A Band of Hirelings
Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, Michael Bivens, Ralph Tresvant, Johnny Gill, Danny Carey, Jam Master Jay, Richie Sambora, James Hetfield, John Bonham, Neil Peart, Charlie Watts, Stevie Nicks, Stewart Copeland, and Don Henley. Take a brief moment to think about the individuals above being categorized as “hired hands” instead of the hands that built the empires they factually and tangibly contributed to. While not all of these members are founders, they’re all inextricably linked to the identity of the entities they’re a part of. What is Run-DMC without Jam Master Jay? What is Metallica without James Hetfield? It’s difficult to conceive of the bands as we know them without these members, yet they could easily have been reduced to “hired help” if the wrong paradigm had existed within their respective groups.
These people were not simply given parts/instruction and told what to do like a traditional independent contractor or employee. They actively participated in creating the product and/or music in their realm. They brought their expertise to the table to contribute to a larger entity that needed their talent while the market supply for their talent was very low relative to the time and the demand was high. I pose this train of thought to help you as the reader make the distinction between proper business and undefined roles in any organization (including, but not limited to, a musical entity).
A band is analogous to a company in that just as no one individual builds a business empire, no one individual defines a band. No matter how talented and/or powerful an individual may be, one needs tangible assistance and contribution to make a team successful. The business of music is more cutthroat than business itself, as business has centuries of structure belying its function while the music industry has not even existed for 100 years. Therefore, its founders, confounders, and long-term participants are often reduced to hired workers based on institutional ineptitude, lack of process, lack of ethics, lack of oversight, and relentless greed that blindly drives decisions with desperation instead of data.
A lack of planning and structure creates a distance from reality that yields the uninformed decision to marginalize the contributors to an empire, especially (but not limited to) a musical one. There will be a day in the near future that there won’t be any more middlemen and all the credit will go where it’s supposed to go. It won’t go to corporate politics and ignorant leadership at the top but, instead, to the creators of the actual music.
The pioneers who have set the stage for this — like any other pioneers — have suffered greatly at the hands of management, record labels, and dysfunctional estate dynamics. They’ve led the way for future creators to be part owners of what they helped create (versus classification as independent contractors to mitigate rightful future claims).
Any musician that has been miscategorized as a hired hand after consistently contributing intellectual property intuitively knows that this is not sound business practice. Conversely, it is incumbent upon every musician that has loved ones/family to make a living and bring home as consistent of income as possible (like any other person or industry). While the innate understanding is there for being undervalued, many times there is a more immediate need for stability that record labels and management use as leverage. This is often exploited in conjunction with the subjective nature of musical contribution to place group contributors into legal agreements which undervalue their contributions in exchange for relatively modest consistency and upfront advances.
The industry is becoming more accountable as it is being forced to recognize the music contributors for their service, the unique need for it, and the difficulties it takes to find unique musical compositions. It’s only a matter of time until the once diminished “hired musician” will find themselves at the top and in demand more than ever before as music will always have a dominant place with the consumer. Music is not discretionary. Rather, it is a necessary tool to build a balanced mental life.
Do you know (or know of) any musicians in a band who have not been properly credited for their contributions?
