Band People

Festival catering is where working musicians knock out our water cooler talk. What drummer’s a dream on tour? What singer pays dirt? What bassist should never, ever drive? With Band People, Franz Nicolay has assembled festival catering’s fantasy roster, a wrecking crew of career players in astute conversation with one another on business and relationships and how those collide in music work. A fascinating guide to the labor and love of playing in a band, with invaluable insights for newbies and lifers alike.

~Sadie Dupuis, Speedy Ortiz and Sad13, author of Cry Perfume

Most books about musicians focus on the superstars that everybody knows. Franz Nicolay’s writing is so valuable because he cares about the other 99.9 percent of performers—the sidemen, the session musicians, the road dogs who make their living in the shadows. In Band People, Nicolay shows just how fascinating—and difficult, and rewarding, and important—the lives of these people can be.

~Steven Hyden, author of There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springstein's "Born in the U.S.A." and the End of the Heartland

What makes Band People so unlike most books about popular music is that it's actually about music, and not really anything else. Instead of projecting a meaning onto songs, it explains the craft of song creation; instead of lionizing the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, it describes how a life in rock 'n' roll can be realistically achieved. It's the difference between learning about a war from a general and learning about a war from a soldier.

~Chuck Klosterman, author of The Nineties: A Book

Franz Nicolay brings together musician interviews, pop-music sociology studies, and social-psychology research to demystify the world of the workaday band member. Partly an oral history of the post-DIY musical present, partly a how-to manual for getting along with your bandmates and getting paid, Band People offers a thorough crash course in what it means to be a working musician in the pop and rock scenes.

~Sara Marcus, University of Notre Dame, author of Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution

[Nicolay's] original research...makes for fun reading...and goes deep on a neglected population of musicians...A lively...peek at the artistry at the edge of the stage. ~Kirkus

A perceptive portrait…Taken as a whole, these profiles succeed in complicating the ‘lone genius’ narrative of artistic creation and raising provocative questions about how society values the production of music. It’s a captivating look at what it means to occupy the complicated space ‘between a career and a calling.’ ~Publishers Weekly

Riveting…The book’s research and testimonials reinforce one another to great effect. ~Foreword Reviews

In [Nicolay's] book, the clichés of rock ‘n’ roll have refreshingly taken a back seat to the struggles of talented freelance professionals in a competitive business...The choice to keep the focus on a smaller segment of the musicians allows his story to delve deeper into a particular subculture of musicians as opposed to getting lost in the wide range of books Band People could be. ~Rock and Roll Globe

[Band People is] a candid look at the lives of musicians who don’t spend as much time in the spotlight—all conveyed with a virtuoso’s touch. ~Inside Hook