Music

Grizzly Bear say they are poor and this infographic proves it

by Nicole Villeneuve

Alright, poor is an exaggeration, but in their recent New York Magazine cover story, Grizzly Bear say that even though they’ve become indie rock’s golden gods, they pretty much still live in the same unluxurious apartments and aren’t as well off as people might imagine.

[Singer Ed] Droste’s covered via his husband, Chad, an interior designer; they live in the same 450-square-foot Williamsburg apartment he occupied before Yellow House. When the band tours, it can afford a bus, an extra keyboard player, and sound and lighting engineers. (That U2 tour had a wardrobe manager.) After covering expenses like recording, publicity, and all the other machinery of a successful act (“Agents, lawyers, tour managers, the merch girl, the venues take a merch cut; Ticketmaster takes their cut; the manager gets a percentage; publishers get a percentage”), Grizzly Bear’s members bring home … well, they’d rather not get into it. “I just think it’s inappropriate,” says Droste. “Obviously we’re surviving. 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.”

Not surprising. In fact, we recently took a look at how much music a band would have to sell to pay rent in various cities around North America. In New York City, not even Jay-Z could afford to live off CD or song sales alone. Take a look at the numbers here.