Paying Up Front
By T. Perry Bowers
Why I Collect Rent on the First of the Month and All My Recording Fees Up Front:
When I first started out in the recording business, I charged three dollars per hour. You can’t make a living from that, but you can learn the ins and outs of collecting money. At the time I was hanging out with other guys who were recording bands. Many of them weren’t charging anything at all. They just wanted to hang around musicians and be “in the scene.” I wanted to make money at the same time. I had to start somewhere and three dollars was better than nothing.
Eventually I started to charge a bit more and I eeked out a partial living from my recording business. Now my bread and butter is rehearsal space. Renting to bands on a monthly basis took the process of collecting money to a whole new level.
The first thing I had to do was get rid of my own guilt. That meant coming to terms with the fact that I had chosen this for my living. I had all the stereotypes in my head of hard-hearted, evil landlords with no compassion for the lives of their tenants so it took me a while to feel ok with being a landlord. At least I wasn’t providing housing for families, just space for bands to jam. It wasn’t life or death. If I sent a band packing, they still (I hope) had a place to live.
Once I came to terms with that I become more pro-active about collecting rent (this took about ten years, by the way). Every morning on the first of the month, I make phone calls or send texts reminding everyone that rent is due and I’ll be happy to come get it from you if you can’t make it to the space today, thus, eliminating the most popular excuse. Sometimes, bands will take me up on that and I drive to their location to pick up the money. I don’t care. I’m on a mission to collect one hundred percent of my rent by midnight on the first of the month.
I even have a clause in my monthly contract that states “if rent is not fully collected by midnight on the first, you have forfeited the contract and your room is now for rent” (or something like that). I don’t ask for security deposits and I hold a last month’s rent in place. With that, I can always execute the clause and say,” it’s ok that you didn’t pay rent today, no hard feelings, but I’m sending an email as we speak to the hundreds of folks on my waiting list letting them know the room is available for rent.” This may seem overly harsh, but it works. Everyone gets it. Most people have sympathy for me and understand how difficult it must be. I think the bands, in some way, appreciate me forcing them to pay me on the first. It eliminates so much bullshit. Most importantly it clears the decks for my tenants to focus on making music! When rent is hanging over your head, it is harder to do that. It looms. I used to see someone in the hall who owed me rent and inevitably the conversation was about rent. Nowadays, after the first of the month, all conversations are about music. After the first of the month, I am no longer a money collector; I am someone who likes to help people make music in a nice environment.
Collecting money up front for recording sessions works in the same way. When all the money is collected, the music can happen. In my early years, I would ask for the money at the end of the session. I didn’t even mention money until the very end when I would sheepishly ask for payment. Most of the time, unless I asked, no one would fork out the money. When I did ask, it was like I was speaking a foreign language. Sometimes they would ask if they could pay next time. Or they would scramble, huddle up together and figure out who had what cash. It was an interesting process to watch. Usually it was clear that the band had never really discussed the financial part of the recording work. Maybe they thought some fairy was going to walk in before the end of their session and pay for the whole deal?
Now that I require payment up front, musicians are forced to have that conversation before coming into the studio. It’s a conversation that tests band’s resolve. If they are capable of the conversation and the members can negotiate with one another it bonds them as a band. If they struggle and can’t find a solution, the recording session doesn’t happen in my studio or anywhere else. I say it’s better to discover your band’s limitations before investing time into recording.
I get a lot of phone calls from artists who want to set up a quick vocal session. They have their own beats and they want to lay down their vocals. These are the most common type of session in my studio and they are great. But many of the rappers are inexperienced. They think they can do everything they want in less than an hour. They’ll tell me they can lay down vocals for 5 songs in thirty minutes. “Then it should take another thirty minutes to mix the five songs, right?” Wrong. That’s why I have a three-hour minimum. If they are very efficient, they might be able to lay down a song in an hour, and we could mix it in a half an hour or so. Then they get to walk out with an hour and a half credit. This almost never happens. Three hours gets eaten up real quick.
Crossing the three-hour minimum bridge with these young vocalists in a phone conversation is the first test. Can they understand I am a business and I have policies to ensure I can make a little money? The second test is getting them to pay up front. “I got cash. I’ll pay at the session.” Nope. When I hear that, I know two things. One, if they actually make it to the session, they will be late. Two, more than likely, they won’t make it to the session at all.
In my early years, I spent so much time waiting for folks to come to sessions because they hadn’t paid up front. They didn’t lose anything by not showing up. After that, I spent a lot of time waiting for people with cash to pay for their sessions up front, but at least I wasn’t paying an engineer to sit around and wait for nothing. Now, I try to do everything online. I handle most of my business through texts and emails. I have so many conversations going on at once – I need them in writing to remember everything. With the convenience of PayPal and credit cards, paying up front is easier than ever. My life is easier because of it. But still, every once in a while, I have to explain to folks why my policies are the way they are. Now I’ll just refer them to this blog and hopefully they’ll understand.
