Wanna make a living playing your music? At some point this is what has to happen

I was always impressed with Oliver Ackerman when I interviewed A Place To Bury Strangers in 2007. He found a way to make his guitar pedal business (Death By Audio) compliment his band and vice versa.

I think I've pasted portions of this before, but the following is hand's down the best interview that Ian MacKaye has ever given. Here's the link, followed by a quote, then some of my thoughts:

http://markprindle.com/mackaye-i.htm

I will say that I also don't think in terms of making my money from my music. People say, "Well, this kind of stuff is easy for you to say, because you can make a living from your music." I make my living from my work. I'm not playing music right now. I am WORKING right now. I will be writing checks for five or six hours today. I haven't actually practiced with Amy for a month and a half. I'm not playing music everyday; I am running a label, and returning to Fugazi, there was so much administrative work. That is WORK. It's just straight-up work. One aspect of DIY that I think people really miss out on is that you actually have to "Do It" yourself. It's work! It's not just a classification, like "Well yeah, I'm DIY!," then you sit around at home. If you're DIY sitting at home, NOTHING is happening. It doesn't make any sense! The work has always been central, but I like to work. And of course I always have to credit reading a Black Flag interview in Damage magazine from San Francisco in probably 1980 or '81. I think Dukowski the bass player said he'd rather work a day job for the rest of his life than ever become dependent on his music. And I thought, "That resonates with me in a hell of a way!" I don't want my art to be compromised by my monetary issues. So I decided that that wasn't going to be the case. It wasn't going to happen. It was deeply liberating.

The thing about MacKaye, though, is that regardless of the fact that he makes his living mainly from running the label, he still has built his life around his values. I doubt that he would just take any job to make money. He's found something that compliments his art. At the moment, that's what I'm doing at SideWalk.

The biggest problem that I think a lot of musicians have is that they want to make a living off their art and still maintain certain aspects of a lifestyle that they probably need to give up. They probably need to spend less money hanging out or at friends shows and focusing a bit more on administrative aspects of being a DIY musician. Getting more rest. I remember talking with Claire Bowman at Sidewalk back in 2006 and being struck by the fact that she wasn't going to spend $3 on a beer, and that this was a conscious decision that she'd made because she had a budget.

I think if more people sat down and wrote out an end point for themselves: what they want from their art, for comfort, for happiness, what are their values, their strengths/weaknesses, what are they willing to give up and what they can't give up in order to be happy, then they'd find that the road they end up traveling with their art is happier and more interesting.