new guy:"Why did Son Volt break up?"

[The Dude]

CountryBoy, I'm worried about ya, man! You need to cut down on the expenses AND the liquor, bud... unless you have 20 kids, 130K should be a fine income for any American family. Shit, I'm getting by OK on 30K.
Jay'll be fine, Son Volt or no.... I'm saddened by all the talk about business vs. art, and I believe that it really IS more about art for Jay than commerce. Call me an idealist, but that's just how I feel, man. There's still plenty of real artists out there who wouldn't join the Stones (or Britney Spear's backup band) no matter what the bucks were. And while I may appreciate the SV work more than the solo at this stage in my life, I still respect what the man's doing, and still just about shit myself whenever I hear he's gonna pass through my town or put out a new record. He is a golden god!!

[missY1]

our public radio station plays alt-country constantly, or did, at least...
they've had some pretty sucky programming changes lately. when
voodoo candle was out as a single, i bet i heard it 30 times on that
one station alone over a period of 2 or 3 months. and yeah, that
vw commercial was on all the time when they first made it.

[Grotto Slack]

As for radio play, well you would be supurised. You forget about XM radio which has genre specific stations. Plus, I'll hear snippets of SV songs on mTV programming from time to time as well as the VW commercial. There are soundtracks that you discount ("Back into your World" was in a movie called Cashcrop. There is alt. country programming on many radio stations (look on the inside back cover of No Depression). There is virtually a whoile world of potential royalties that you're not thinking about. Yeah, you've only heard Jay a couple of times on broadcast mainstream radio, but there are other avenues that don't get much exposure, but pay all the same. I'm not saying the man is rich, but there are a lot of things you have to take into consideration and unless you really understand the msuci industry, you won't be aware of them.

[missY1]

wow, cost of living must be hell in denver. we pay for our 2-bedroom
house with a nice yard and both our cars on about 45 combined, one
full-time, one very part-time. granted, property's gone crazy and if
we hadn't bought our house several years ago, we probably couldn't
afford the same one today. i have no idea what these guys make on
the road, but the equally important question would be...how many days
a year do they actually get to be in their own homes? man, you'd
really have to pay me a lot for giving that up.

[Grotto Slack]

DBT has played over 200 shows a year for the last couple of years. 27 shows in 2 months equals time off for those boys. How many shows did Jay play last year? I'm guessing around 200, maybe more. That's the formula for most working bands, 8 to 10 months of strong touring.

[countryBoy]

35-40k doesn't go far unless you want to live in an apartment downtown and never save $$ for being old. My household brings in around 130k combined and we can hardly afford our mortgage and expenses. Not to mention my liver is half diseased from drinking myself to sleep trying to figure my way out of debt.

[Sticky]

The numbers Tweedy threw out are a pretty good yardstick. 35-40K for the band, lodging and food on tour taken care of. Not bad when you're 25 or 30, but it sucks when you get to about 35. And it doesn't count the years you spend making 8K and working a part-time job. Jeff used to have a BMI check for something like $0.12 tacked to kitchen door. But that was a long time ago, before No Depression.

[SonWilco]

I wasn't implying it was a poverty level income and I had no idea how many shows the DBT's play but after your post I checked and their current tour dates list 27 shows in 2 months and that aint 5\per week.

Plus, the songwriter gets his quarterly royality checks for airplay

What band mentioned here gets any real airplay. In 13-14 yrs I've heard Jay on the radio less than 5 times.

[Grotto Slack]

2 shows per week??? Have you ever looked at their tour schedule? Try 5 shows per week. Minus a grand for expenses, divide 2K by 5 and you get 400 per member per show. 400 X 5 shows a week = 2 grand a week. Plus merchandise and record sales. Take out taxes. These band usualy play 200+ shows a year.

You play 200 shows a year like these sort of touring bands do and you're making 400 bucks a night that =80,000. That ain't half bad. Even if you're making 200 or 300 bucks a night, you're still doing ok.
Of course, you might take the next year off from touring and not have any income, but if you're smart and save money and maybe do some other gigs with your down time, you can make just a fine living. Not rich, mind you, but definetly doable. Plus, the songwriter gets his quarterly royality checks for airplay.
Now think about Jay being on tour by himself. He probably gets at least a 2K guarentee (maybe 3k), pays Spencer a flat rate of say $500 or 600 a night. Low overhead, no tour bus,no roadie. Bank.

I play in a band that plays about 150 shows a year and I personally average about $75 a night, sometimes more sometimes less, even way less. But we don't always get guarentees and when we do, its around 400 or 500 dollars. I still have a part time job. But, I do know what I'm talking about.
If you were to do a union gig, like play in a star's backup band, like say Doug Stone, you would make about $600 a night. or so. Unless you are the band leader, in which case you'd probably get about a grand.

[SonWilco]

Drive By Truckers, who get 3,000 dollar guarentees for every show by the way.

Which isn't shit if you divide by 5 thats 600 per guy per show. If they play 2 shows a week for a year $62400 per guy minus income tax and expenses. Consider the fact that every expense is your own, health ins etc. They aint getting rich.

[SonWilco]

Sorry to thread jack but I read a Tweedy article before YHF was released where he said Wilco made somewhere around 1 million on a good year and that after expenses each band member took home around 35-40k and he around 75k. This was a direct quote. I imagine after 2-3 straight years of touring for YHF their imcome was better. So I doubt the SV guys were making tons of $$. I also read another article where the writer was with Ryan Adms when he opened his 1st royalties check for $2.35.

Jim and Dave B. work all the time and could probably care less what Jay does.

PS I AM put away your crystal ball its broken and is giving you bad info. Opinions are fine but your "info" is unfounded.

[Grotto Slack]

That sounds about right for Trace. I imagine it continues to sell relatively well as it gets mentioned on a lot of lists. So it goes to follow that Straightaways and WST probably sold around 100,000 copies each.
You know, Son Volt was doing fine finacially despite what many of you were saying. They were more successful than The Drive By Truckers, who get 3,000 dollar guarentees for every show by the way, so the band members was probably making 50 or 70k a year with Jay probably making 2 to 3 times that with his publishing royalties. I don't think it was a money thing. It was just times to move on.

[Antelope850]

I was told that too. In fact, I sent an e-mail to Soundscan once and they quoted me the price and it was ridiculous. It's not the kind of information a regular person who is just curious can get. And I think those sales figures in the earlier post are Amazon rankings and they change all the time anyway.

I once read Trace sold in the 300,000 range and Anodyne sold just under 100,000. If a record has gone gold or platinum, you can get the sales figures on the riaa website. It blows me away that no album from the Farrar/UT/Son Volt/Wilco catalog or Whiskeytown/Ryan Adams has reached even gold status - while all kinds of crap .. like the "American Idol" singers - can sell millions of ablums.

[loosestring]

i was once told that to have access to record sales numbers you have to pay a ridiculous sum of money to the people who track them.

[Grotto Slack]

So from reading thses posts, I was interested in just how many record SV sold. I did some Google searches for Record Sale Archives and Soundscan, but didn't come up with anything. If you search "Son Volt Record Sales", you'll come across reviews for every SV and Farrar album that has a "record sales rating". I'm not really sure exactly what this, though. I know that Trace sold more records than the 2nd 2 albums combined, but the rating has trace and 4,000 or so and WST at 10,000. I wonder if that's where they rank in oprder from number 1 (MJ's Thriller). Take a look for yourself or please explain if you undertsand this.
Sebastapol was about 3,500 and TB was 1,500.
These may only be Amazon.com sales figures or something.