A rising tide lifts all ships, and War Curse founding guitarist Justin Roth is no stranger to sharing his knowledge with others. Back in 2020, he was a significant contributor to the Band Finances chapter of Money Hacks for Metalheads Vol 1. Now a friend of the C Squared Music team, he's a regular on music industry podcasts and webinars.
Today, he's giving insights into his own band's finances, including how he works from the road and balances lofty goals with reality. Enjoy!
Tell our readers all about your band! Where are you from and when did you get started?
I am the guitarist of War Curse. We are a semi-modern thrash-adjacent metal band from the Cincinnati, Ohio area currently signed to Metal Blade Records. We’ve been a band since 2013, releasing 3 studio albums and a handful of singles in that time.
What is your music like?
Depending on the album you pick, it’s thrashy at times, catchy at times, kind of a yin and yang of old and new school metal.
What are your goals for your band?
We’ve far exceeded any goals I had set for this band. It was fun to have low (almost no) expectations and see decent results. Now that the bar has been raised I’m struggling to figure out what’s reasonable and what’s achievable. The last thing I want to do is lose myself chasing impossible goals, but I also don’t want to sell myself or my bandmates short. It’s a constant balancing act that requires a combination of confidence and humility.
What do you do for a living?
In my primary gig I am a creative director, graphic designer, and web developer. I work with a lot of larger bands and corporate clients. I’m also a man of many side hustles. I own a screen printing operation, I do some guitar repair and customization, I tour manage and guitar tech for a handful of bands, I host a podcast, and I help my dad run a fiberglass / boat repair shop. TL;DR: I like creating stuff and making things look cool.
How do you balance your work and personal life with the band?
I am an obsessive person with an insane work ethic. My personal life is abysmal. I’d rather spend my free time working on something productive than going out. I work remotely when War Curse is on tour or in the studio but music is always priority number one.
What do you consider to be the best investment you've made, music-wise?
This might be an unorthodox or weird answer, but the best investment I ever made as a musician was an investment in myself and my education. If I hadn’t chosen the career path that I did, worked hard, and set myself up to be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want to do it, I don’t know that I’d be as happy doing this. At the end of the day bills have to be paid. It’s a lot less stressful touring and losing money every night knowing that you’ll still be able to pay your bills when you get home.
What's the worst or least helpful thing you've ever spent money on as a musician/band?
Lending former band members money. Don’t do it. There are other drummers or guitarists in the world. Don’t feel obligated to take care of everyone else’s problems for the sake of band morale. It never ends well.
What kind of merch sells the best for your band? And what do you purchase most often as a music listener?
We sell a lot of t-shirts and vinyl. I am an avid vinyl collector personally. If your live show is good and you’re selling albums, I’m buying one.
Can you share some tour budgeting tips?
Yeah, stay home! In all seriousness, this depends on where you are as a band. If you’re just starting out and you’re not making a lot of money, tour within your means and be realistic. Don’t rent an expensive vehicle. Don’t hire crew members to do jobs you can do yourself. And most importantly, do not over-purchase merch, especially if you are printing tour dates on your shirts.
Since this is a financial outlet let’s break this down. Using easy numbers-
If you print 500 shirts, they cost you $10 each to print, and you sell them for $25, your break even comes after you’ve sold 200 shirts. If you only sell 300 shirts on the tour you will still make a profit of $2500.
If you over purchased and bought 1000 shirts, same $10 to print, same $25 retail, your break even is 400 shirts. If you only sell 300 shirts on the tour you are operating at a $2500 loss until you offload the shirts at a later date.
It’s always better to sell out and make a profit than come home with a bunch of unsold merch.
Which online music or social media platforms are most helpful to your band?
We’re basically dinosaurs. We use Facebook and Instagram. I’ll retweet something from the band account once every couple of years. We have a website and an email list that serves its purpose.
What does "making it" mean to you, and what do you think a band needs to make it in 2024?
I have this conversation with musician friends a lot. I really don’t know anymore. Does “making it” mean earning a living from music alone? If so, barely anyone I know has made it. I know plenty of guys in really successful bands that have side hustles. None of us make any real money releasing albums. The best you can hope for is a successful tour a few times a year, but even that is more rare than you’d probably believe.
It all seems so bleak when you compare the success we achieve as musicians to the success of someone running a business or climbing the corporate ladder someplace. My boring desk job friends have nicer houses and cars than my friends in extremely well known bands. Like way nicer. But half of those guys are miserable. They’d probably give anything to see strange corners of the world with their friends, screw off for weeks or months on end, and get to make the kind of memories that we get to make. So maybe that’s “making it.”
And that's a wrap! For more from War Curse, visit their website.
Did you enjoy this post? Leave a tip or subscribe on Substack for exclusive monthly music and personal finance content!
To learn more about budgeting, band finances, and other personal finance topics, order Money Hacks for Metalheads and Old Millennials: The Revised and Expanded Second Edition in paperback and ebook formats: https://amzn.to/3AjB1j6
Comments