"This is the reality"

Reading Thurston Moore's Sonic Life and revisiting Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life recently was a reminder of something that's always intrigued me: how do fledgling artists and non-big-time musicians support themselves financially? Or, to put it another way, what kind of jobs help them to keep a roof over their heads but also allow them the scope (and headspace) to write, record, rehearse and even tour when they're not earning enough to be full-time musicians? Does it mean having flexible hours, an understanding employer (and partner) and a willingness to dedicate all available downtime (including annual leave) to music - or do they simply have to skip from one short-term form of employment to the next so they can drop everything and head off on the road if necessary?

The Guardian's Dave Simpson spoke to three people who would (quite rightly and understandably) describe themselves as musicians - Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs' Matt Baty, Catherine Anne Davies aka The Anchoress and Joe Williams of Cardiff's own Himalayas - about the jobs that actually pay their bills.

For Davies, the solution was lecturing in English literature and songwriting - something she can handily now do online rather than only in person. For Baty, it was working in music publishing - that is, "in the music industry, with people who are sympathetic to my situation". For Williams and his bandmates, it's meant a succession of service industry jobs "where we're kind of expendable".

Williams is unique among the three in that Himalayas "have recently started to glimpse a future where we won't be working at anything other than music". Youthful optimism, perhaps? Davies, who comes across as more wearied and world-wise, comments: "Everyone I know in music does something else. There should be no shame in it because it's become normal." Baty agrees that "[t]his is the reality", though he's sanguine about it: "[I]t's become a parallel life, but whenever we play I'm taken back to my 18-year-old self, thinking, 'If he was watching me now, he'd be delighted'."

Given the parlous state of the music industry and arts funding generally, this new reality is unlikely to reverse its course - quite the opposite. The moment for which Williams is clearly yearning - the moment at which Himalayas are able to support themselves through their art alone - may well remain forever agonisingly out of reach, and music, like other sectors of the arts, looks set to become increasingly the preserve of those privileged enough to not need to work.