There’s a website called The Bureau of Labor and Statistics, usgovernment.org and I discovered this website, I was talking with a screenwriter friend of mine and we were talking about jobs you could have that you’d - allow you to do art, but still be able to make a living if your art wasn’t paying and I went on there to look up what is a professional musician and it’s a fascinating site. I recommend everyone that’s interested in being a musician to go to this site, because what you’ll find is there is a job category called “Musician”. Any job that’s in America that people get paid for is on this site and everything you need to know about this job is on there. If you want to be a cameraman or a, you know, a structural engineer or a railroad engineer or a, you know, a shoemaker - whatever it is, it’s in there and it’ll tell you how many people do this job.
In America right now there’s about 60,000 professional musicians. The mean average income is $30,000.00 a year; of course some make more, many make less. Half - most of them work part-time; half of them work for religious organizations. My guess is that, you know, all these - this - the huge explosion in organized religion in America and the mega churches, you know, they all have bands and they all get paid on the books.
The website gets its information from taxes and census, so that’s how they determine. They talk about what is, you know, what is the light working conditions for a professional musician and it’s true you spend a lot of time in rehearsal rooms, you spend a lot of time practicing, you work in night clubs, which - there’s a - there’s a - it’s a hazardous workplace [laughter] and we can talk about that some more. You work, you know, if your career develops, you can work in concert halls, you can work on cruise boats, you can work in recording studios, you can work in dining halls and theaters and that’s the reality of what being a professional musician is; that’s where you go to work. You work in those kinds of environments.
When I was a boy, my mother was very supportive and she said, “Well, Wayne if you want to be a musician, you know, I want you to do what you want to do, but that’s a hard life that you’ve picked out because first you’re going to have to work at night mostly and sleep during the day and second, you know, there’s drugs and alcohol that, you know, are around that world and third, there’s, you know, loose women.” So of course I said, “Brer, Brer, please don’t throw me in that briar patch.” [Laughter] If I wasn’t sure about being a musician before, I was convinced now. She convinced me, although it wasn’t her intention and the truth is she was right, that you know, more so in my early days, the influence of drugs and alcohol and whoring around.
You know today, drugs and alcohol affect all walks of life; plumbers and carpenters and lawyers and everybody has access to it and it’s - cuts across all socio-economic barriers, but it - with musicians there seems to be an extra license that comes with it that encourages you, or at least there’s a perception that, you know, musicians are supposed to be high and that’s how we - that’s how we, you know, that’s our door into being able to play beautiful music and this is all part and parcel of what I call the great lie of fame and the great lie of success, that somehow you - you fulfill all these preconceived ideas and you do everything that you have to do to be successful, you know, you step on your friends’ backs to get ahead and - and somehow you achieve this success that you’ll be delivered to a good life - the good life that you see in People Magazine or on MTV or something, you know, and the truth is that, that’s not how it works. That, you know, if something’s wrong with you before you achieve success, not only will success not make you better, it will make you worse.
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