Indie rock economics still a hard way to make a living

Grizzly Bear is, by all accounts, one of the most successful indie bands of all time. Even non-scenesters have heard the Brooklyn-based band’s music in commercials, movie soundtracks and The Colbert Report. But what does indie success buy you in the real world in this day and age? New York Magazine takes a look at how the “aggressively well-regarded” band fares financially, and it turns out Pitchfork love alone don’t pay the bills. Their lives are none too different from the rest of us (save for the touring with Radiohead part): their days involve returning to a 450-square foot Williamsburg apartment, not having health insurance, avoiding paying for hotel rooms when possible and other signs that music “success” ain’t the bag of drugs and hookers it used to be.

“Obviously we’re surviving,” Ed Droste, one of the band’s singers, told the magazine. “Some of us have health insurance, some of us don’t, we basically all live in the same places, no one’s renting private jets. Come to your own conclusions.” Read the whole story here.