but then you have to

to people.

And some

Jason K Powers: Yeah

without get-- You know, you don't-- People don't wanna be bothered

the behind the scenes, and we don't wanna bother them with the behind the scenes.

Frankly, we don't even want to be thinking,

about this

You know what I mean?

Jason K Powers: Yeah, yeah.

this is

Jason K Powers: wanna deal with magazines.

deal with it.

Jason K Powers: Yeah

there's some percentage of the fan base that's that freaked

out and, you know, said, "Why do we have to buy a subscription to our

And you

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

say, you know, we're caught in the middle here, and this

is the, this is a solution that we can come up with, so we control a little

bit of this, and we can save money for the people who wanna do that." But

then you're already on the back foot once you're trying to explain yourself.

That's a real life example

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I think in the book, or not in the book, I'm sorry, in, in your

statements, you, you kind of describe this as a triple fee situation, right?

A fan trying to attend a show, attend a meet and greet, buy the merch bundle,

get charged three separate fees.

Yeah, yeah, the triple, triple fee situation, you know

s- where you can see that happen.

So for example, you know, Ticketmaster's interest in the resale market an example

of that because they can s- collect fee

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

then if it goes to the, to resale, then they can collect an-

a, another fee on, from the seller, and then another fee from the buyer.

So now they have three--

three fees for the same

Jason K Powers: Yep

ticket even as the face value of the price

goes through the roof, and that difference doesn't go to the artist

Jason K Powers: Right.

Right.

In your statement, you-

one of the policies that we're asking for is a cap on resale at or

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Which they have in Europe, right?

very much so.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Yeah.

And various states are passing passing those laws.

I,

think

Vermont just passed that.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

But of course, you know, these are tours that, and

corporations that cross tr- s- state lines, so I don't know exactly

what the enforcement mechanism is

Jason K Powers: Right?

Seems like there's quite a bit yet to unpack for them,

There's alot, yea

Jason K Powers: you know?

You can, you had called, um, Live Nation the, the epitome of the kind

of monopolistic power antitrust law was created to address.

You think Congress actually heard you?

I think that they're, you know-- I was facing a

friendly panel of

Jason K Powers: Yeah

congresspeople who are

already on board with

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

position,

Jason K Powers: Yeah

and were mostly looking for people to ventriloquize

this,

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

To

Jason K Powers: Right

their existing position.

I mean, a part of this is because y-your listeners may know that that

Live Nation was declared an illegal monopoly by a judge in New York.

And then, but then they hired, you know, people who are close to

the administration go directly to the top of DOJ and got a sweeheart

settlement out of it.

Jason K Powers: Yeah

which is, you know, Roger Alford, who was on the panel with me,

was a, was high up at DOJ prosecuting this antitrust case, and he got fired

for objecting to this settlement and has been making the rounds, you know,

c-calling it, I think rightly so, an example of corruption in the, at the

highest levels of the administration and the Department of Justice.

So, so yeah, I think, you know, I think people like Raskin and Blumenthal

do agree that that this is, this, you know, it's a cl-- as clear-cut

a-an example of a monopoly in a particular business as you can get.

Given that, th- given that this corporation includes venues

and ticketing and promotion and

artist management

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Yeah, Yeah.

I'll be curious to see where it heads.

I mean, I think I think it's headed the right direction.

People are listening, people are looking at it and paying attention to it now.

And I, you know, I sure hope it

the state,

attorneys general, right?

So

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

the feds have settled, but a co- a consortium of state

attorneys general, a couple dozen said that they're gonna continue to

prosecute this

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

So winding down, do you, what do you wish someone had told you earlier in your

career about the business side of music?

Well, I think I-- you know, as young musicians

go, I was pretty well informed

and I was

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

advocate for myself for things like songwriting credits.

I did take the advance on publishing deals on Steady rec- for my small percentage

of the songwriting on 2 Hold Steady records, "Boys and Girls in America"

and "Stay Positive."

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

and I I

wish I hadn't in retrospect

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Like, I-- advance was 10 grand for each of those records, which

really needed at the time.

Jason K Powers: Yeah

But in retrospect you know, it was giving away a

lot for that 10 grand in 2006,

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Sure

I would en- I would certainly encourage young musicians to to

think very-- to take the long view i- when people are offering to advance you money

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Yeah.

That, that think long range perspective is hard in the music.

It really is.

see it all the time in conversations we have about the, the finances because

the ebb and flow of income, you know, it gets very difficult to think long

range and, and you kinda have to be systematic about it in a way, or

disciplined might be a better word for it

Yeah.

I mean, you're, you know how things

turn out

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

you know, at that

my 20s.

It was like, you

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

barely pay my rent.

band is doing pretty well,

if that's gonna continue.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

And I've, I need to pay off my credit card,

so I guess I'll just sign it

Jason K Powers: Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Similar question.

What do you think, or what do you see musicians doing wrong

financially that you'd push back on that you would say, "You need to

probably rather start doing this"?

