I Paid My Band Members’ Rent This Weekend

Photo by Darrah Parker Photography

OK, so I didn’t actually pay their rent. I did book enough gigs that paid enough money for each of them to cover their rent for the month, however. Three wedding gigs, to be exact, two on Saturday and one on Sunday.

Wedding gigs are the life-blood of my business as a working musician. Over the last nine years I have built a reputation for myself and my band as one of the most professional and sought-after jazz bands in the Seattle area. And I’ve done it on my terms. We play our music the way we want to play it and find couples who are looking for more than just your typical wedding band. We are the band people hire when they want to impress their guests and provide a truly entertaining and exciting musical accompaniment to their big day. As such, I’ve been able to bill us as a “premium” choice and charge accordingly.

What this means for me, first and foremost, is that I get to play music with my favorite musicians in the world for people who entrust us with setting the tone for the most important day of their lives. At the same time, I make enough money to help finance all the other aspects of my music making, from playing club dates and gigs that don’t pay as well to making the three CD’s we’ve made so far and our next one that is on the way. It also allows me to pay my bandmates a living wage for their artistry, which they so richly deserve.

There are musicians who don’t like playing wedding gigs. I’m not one of those musicians. There are many more reasons why I like playing wedding, which I’ll save for another blog post…

In the meantime, please enjoy these photos from some of our recent wedding gigs (click to enlarge):

Katy August 9, 2010 at 8:28 pm: Seems there are far worse ways to make a buck.
Kai Weber August 10, 2010 at 7:44 am: Oops, there is a “wrong” drummer on two of these photos. Did you play around with “copy+paste” or is he real?
Jason August 10, 2010 at 7:48 am: Katy – indeed!

Kai – good eyes! D’Vonne, our regular drummer, is probably the most in-demand drummer in Seattle and plays just about every night, sometimes 2 or 3 gigs a night! Often he’s booked with someone else and I’ll have to sub out the drum chair. The guys you see in the photos are fantastic drummers that we love to play with as well, Jeremy Jones (http://jeremyjonesmusic.com) and Adam Kesssler (Adam, you need a freakin’ web page!).