Latest / Chaos and Creativity / The Truth About Making Money as an Artist

Transcript

The Truth About Making Money as an Artist · Chaos and Creativity

• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Lou.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm living my best life.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Are you are you uh living a cool life?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm living a rich life.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Which brings us to our that that is like the most awkward segue, honestly.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Every time Lou and I have a topic, we're like, how awkward can we make the introduction to this?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely right.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and and under the auspices of trying to be cool, we've just made this really awkward and weird.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: So um so our topic for today is You can either be cool or you can be rich.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this came about because I was having a conversation with uh our friend Chantal um about running businesses and being a person trying to basically sell anything in this world.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we're living in a time where you can really you really can't just be a cool guy anymore.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're trying to make any sort of money and get anywhere, you are gonna have to at some point do something that feels cringe a little bit.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting because when I she, I think she actually said she's like, we can either be cool or we can be rich.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that is the best idea for a podcast episode because it's so true.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And as an artist, I'm consistently feeling this, and I know other people are.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's interesting because when I look at like the 80s or 90s or even before that, in filmmaking and photography and music, you had these people who could just literally be like, these laissez faire.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just care about my art, but I'm never gonna promote anything.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm never gonna like go on the internet and make a real dancing to my song in order to see if I can get more streams.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, nobody did that.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The cool people who we thought were cool rock stars would have never done that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: That would have never been that would have never been expected of them, you know?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um and cool companies could just be cool companies and kind of have that be that be it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's an interesting time period where now, like as an artist or as a musician, or I'm sure even as a photographer, whatever, you can't just be like, I make great work and I'm not gonna post it and I'm not gonna talk about it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna be cool and let people find me.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we are way past that error, very sadly.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely right.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um, as someone who, as a musician, is choosing to try to be cool and not rich, it really hurts.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have to try that hard to be not rich?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: As a musician, you don't have to try hard.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like quite easy to like not be rich as a musician.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely right.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a it's like a it's something, it's a thing that you love that you basically pay for all the time.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um, but it is it is a really interesting concept, you know.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: When I think of like the David Lynch's of the world, like I don't think David Lynch would have ever made Twin Peaks if he made it now.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't think it would have ever gotten the opportunity to do it.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's really interesting to think about that.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder about that, really.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think there's so many things that are cool because they didn't try to fit into any sort of tropes.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't trying to be commercial, they just were their own thing, and they still became these like very, you know, organic, you know, hits in their own way and these cult classics.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm always wondering, I'm like, are we gonna have cult classics from this era?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I I wonder about that too.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes I think about some of the things that I see that really influence me.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: And man, I had to find them, if you know what I mean.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was like I had to dig deep and and I just happen to be in the right place at the right time.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of it is because we have 10 billion, you know, sort of distribution channels now.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: But as you know, I I'm not on social media like and at all because I can't I know.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yes, we know.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so um but I can't, I I because I can't manage it.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I just I don't know I think I'm from an era that I didn't rely on it, and then now you do have to rely on it to a certain degree, and I I couldn't make that bridge.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, thankfully I'm in a position where we have somebody who's doing it for us, but it's like it is really hard because it's very distracting because it's there's there's a an addictive quality to it and it makes you second guess.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all the time.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's and I think that's where the problem is, is this the second guessing.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and also like I think it's interesting in some ways there's everyone has a chance now to put their things on the market, you know?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's like the most free market that we can have, even as artists.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's like everyone can upload their film to YouTube and immediately get viewers.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone can can make a song and upload it to a streaming platform.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's nothing, there's no longer this like you have to have a label distribution, etc., in order for people to see your things.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: But what we're also like seeing from that is just like the oversaturation just keeps people from actually finding things that are truly good.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I do think that at one point in time there was like quote unquote tastemakers, not that they were all great had great taste, but yeah, there was like this you just had to be really good and someone would find it and you could move forward with that.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: That being said, I mean, I say that, and then at the same time, I watched a documentary on like women and punk and just like Viv Albertine talking about how shitty it was to be a woman in music in like the in the late 70s and 80s, and like how they didn't get the same chances as the boys.