I mean, we kind of touched on the not thinking long range, but are there some

I also think, you know,

Jason K Powers: things that you-

don't have the money conversation until they're-- until

it's too late, by which I mean

until there's actually money on the table.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

And I think a lot of bands, especially if they are serious about

being a band owe it to themselves to have that conversation around especially

songwriting when before anybody cares.

You know I say in the book y- there's, there are a couple bands that are sort

of spoken about in kind of mythical terms by other band people because they

made this agreement early on that they would share the songwriting equally,

and they actually stuck to it.

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm

R.E.M., Radiohead, U2 and you know, I think it's no accident that

these are also bands that had multi-decade careers with very little public

acrimony 'cause they all got rich at

the same time.

Jason K Powers: Yeah.

Yeah

So I don't wanna, you know… People can make whatever

agreements they wanna make about songwriting, but if you're serious

about being a band, I think you have to take a good hard look at that equal or

roughly equal split

Jason K Powers: Sure, Yeah, that's great.

All right, tell me where can people find you?

Where can they find the book?

I mean, the easiest clearing house for anything I'm doing

is my website, franznicolay.com, F-R-A-N-C-N-I-C-O-L-A-Y.com.

Various social accounts are all Franz Nicolay, Blue Sky, Instagram, Facebook.

Yeah, that's-- the three books are "Band People," which we've been talking about.

the first one was "The Humorless Ladies of Border Control," which was a travel

book about my touring in the former communist worlds in 2012 to 2014, Russia,

Ukraine, Mongolia, Eastern Europe.

And the middle book, which is a novel called "Someone Should

Pay For Your Pain," which is

about a touring musician

Jason K Powers: Cool.

Love it.

And we'll have links in the descriptions of the episodes, so for our

listeners, you can check that out too.

He's also got a newsletter Piano Fighter,

uh

Jason K Powers: Uh,

Yep.

biweekly

Jason K Powers: Yep,

yep,

I get and I enjoy, and we'll put those links all in the descriptions.

So all right, let's wind it down.

We usually wrap up each episode with a segment called Final Riffs.

It's just rapid-fire questions rapid-fire answers.

You ready?

All right.

First concert you ever went to

First concert I ever

went to was U2 Zoo Tour at Foxboro Stadium in '92

Jason K Powers: Nice.

Biggest musical influence growing up

The Band,

Bob Dylan and The Band,

Jason K Powers: Okay

both musically and sort of

conceptually.

Jason K Powers: Yeah

at the cover of the Basement

"Those guys look cool

Jason K Powers: Nice.

First album you ever bought, you remember?

First album I bought with my own money, it was cassettes in,

I know, 7th grade, so it would've been combination of Poison, Flesh and Blood.

I think it might've AC/DC

like that

Jason K Powers: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

The good, the good hair days, right?

Non-music hobby or passion of yours

I'm a big baseball fan.

real cl-

Jason K Powers: Okay, okay.

Got, got your favorite team?

Red Sox.

good New Englander

Jason K Powers: Red Sox.

All right.

If you weren't doing music, what would you be doing?

I'd be a librarian.

Jason K Powers: yeah?

I had a day job at one point in my early 20s that

involved going to the stacks in the back collections at the New York

Public Library's Performing Arts collection, and I just loved it so much.

So when I came off the road, I seriously considered getting a library

Jason K Powers: Very nice.

All right, Franz, thank you so much for being on.

This has been, I think, a very important conversation for people that we've had

on here and, and you put to words, you know, what so many working musicians

feel but can't articulate, I think.

And, and then you went and said it in front of Congress, and I think that's

unique in your position, you know?

And that's great to keep advocating for the music industry like that.

I love how you wrote… Yep, I love how you wrote in the book about, you

know, we talked about it, publishing royalties and the mail money and about

how that's about as close to a 401(k) as a band person is likely to get.

And you quoted, uh, Simon Frith, said, "Paying dues may be a collective affair.

Making it is not." And I liked that line.

It just kinda makes you think, how do we need to think in how we approach things?

I love the thinking long range idea.

I preach it all the time.

Think long range, think long range, think long range, you know?

Everyone else's income kinda tends to fade if they're not careful

when the touring stops, you know?

And most people-

I think forget all of these things.

We're not thinking and looking at the whole picture.

We get tunnel visioned into it, right?

And so that's one of the things, you know, for our listeners, that is one

of the things that I help musicians do, is kind of building their own cash flow

system that doesn't depend on whether your name is on the songwriting credits.

It's, it's what to do with the money once you've made it, and how to keep it.

so thank you for being on, guys.

Go grab a copy of Band People.

We'll put the links in the show notes, and subscribe to Piano Fighter newsletter

at pianofighter.substack.com and everything else we'll put in, uh, there.

You can link to franznicolaycom

And if today's conversation got you thinking about your own financial

picture, head on over to my site at 1024wealth.com/music, grab

the free guide, and let's talk.

I'm Jason K. Powers.

This is Backstage Money, where music and money collide,

and we'll see you next time.

Thanks so much, Franz.