Ricky Gervaise got nowhere in his New Wave band before becoming a manager of the band Suede, working in radio, rising to fame with The Office on TV, becoming a stand up comedian, doing films and eventually doing music concerts as a comedy character.
Dave Fenton was lead singer of The Vapors who had a hit with Turning Japanese (written by Fenton) - the song has a certain notoriety due to speculation it is about masturbation. Fenton left the band in 1982, became a lawyer specialising in music and in 2016 he, and the others, reformed the band.
The Jam were an incredibly successful and respected British pop-punk trio but when the leader Paul Weller split them in 1982, the drummer Rick Buckler drifted out of music. He ended up as a furniture restorer and dealer. Although he keeps trying to get back to music.
Andrew Ridgeley was half of Wham with George Michael. When George ended Wham, Ridgeley soon dropped out of music, dabbled in motor racing and now avoids excess publicity. Royalties from Wham (and especially Careless Whisper) mean he is financially very comfortable.
Tracey Bryn, one of the sisters who fronted Voice of the Beehive, became a teacher.
Pete Willis was a main guitarist, songwriter and founding member of Def Leppard before alcohol made him a liability. He left music and became a property manager.
K K Downing had a very long and very successful career as one of the guitarists in JudasPriest. He left in a slightly acrimonious fashion implying he wanted to continue but, now in his 60s, he has developed a golf course / corporate venue.
A buddy of mine flirted with national success with one hit and songwriting for names you’d recognize. He is sixty something and continues to perform locally, drawing good crowds of dedicated fans. He also runs a small studio, doing some production work for up and coming artists.
He recently opened for Foghat. “They’s all paying gigs”.
Depends. I know a couple of musicians who had some level of success in their career (recording contracts, music videos, singles, etc), but never hit it really big.
One friend of mine had a recording contract in the 90s as a sort of adult alternative / singer songwriter. He later went into IT, sold his firm and now works as a senior-ish IT executive.
A bunch of guys I went to high school with formed a ska band after college. They toured and released a few albums and videos. One still tours with various ska bands like Mighty Mighty Boss Tones while some of the other guys are still big in their local music scene as producers and whatnot.
Sort of begs the question - what are the Mightly Might Boss Tones and other ska bands doing now.
I know of this indie band through my New York circle of friends who, while never hitting it big, continue to tour, release albums, appear on soundtracks for commercials, and receive critical acclaim in publications like Time Out NY and Pitchfork. AFAIK, it’s their full time job, but now in their 40s, I suspect they are never going to reach Vampire Weekend levels of indie rock acclaim.
Also begging the question what Vampire Weekend is doing now.
A few years back, I saw Fountains of Wayne (Stacy’s Mom) play a free concert at a local arts festival.
I have a distant relative who had a few weeks of fame in a music-orientated reality TV show around 15 years ago, where he was runner-up. He never got over the taste of fame. He worked very hard for the following ten years, signing stupid recording deals so he could say he had a contract, then trying to get out of them, supporting himself with modelling. Now he works in an elderly care facility, and still thinks he just needs another break to get his career on track.
I mostly feel sorry for his parents, who spent considerable sums of money getting him out of the contracts, and viewed it as an investment with a return once he became rich and famous.
Their last 2 albums went #1 and 2013 wasn’t THAT long ago. So I’d assume they are still around, probably going to release another album at some point. I’m always hearing about Ezra Koenig doing other stuff and he had writing and producing credits on Beyonce’s last album.
I remember the exact same thing in Grafton, West Virginia. Twitty drunkenly singing his songs while a handful of people milling about. Most playing carny games and talking to the guys in the demolition derby. Very sad.
Another one I remember was Lee Greenwood. It was the mid 90s and I was in New Orleans for a conference and this girl I was seeing got tickets to Lee Greenwood. I’m not sure why, but we went. It was at the New Orleans Convention Center and the theatre was not much bigger than you would see in most small towns.
Lee started with his other songs that nobody had ever heard. It was so bad, that during the concert, almost nobody was even paying attention. A conversational tone came over the whole place, until after an hour he gets to his finale (really the only good song he has ever had) and then the whole place goes nuts, holds hands, sings loud, and then goes home.
They played for Bernie Sanders last year before the New York primary so they’re still kicking. I assume it wasn’t a paying gig but as actualiberal points out, it hasn’t been excessively long since their last album.
Once upon a time I read about some 90’s one-hitter being asked about performing these days at the Nowheresville Corn Fest rather than achieving a string of number one albums. He said something to the effect of “Being invited and paid to perform a song we wrote for over two decades? Considering the odds in the music business, it feels pretty great actually.”
Ha! Good whoosh joke man, you’re really a card. A good song by Lee Greenwood. Oh dear I laughed so hard…(*)
Yep. In performance, making any money from it and having your name remembered at all is success.
(*No, that maudlin piece of schmaltz is not a good song. It’s a well-selling, popular song with a good sentiment behind it but it’s still terrible IMO.)
I don’t consider David Lee Roth to be “failed” but he was a huge star who dropped out of the limelight to be a “regular joe”. Story is he was working as an EMT with FDNY for a while. About ten years ago I was working for a company who had FDNY as a client and I was tempted to ask them about him, but didn’t. Anybody know if he’s still there, or what he’s doing these days?
I know it was just a persona he put on for performances, but I have trouble thinking of him as an EMT. I just picture him with the long hair, no shirt, giving his trademark yell as he ran into the room to help a heart attack patient. (That might start MY heart, thank you!)
I shoot concert by various locations of the School of Rock, and every one of the teachers is a working musician - I suppose they qualify as “failed Rock Stars.” It’s a good gig for them; you don’t have to get up before noon, you usually have weekends off and you get to mould impressionable young minds. The oldest one I know was in a band that had a Top 10 hit in the early 70s, and he still gigs, playing sessions, corporate gigs, revivals of the old band, support gigs on tours for current performers.
Why shouldn’t he? It’s a living. He’s a musician, he plays music. It kills me how everyone has internalized the record industry’s definition of “success”, that unless you can sell a half a million copies of a title, you’ve “failed”. It is possible to make a living playing songs you enjoy for an appreciative audience of regulars - being the favorite band of a bunch of people in town.
I take guitar lessons at a local music school (not a School of Rock location, however). My teacher is much the same – he got a music degree at a local college, and he was able to make a living (though not a particularly profitable one) between teaching guitar at the school, and playing gigs in a couple of local bands.
But, what wound up changing things for him was the crushing load of his student loan debt from college. He wound up having to take a 9-to-5 job as a customer-service rep in order to pay his bills. Because of this, he had to give up most of his younger students at the school (i.e., the ones he taught between 3pm and 7pm), and he probably only has 6-8 students now (down from several dozen).
If there is a School of Rock in his town, he might consider applying there. There are 11 in the greater Chicago area (from the city proper out to Plainfield). I don’t know how well they pay, but a lot of the teachers have been there for years.
Jackie Fox (Jacqueline Fuchs) of the Runaways finished college after the Runaways imploded, went on to Harvard Law School, and is now an entertainment lawyer.
Another story I’m sort of personally familiar with –
Handsome Dick Manitoba, of the Dictators (I know, not exactly a huge band) owns a bar on Avenue B in New York City. Or at least he did last time I was down in that neighborhood.
Another guy from the Dictators works (or did some years ago, anyway, last I heard of him) in a high-end liquor store. He got really into wine (not in the bad way, as far as I know). He works there 'cause he needs the money, though.
(That might start MY heart, thank you!)