Session Work: Making A Living Making Music

Josh LaBelle is one of the busiest rock drummers in Seattle. But you're not likely to see him at a concert.

LaBelle, 32, is one of a small but growing number of Northwest professional musicians who make their living backing other artists for recording sessions.

Since the blossoming of grunge rock in the late 1980s, Seattle has spawned dozens of recording studios, some little more than a converted rec room, some as elaborate as anything found in Los Angeles.

"A lot of the major labels come to Seattle to record, either because the talent is here or because of the low studio costs, or both," LaBelle said.

Motter Forman, secretary-treasurer of American Federation of Musicians Local 76-493, said the recording industry "is just exploding in Seattle, so fast we can't even get a handle on it."

Labels are attracted by nonunion studios, Forman concedes, but also "because we have some of the best musicians in the world." The local has 900 members.

Session work is a dicey way to make a living, LaBelle stressed. There's no hiring hall, no steady income. Sometimes you wait weeks to get paid. Sometimes you aren't paid at all.

"It's not something you do if you want to make a lot of money," LaBelle said. "It's something you do to make a living while you make music."

Like hundreds of drummers before him, LaBelle began playing in garage bands while still in high school. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in ethnomusicology, which gave him a grounding in music theory and an interest in the dumbek, an Egyptian folk drum.

"So I came out of UCLA with a degree and a dumbek and no idea how to take care of myself," he recalled, laughing.

He took a job as a $300-a-week gofer with the William Morris Agency, helping agents book rock bands. Through the agency, he met other musicians and often played in pick-up groups.

Eventually he was invited to sit in on a recording session with Michael Petak, who was making "Pretty Little Lonely" for Slash Records, then a division of Warner Bros.

The record sank like a stone, LaBelle recalled, but the producer liked his work, and that led to a year and a half on the road, backing vocalist Sam Phillips.

On the trip, he became engaged, and his fiancee wanted to move to Seattle to study at the University of Washington.

LaBelle shrugged and came along. He was tired of the road, and Seattle offered session work. But it took him a year or so to establish himself.

"There is work in Seattle for drummers and other session musicians, but you've got to be willing to play music just for the joy of it because that's how you get known," he said. "I've done a lot of recording sessions without pay, just for the fun of playing with a new group."

Many jobs pay union minimum - between about $165 and $275 for a three-hour session, depending on the contract and type of music - but LaBelle has earned as much as $1,200 a song. A good session musician can earn $25,000 to $50,000 a year, he said.

"But I learned a lesson recently about money," he said. "I was hired to play for a major label on a project we spent weeks on. It was exciting. It was a great artist, a good group of musicians. We worked hard. It was really, really artistically satisfying, and we were paid really well.

"But at some point it became clear that, for whatever reason, the label wasn't going to release the record. And all our work was down the drain. That's the kind of thing you have to live with, too."

Session musicians also find work in scoring films, playing live music for touring musicals and - increasingly in Seattle - music for radio and television commercials.

LaBelle also suggested that aspiring musicians find a niche that will give them an edge.

Don't quit the day job until you're ready, he said. But when the break comes, go for it.

"When it happens, you better stop everything you're doing and seize the moment," he said. "It may not happen again."

Kerry Webster is a Tacoma free-lance writer.