The gig’s almost up for our newer bands, warn the Pillow Queens
THE co-lead singer of critically acclaimed Irish band Pillow Queens said she is ‘massively’ concerned about the future of live music as the cost of going on tour skyrockets for performing musicians.
Huge hikes in the cost of transport, venues, hotels, currency conversion rates and most sundry expenses have left artists scrapping tours and struggling to make a living yet again, with income from record sales already obliterated by streaming services.
Pillow Queens’ Sarah Corcoran told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘We’ve been told for years that, now that streaming is the new thing and album sales aren’t going to cover costs, touring is the new way to make money. So we got back on the road [after the pandemic] thinking it was how we’re going to make ends meet and were hit with massive, massive inflation.’
Pillow Queens have already embarked on two loss-making tours this year, in North America – where they played on James Corden’s Late Late Show – and Europe. Coming home in debt was not unheard of before the pandemic, but with the reward of having reached a wider audience.
‘Years ago it would have been worth the exposure,’ Sarah explained. ‘Whereas now you’re going, “Okay, but to what end?”
‘Because we get the exposure, the venues get bigger, the overheads become more expensive – you’re always kind of playing catch-up. So the exposure isn’t the investment it used to be because you’re not really
‘You’re always kind of playing catch up’
getting the return on the investment at the end of the day.
‘Not to say we’re not going to keep doing it,’ she added. ‘We’re just going to be poor.’
Her Dublin-based indie rock band are now, like many musicians, relying heavily on merchandise sales to turn a profit. The band has had to muck in with preparing items for shipping, and finding producers in other countries to cut down on shipping costs and VAT.
‘That was the only solution,’ Sarah said. ‘But we’re not a clothing company either. That’s not what we’re passionate about. It’s great having people advertise the band by wearing the t-shirts and you really feel the support, but that’s not our number one thing, it’s not our love. We spend a large portion of the week packaging merch orders to post out to people and that is not what I signed up for.’
Previously scorned by the band, corporate gigs and advertisements are now on the table too, ‘as long as there’s no moral conflict there’.
‘There’s no way to make ends meet without doing it. Obviously, your artistic integrity is your priority, but then you have to pay rent.’
The singer and guitarist said she is ‘massively’ concerned about where the rising costs leave lessestablished acts and live music in general. ‘[Pillow Queens] have a track record where we can show venues and promoters that the likelihood is we can sell out certain types of venues, so they’re not taking a massive risk on us. With upand-coming bands, venues can’t afford to take that risk, so they’re not booking them.’
Smaller live music nights in pubs and venues, often crucial to a new band’s development, are becoming less common too, she said.
‘Venues are like, “is this going to bring in a big crowd? Because we need to bring in a big crowd.” And you can’t afford to be taking risks. There are no new music nights the way there used to be. It feels like the passion isn’t there because nobody’s getting anything from it.’
Even well-established artists are struggling to put together tour itineraries that make financial sense – US acts Animal Collective and Santigold are among those to have cancelled tours in recent weeks, citing costs.
‘We’re still a young band in the grand scheme of things so we’re expected to come up against it,’ Sarah said. ‘But when you see bands that have been doing it for years and really have the knowledge of the industry and suddenly everything has gone against them, it starts to feel a bit hopeless.’ Angela Dorgan, chief of the Arts Council-funded First Music Contact (FMC), whose remit includes funding emerging artists to play abroad, described similar problems ‘across the board’.
She said it could cost an extra €80,000 to send artists to the same events in 2023 as FMC has this year, according to early calculations. She said Brexit had added a significant ‘extra challenge’.
‘Depending on what border guard you get, you can or can’t bring merch. If you do, you have to pay double the VAT for getting it made here, and the VAT for selling it over there. So that’s another expense that people never had before.
FMC now helps artists to find producers for their merchandise in other countries so they have one less expense to worry about.