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Good luck!! Its always nice to see someone pursuing their interests.

Big paying job with more chances of 'touring' the world.

I'm sure Hammerfall are able to get a good replacement.

LOL what is it with guitarists becoming pilots first Chris DeGarmo from Queensryche leaves to become a pilot now Stefan leaves.

Waits for Yngwie Malmsteen to fly a plane

Another great band that won't be the same because musicians (even world renouned musicians) can't make enough money to justify doing it anymore. This happened to Dungeon and now Hammerfall. Anyone else got examples of guys quitting bands because they were offered jobs / couldn't support their family as muscians?

Now what do you mean by "enough money to justify doing it anymore" ? I doubt Stefan was passing through financial difficulties. I bet he has enough money to live a very comfortable life with his family. Ok so he's not a millionaire, but is this whats music is all about? Making money?

Airpline pilots generally get good money, so if he likes flying enough to change professions, then good luck to him. Just dont say he had to abandon musicianship because of downloads.

If 'Ripper' said that touring with Judas Priest would have had to happen more regularly for him to make enough for him to earn a decent living do you really think this guy was 'comfortable'?

it depends, he was probably only getting income from live shows, while the other band members were getting royalties etc.

i agree that a minuscule number of musicians are breaking even with their music, and far less than that are living comfortably.

Yes.

I dont know what these guys (Ripper, Elmgreen) classify as "decent living", but they have to realize that the days of mega-billionaire rock-stars are gone. Maybe Ripper expectations on rock stardom were pretty high.

Again, I doubt these guys are being evicted from their rented tiny apartments, riding buses to go to work and having to eat McDonalds for lunch.

Eating Mcdonalds for lunch is expensive I thought. But yeah, they'll be making a meagre living tbh. Unless they have a day job which is unlikely-you really don't make a lot of money being a metal band. Put it this way-Napalm Death have only in the past 5 years been able to run tours not at a loss. Figure that one out, they're bigger than HF.

Have it ever occured to you guys that maybe he just likes flying and is fed up with the music business and guitar? I mean, people change, passions change, i have been playing guitar for 10 years and my passion for it is not the same as it was ... not everything is about money you know ...

*looks towards the ceiling as to not give recognition to the shaking of the knees which accompanies the ejaculatory response on to 'mindgam3s' face as a way of reply to his quite frankly gay post*

My point is that no it isn't about money, but when you get tired of working your ass off and putting your LIFE into music to go into severe debt and live as a minimum wage worker, you tend to quit that kind of situation after 15 years.

By the way, most metal bands are not professional musicians in as much as that is their job. A ton of bands reject million-dollar loans and instead pay for the music career with the regular job. I don't think a lot of people appreciate that aspect. It is a landmark in a musicians life to quit their day-job for music, which does not happen as often as you would think. Don't be shocked that your favorite bands are not advertising that they work for a living and are also in bands with a lot of noteriety.

I'll mention Dungeon/Lord again. Lord Tim makes basically all the royalties and wons a recording studio, tours with megadeth among others and is in another band as a guest singer. They are a legendary band in australia and the guy barely makes enough money to survive (according to him) this was the reason Dungeon is no more. Not everyone needs to make millions as a rock star, but it helps to be able to pay the bills.

Musicians tire of spending all thier disposable income (and go into debt) for the music career while working 40 hours a week elsewhere.

Another thing is those guys in the 80's were not millionares. never were. They took out huge record company advances and blew threw the cash to emulate thier heroes from the 70's that did the same shit. They all went broke and still owe money to the record labels. There are probable 10 bands that made the kind of money everyone equates with being a professional musician and those guys did so because they had a stake in the record sales other than royalties...metallica..ozzy..motley crue..

I could give you a million examples of huge name bands that have yet to really make any money off their fame, but I think you get it by now. If you don't, congrats, you bought into the fantasy that the majors want you to believe. Its good for sales and maybe in 10 years you'll be their next victim of their racketeering scheme they've got going. To put it another way. If there is a job out there with an insane amount of demand, expect the employers to give their employees absolutely nothing because if they won't sign up, someone else will.

I've been talking about bands that sell out arenas, sell millions of records and not hammerfall. whjo regularly play to never more than a few thousand and haven't eclipsed a million in sales for their entire output. After all that, can you blame anyone for not wanting a job that keeps them broke anymore?

This is a very good point I haven't heard made before (or maybe I have). Looking at it from a supply-demand perspective there is basically an unlimited number of bands for labels to choose from, so as far as a contract goes the label has all the control. Musicians profit from the music industry about as much as trees profit from the logging industry.

Also, people should read this:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

It's impossible to guess how much any musician earns from their music, there are too many variables - my friends have a marimba band that I doubt anybody outside of Victoria has heard of, but they earn enough to support themselves from spring to fall because of how many tourists are here - it's safe to assume that the musician doesn't make a living from their music, though.

Yeah, that article amongst many sources is the reason for my statements. I'm glad you had the link to it. Especially the part you quoted.

There is a slight difference between the metal labels and major labels.

1) Many of the metal labels don't really advance the artist money. They may pay to have the album recorded and promote it, but it is very mild compared to the million dollar deals the majors will do. it may cost a band 20K to get the album released. 20K records sold just about pays the small advance back. BUt still if the band sells 100,000 records, the band members will only make less than 25,000 bucks each, over two years. I hope those guys have some great endorsements and merch deals going and are making a lot of money on tour.

2) SPV in particular (and similar) aren't even record labels. They act as a distributor for an independant band. They have no stake in royalties per sey. They profit from being the maufactuerer and promoter for the album. bands like symphony x, ayreon and others make a significant cut from their deals because of it being structured this way.

This post was added for clarities sake. There's good and bad business going on. NB/CM is generally bad business, about as bad as the majors.