“If I didn’t get CERB, I’d probably have to start going to trucking school. I’m not even half-joking.”
Artists like B.A. Johnston face an uncertain future
THE LIFE OF A MUSICIAN IS NOTORIOUSLY UNSTABLE. THERE’S NO INSURANCE, NO HEALTH BENEFITS. All one can do is try to make ends meet between selling albums and going on tour. A dominant shift toward streaming services has dramatically impacted the former, with most services yielding a fraction of the profits to artists compared to the CD sales of old; as for the latter, have you read the news?
In response to mass layoffs and record unemployment due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the Canadian government instituted the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, or CERB, on March 25, which offered $2,000 per month to Canadians whose income streams had been interrupted. Anyone making less than $1,000 a month, who had made at least $5,000 the previous year, was eligible.
“This is a bad time to be Canada’s most contagious performer,” says beloved troubadour B. A. Johnston. The Ontariobased musician estimates that 90 per cent of his annual income is earned by his relentless touring schedule, which finds him in tiny venues across Canada and the UK for approximately half of each calendar year, sweatily running around packed crowds and pouring pitchers of beer into the throats of unsuspecting audience members (including this writer, multiple times).
“CERB has allowed me to not actually have a life, and it’s also allowed me to prepare for the fact that I might have to shelve B. A. Johnston for a longer period of time. If I didn’t get CERB, I’d probably have to start going to trucking school. I’m not even half-joking,” reveals Johnston. “CERB’s allowing me more time to plan if I continue to do this or if I have to find something else to do. I imagine I’m probably not the only musician to grapple with that.”
He’s not. CERB has given millions of Canadians — including plenty of musicians and artists — stability in an uncertain time, allowing them to remain financially secure while most of their sources of income have been shuttered for the foreseeable future. And with CERB now set to expire on September 26, it’s unclear to what extent artists will be supported as the industry continues to flounder without all-important live music opportunities.
Morgan Doctor, a touring drummer based out of Toronto, calls CERB “a godsend.” Doctor has spent most of the last two decades as a touring drummer for the likes of Chantal Kreviazuk, Fefe Dobson, Jill Barber, Andy Kim and Kevin Drew, and has found herself living unexpectedly in Los Angeles since March, with most of her upcoming gigs either definitively cancelled or unlikely to happen.
Doctor, who grew up in California but has called Toronto home for over 20 years, was visiting family when the borders closed. She opted to stay there, living in a house owned by her label and publisher, Aporia Records, and stranded without most of her typical gear.
Equipped with a ramshackle stable of borrowed and thrifted equipment, Doctor has found herself presented with musical opportunities that differ from her usual routines as a live backing drummer or as a composer of downtempo, ambient instrumental soundscapes. She credits CERB for giving her the space to branch out.
“I’m starting to do some work for film and television more than I have before,” says Doctor, “and so I can see how it’s one of those programs where you’re getting a new career almost, and you have to take that transitional time to move into a new phase or new situation where you can make money again. I’m so grateful for it.”
CERB has made artists like Johnston and Doctor more convinced of the viability of a universal basic income, providing all Canadians with a minimum guaranteed payment, which could — among many effects — keep artists protected in the face of a profession that is financially precarious at the best of times.
Asks Doctor, “Why don’t we have a basic income for freelancers or people who are on the fringes of things? I think it would change what people decide to do with their lives.”
Adds Johnston, “I’ve been trying to preach that for a while, because once they automate trucking, I think the States loses 20 million jobs just like that. Sooner or later, we’re going to automate ourselves out of business. It seems only fair that everyone should have a place to live and basic human dignity.”