Bruce Fitzhugh - Interview on the Christian subculture
How hard or easy was it to make a living in a band at the level that Living Sacrifice was at? Please explain, especially if there were particular areas of struggle...
It was actually not very easy at all.
We weren’t actually able to make any kind of living or be full time until after our fifth album, The Hammering Process . After we did that record we pretty much just jumped out there and eecided to do it, not quite sure if we’d be able to our not. At the level we were at, we sold a decent amount of records. The reborn record, which sold around 25,000, which is really good for an indie label, but not huge or great or anything like that. We’re not massive, That allows us to go around and tour the country and have at least a couple hundred people at your show, and maybe up t o500 in some markets.
When we went out there and decided to do it, we just did it. We supported ourselves in hopes that promoting The Hammering Process record would continue to grow and grow and grow and we’d sell more records and the shows would be bigger, we’d make more money and we could come home for longer periods of time. Because we were making more off the shows and weren’t having to constantly tour. As it was during that time period in making a living, basically we had to play, like, constantly. If we weren’t playing a show, we weren’t making money anywhere else. You don’t see money off of record sales at that level, because it’s still recouping. You might see some mechanical royalties, but they’re not...it’s not enough to quit a dayjob kind of thing. But they only come twice a year and it’s just kinda like a bonus, really. It’s not really worth... It’s not the kind of thing that you could stop what you’re doing and live off it awhile. So it was like this perpetual cycle of, ‘We have to tour to make the money.’ It’s just the huge trade-off. If you’re 19, 20, 21 with no wife or anything . . . nothing tying you down at home or anything like that. It’s fine. It’s no problem. You don’t even really need a place to live. You just keep all of your stuff at your parents’ house and just stay on the road. Some bands get pretty big. They can make decent money. They can even, at some point, just have a bunch of guys move into a place and keep an apartment or whatever for when they do come home, but they’re all splitting the rent, so it’s dirt cheap – nothing, and no other bills, so it works out. For us, by the time we got to our fifth album we’re all married and some of us had children and stuff like that, so it was a struggle. After a couple years of touring full-time, we just kinda started going into debt. But we actually had... We were set up pretty good. We had, like, health insurance and everything for our band and we paid for that for a year. But we figured out that we couldn’t afford to do it anymore, so we quit. As far as what all that had to do with why we broke up: For me, I just didn’t want to be... I didn’t want to live on the road away from my family anymore. After touring that much I realized that we actually weren’t getting any bigger tours or anything like that. The tours were pretty much staying the same. The markets were staying the same. We did sell more records because we toured more, but not significantly more – to where it really really made a difference as far as the shows becoming huge things where we could make a lot of money off of each show. That’s probably part of the reason we came off the road. Another reason we came off the road is because we were going into debt. In order to pay off the debt, we just had to come home and get jobs and then do weekend shows where we basically would go out and play and not pay ourselves anything – just put all that money that we made towards merchandise bills or whatever debt we had accrued – credit card debt and stuff like that from just being on the road – hotels, gas, stuff like that. We were able to do that within about a year, pretty much pay everything off. As far as the rest of it, I just didn’t really see... For me, my heart was in it less and less, because I just wanted to be with my family and it was too... For me it was too much time to put towards something that really wasn’t going to be able to provide. Also, I felt that my heart wasn’t in this much anymore, which was kind of like God showing me, ‘Hey. This isn’t where your heart is anymore. Your heart’s more with your family and looking for an outlet that’s going to provide for them and stuff like that.’
For a band at our level, it’s incredibly difficult. If you’re married and stuff like that, it’s pretty much not gonna work out. You can do band as a hobby, part-time, and stuff like that, but there’s still this huge division, because you have to have a day job and any kind of day job... Unless you’re self-employed and can make really good money doing your own thing, it’s going to be hard to juggle. You’re not gonna tell your boss, ‘Hey, I’m going on tour for two months and I’ll be back and get my job back.’ You’re relegated to, like, construction and restaurants. And I did both. When I was home, I painted houses during the day and I waited tables at night. Not every night, but a lot of nights. That’s how I supported my family when I wasn’t on tour. That’s a hard way to live, at a certain point. If you consider those being two jobs, the band was another job, because I handled all the business and the management aspects of it.
God’s blessed me. I wouldn’t trade any of it. I had fun. For me, with the things I learned and the things that I was allowed to participate in, just led me up to being able to do what I’m doing now, which is helping younger bands and smaller bands actually make money. Even if they’re not on the road, just to get set up through online merchandising sales. And through just managing them and doing more career management type stuff. Helping them avoid some of the pitfalls that we walked into, and stuff like that.
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