When Sara L. Houser moved to Austin in 2009, she knew what she wanted to do.
“My one goal was to move here and start a band,” she said.
But 16 years later, Houser does much more than play gigs. She teaches, tours as a sideman, and works in the studio as a background vocalist and arranger. She also writes string arrangements and produces other people’s music.
She and other Austin musicians have figured out how to make a living by expanding what it means to work in music. Their careers could serve as a blueprint for others living in the age of stagnant pay and minimal income from streaming.
Saying yes to everything
Houser did end up starting a band when she moved to Austin. She later formed Löwin, while working at Guero’s Taco Bar to supplement her income from gigs.
But about eight years in, she started to get an itch.
“ I'd been far enough away from college and from my academic world, where I was like — there's so much stuff I wanna do with music; maybe I could start teaching,” she said.
So Houser added teaching to the list of things she did.
A couple years later, she got asked to play vibraphone on tour with the psychedelic world-funk band Golden Dawn Arkestra.
“Working with them and working on their records kind of cracked me open and like, ‘Oh, I could do this for anyone,'” she said.
Around this time, she started to work in the studio — singing background on Walker Lukens' record Tell It to the Judge, and later on Spoon’s album Hot Thoughts.
That led her to work with Spoon's drummer, Jim Eno, on Project Traction, a program to mentor women and gender-expansive musicians on becoming producers.
Lukens also got Houser involved with orchestrations for a recording project.
“ And then that kind of spiraled out into doing some for other artists around town," she said.
Doing all of these things has allowed Houser to make a living just playing music. Recently, she started a company called Siren House, where she offers all her services.
“ I wanted to try to put it out there that I could be this one-stop shop," she said. “I wanted to put a name to it and sort of treat it like I would a band.”
Houser's career looks different from what she thought it would look like when she moved to Austin.
“ I kind of saw the writing on the wall with the gig economy pretty early and knew that it wasn't good for me and my brain space,” she said. "I just did anything I could until I got to a place where I could sustain myself.
Synced up
Chinasa Broxton and Carlos "Dashawn Daniels" Moore from the Austin hip-hop group Tribe Mafia also found a way to make a living in music by doing everything they can.
”Basically, whatever we can get into artistically, we'll try to see a dollar sign in it and thrive at it as best as we can,” Broxton said.
One of the band’s biggest income streams is sync licensing — getting songs placed in television and film.
The income they saw from streaming paled in comparison to what they saw from sync.
”When we got our first placement, we were like, what the? $5,000 for this?” Broxton said. “We just freestyled this, and then we get royalties after that.”
Broxton and Moore said this new income stream has changed their approach to music. They spend less time playing live shows and more time making music for sync placements.
“ When we first started off, we definitely wanted to have the most numbers. We definitely wanted to do the biggest shows," Broxton said. "But none of that stuff matters. We just wanna make good music and as long as we're making good music, it's making sense, we'll do whatever we gotta do.”
Collaboration is key
Carrie Rodriguez also ended up approaching music differently than when she first started. That's not only helped her career, but helped her support other artists.
For a long time, the singer/songwriter and violinist made money touring and recording, first with Chip Taylor and then as a soloist.
But life on the road made her feel disconnected from Austin. Then in 2015, she had a baby and everything changed.
“ Suddenly I'm like — oh, I need to be home and I need to figure out how to get to know people here," she said.
Rodriguez wanted to start a Latin music series, both as a way to connect with other musicians and as a way to bring Latin music into the Austin music conversation.
So she called up her friend Michael Ramos. They got a band together and started the Laboratorio music series at the Cactus Cafe. Each show, they would invite guests like Ruben Ramos, Adrian Quesada and Eva Ybarra to perform. The group would have one rehearsal, then play the show.
It was a lot of fun, but the size of the Cactus — which has a maximum capacity of 150 people — made it hard to raise enough money to sustain the show. Often, Rodriguez would pay people out of her own pocket.
“ Every single show, there was that weight and challenge of — how do I pay everyone for the time they're putting into this?” she said.
The show took a break during the pandemic, and when it came back, it had a new, bigger home: the State Theater. The venue also got behind the show, providing a guarantee that helped to cover the cost of paying musicians, as well as marketing and production support. But as the show started to grow and bring in bigger acts, Rodriguez started to feel that same financial strain.
"That's the hardest thing for musicians — to get paid what they really deserve to be paid."Carrie Rodriguez
And then, her friends Lynne Dobson and Greg Wooldridge came to her with an idea: What if Laboratorio were a nonprofit?
They connected Rodriguez with resources to set up the nonprofit and provided some funding through the Austin Community Foundation.
“We are incredibly supported through this process that I knew nothing about, and I'm learning more and more every minute of every day,” Rodriguez said.
In the last year, Laboratorio has been able to pay out around $80,000 to artists and musicians for various projects.
“ There is nothing that feels better than writing checks to musicians, ... compensating them for their work in a very fair, legit way,” Rodriguez said. “Because that's the hardest thing for musicians — to get paid what they really deserve to be paid.”
Rodriguez said her best advice to anyone trying to figure out how to make a living in music is to lean into collaboration.
“ I think coming together with other musicians and artists can bring a lot of great things," she said.
This story is included in Episode 1 of Season 6 of Pause/Play. Listen to the full episode in the player above. You can find Pause/Play wherever you get your podcasts.