• 5:52
  unknown: Yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: In this way, it's been leveled, you know, but the leveling has also caused there to be like, oh, cool, but we don't have any, we actually don't have any money for music.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: No one, no musicians are making money unless they're making like basically the music that's gonna be replaced by AI.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's I mean, I I don't I'm not as dystopian about it as you are.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I feel like you can still be cool, but I think it requires a lot more thought and navigation than it used to.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like by factor of a thousand, really.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have friends where I'm like, I really I think they make cool music, I think they're cool, but they have had to like debase themselves on the internet in order to get views.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they're and they're the first people to be like, yeah, we got I got we gotta do this, we don't want to do this, but this is like what gets people to view our stuff, so we'll do it.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, this is my entire the the way I use AI is I literally will talk to Claude and be like, hey Claude, um I have an EP coming out and I want people to listen to it, but I don't want to have to dance at all on social media.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And also I feel like social being on social media is the most cringe thing that uh I have to do.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, can you give me tips?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always just like do a video of you at your workspace or explaining your song, and I'm just like tears, just tears falling down.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna do it.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do it.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna, I'm gonna dip, I'm gonna be rich and not cool.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: You don't think you can be both?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean, I can be, it's I feel like it's, you know, I don't know.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I hope, I hope so.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know what though?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, uh think about all the billionaires.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are any of those guys cool?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, shit.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're not.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: They are not cool.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're rich and they have awful tools.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, you know who's cool?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think, I think Tim Cook, who's a billionaire who's who's just getting ready to step down from Apple, I think he's cool.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think he navigated a lot of cool shit.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like the tools that Apple brought us made the creative space better.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Questionable.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I actually can't tell you basically I've never seen him like just as a per not like what they've done, but like as a person.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you look at like Bezos and his like new wife, and you're just like, you cannot that's when you're like, you literally can't buy taste.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is No, you really can't buy taste, but the thing I think the Bezos thing, and and this isn't about a personal attack as much as it's an attack on.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is a personal attack.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is a personal attack.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking shots.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, right.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: But there's um I when they did that Vogue thing, you know, it it's because he's a billionaire, because he knows people that they were in Vogue, and so that suddenly it diluted the value of Vogue to me.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like, okay, this is just such a like upper level, upper legislation play.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can be rich or you can be cool, and you have chosen to take the money, and that's fine, but like you're never gonna go back to being cool again because everyone's gonna be like, ooh, yeah, but yeah, no, absolutely right.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's how I feel also, it's I mean, it's also how I feel about the Met.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, eh.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's also not this fashion forward play you talk about the Met Gala, right?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just feel like it's something where you can buy your way in and I don't know, it's it's just an interesting thought to to have because I think also I mean, I feel like our conversation is always like, how do you make art and survive in this world?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And in another podcast, we were talking about how um the best thing you can do really is to if you really, really love your art and you want to keep it pure, that you actually don't depend on it at all to make you money.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: To make money.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you so you're talking about the compromise of of commerce and creativity, really.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it is um there are compromises, but I think what I feel that I hear from you is where the compromises were tolerable in times of your, they have become increasingly intolerable as the spaces become more crowded and more competitive for attention getting.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I think as a musician, yeah, y you always hear the stories of like a band group made an album and it just connected with people.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it was so pure, and people really loved that album.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then from that album, the band gets signed, and then the next album, The Sophomore Slump, it happens because it's no longer a pure thing.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's the musicians start being like, should we just make the same album again?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then the record label people are like, Oh, yeah, but you need to make it bigger for radio, and so all these voices come in.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the purity of the actual music and this energy that probably grab people and gets diluted.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is why I've always like been very drawn to like indie punk, um, like non-commercial spaces because uh it's that dilution that dilution?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Dilution, you got it right.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Dilution, is that really?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds I've been to Germany too long.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that does not sound like the right word.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the dilution of art doesn't happen as much in that way just because there's not as much money, so you don't have people investing as much money into something and feeling like they have the right to be like, oh, well, I also want to have a say in this since I invested like$50,000 in it.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you see people kind of have a little bit more of like a natural growth that feels really powerful and becomes cult-like.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the same thing can probably be said for certain filmmakers and whatnot is that when you're coming from an indie space, in the past there was enough money to be sustainable, but where people could still grow at their own pace and make this art that was like not from zero to a hundred, but this nice, um, gentle arc.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I'm wondering if that's something that we're gonna lose and in in we have to lost.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we're gonna lose it.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we're gonna lose it.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I've got two things to to say about that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, it was talking about sort of indie vibe at a highly commercial level.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't even know if I want to use the commercial for this person, but Killian Murphy, who was who's an actor, who's a star, uh the lead in Oppenheimer.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I read um a deep interview about with him, and he lives in Ireland, he doesn't do socials.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: His his um his whole vibe is to he doesn't want to get drawn into that whole space.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's social media for him, and I'm sure that's the PR machine and all that type of stuff, which makes sense.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: He's certainly in a position where we should have a PR machine, but I felt like he really, really embraced um what he does as an artist, and he he will um he he really holds holds on to that in a way that really gave me a lot of hope for exactly what we're talking about, like that can happen.