drummerBUMMER
Member
I was wondering what is the pay like if you were one of the top musicians in the world?
I m sure guys like Weckl, Gadd, etc must get paid well?
I m sure guys like Weckl, Gadd, etc must get paid well?
While it's an interesting question, I think it begs clarification. Do you mean the best musically or the best commercially. In other words are you looking for the the average annual incomes of our drum hero's or of drummers who are in a very popular band?.
Type of earnings must also come into it, I suppose.
I always wondered if musicians only make money from album or concert ticket sales, or do they also get money for recording? Certainly if bands bring in studio musicians, then they get paid separately.
I imagine contracts vary far and wide as to how the band members get paid based on album sales. I assume they also get money up front when they are signed to a record deal.
Zeppelin's manager was one of the shrudest in the business.
"So in the mid-eighties, when CD's sold for $10, a new artist who got a 12 percent royatly would be credited with around $.60 per sale. Foreign sales in those days paid at a 50 percent of the US rate. By the late ninties, the international rate to US ratio was much higher.
So if a 12 percent artist got $50,000 to sign, and spent $275,000 to record, and sold one million copies in the US, and one million outside the US, they would have a gross royalty rate of $900,000. Record producers...typical got 3 percent, which in this example would be worth $225,000. After deduction of of the advance and recording costs, that would leave $350,000 in artists royalties paid to the band. Assuming a 4 member group, who paid a manager, lawyers, and a business manager a total of 25 percent, this would mean around $72,000 per member"
My drum school held two clinics in 2009, one with Thomas Lang, one with Jojo Mayer. Each came on separate days and did two sessions, a morning and an afternoon, with around 20 students attending each session.
Jojo and Thomas got paid £2,500 each for their day's work. That should give you some idea.
Neil Peart said (either in an interview or one of his books) that they used to make money off of album sales. He stated that things have changed so much since the "old days" with music being downloaded and more easily shared, that Rush makes their money now off of concerts and merchandise. Especially- merchandise.
He never mentioned how much, but it would be interesting to know.
I was wondering what is the pay like if you were one of the top musicians in the world?
I m sure guys like Weckl, Gadd, etc must get paid well?
Many of the top name drummers (and other musicians) also have instructional videos, which can't cost too much to produce.