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't help wondering if there's going to be a pendulum swing because I feel humanity in general like I don't talk to anybody who says I love social media, not a single person, no one unless you're making an influencer, you're not loving social media.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And like honestly, no shade on influencers.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think a a market was created and some people really dominated it.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Get it.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: I also feel like get that bag.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly right.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And let's like wake up, let's get get ready with me.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And like, I want to show you this bag and all this stuff.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, it's it's it's a pseudo-creative space around um attention and marketing.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Probably the best way to describe that.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually I think it is just gonna be that.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I also, you know, on my very positive days, I'm like, maybe we are gonna have this huge switch back to a different time when everything online feels like so um, yeah, so convoluted that we kind of go back to this old way of being.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because like I know, I know the actor you're talking about, but he also comes from the old guard.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's been around for like since the 90s.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what I mean.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think the people who built their careers in a time before social media, they're able to actually just do that and be like, I don't have social media and I don't care.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think it's much harder for like newer actors, you know, to be cast or to be looked at without having certain numbers behind them.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really hoping that teachers again, I really hope that that that we make.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, even though I agree with you, you know.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, to to defend the newer actors a little bit, it's just like that's this is the world that they grew up in.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: This is what they know.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: So they're responding to what they know, you know.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, but not but not even like I I actually know actors who like also don't want to use social media.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I mean.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're kind of forced to have to do that, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh whether or not they want to, because it's like part of the job requirement now.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just like if you want to be signed to a lab, a major label, for sure that label is gonna be like, do you have like at this point it's like 150,000 followers or whatever?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's like all it's all numbers.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Everything now is numbers, versus before it was more like a you know, when bands got discovered or an actor got discovered, is because a casting director or an a music executive saw something and was like, I can see this thing.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and also that's when music directors and you know, speaking to the fashion industry, when some of the better agents would go to like the small regional shows and the small regional fashion shows, and and and they were actively seeking things.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And now with all the stuff online, they're trying to find people in the morass of of streams of social media shit.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: So nobody's physically going out to, or I'm not I don't want to say nobody, but I think the people that are going out to actually physically see things in real life are are far fewer now because it's all being delivered to our phones, right?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting because I actually think on a completely different level, you know, I'm in my 40s now, and another day I was like, you know what?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was so worried about being cool in my twenties and like being like having other musicians in my community to perceive me as a cool person.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like something that went be it was very much like high school.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the music seeing me very much like high school.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting because in this way, actually, I'm like, now that I'm 40, I'm like, I don't care.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I actually don't care about being cool.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: All I still care about is about making things that I like, having fun with my friends, surviving, um, and being nice to animals.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like that is those are the things that I think to your point about surviving, though, it's it's interesting now because it was in in the economies in you know, two decades ago, it was easier to be a cool artist and survive, but the economies have so radically changed.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like I know the cost of living is stupid now, you know.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's so there is compromise that has to be made as a result of the downward pressure of the economy.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're we're in like a in a fun free fall right now, you know?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're just like in a fun free fall right now.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, whew, bring it on, you know.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and let's see where we land.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I am hoping that we land somewhere where I can be cool, like in the way that what I think is cool now, and rich.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: But also like I mean, do you want to be rich or comfortable?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: More like when I say rich, I mean like rich in.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Should we just call it comfortable?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't want to be like, I don't want to be like billionaire rich.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I am actually when I say rich, it's just I'm like, I want to have a house I like, I want to be able to eat the food I want to eat, I want to have clean water, I want to have good relationships.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to, once again, I want to be able to survive without struggle.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Without struggle.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: So that's for me is being rich.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: For me is rumfortable, babe.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's rumfortable.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: No, absolutely.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Rumfortable?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Did you say rumful?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: What is rumfortable?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's rich and comfortable.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm so close to just cutting that out of the episode because now we are definitely never going back to being cool.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, we're all cool.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: You just you just ruined any sort of chance we ever had of being cool.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like this, I think.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think you should just leave that in and see if we survive it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's sort of a social experiment, really.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, Lou.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I feel like with that, that's a great ending.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a rumpfable ending.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just gonna try.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna try and weave that into conversations as much as I can.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Good luck with that, pal.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Good luck with that.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: We should just run away from each other right at this moment, really.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's time for us.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's time for us to go now.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's time for us to go now.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Good to see you, Kimmy.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's always good to see you.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Bye, Lou.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Bye, Kimmy.