Live & Touring

Rolling Stones Pay Backup Singers $57.48 For 3 Rehearsals + Performance

image from www.voodoolizard.co.ukThe Rolling Stones are in the midst of what is on track to be the highest grossing concert tour of the year. In fact, the band is estimated to have grossed $1.5 billion live since 1990. But apparently Mick & Company don't believe in trickle down music econmics. A group of music students from Isreal's Tel Aviv Universtity were asked to sing backup for the Stone's local concert. Their total pay for 3 rehearsals and the concert? 200 shekels each – $57.48 USD.

The sotry became public when one of the students complained on their Facebook page.  So far the Rolling Stones only answer is "no comment."

Estimated gross for The Rolling Stone's Tel Aviv concert?  $6.7 million.

via A Journal Of Musical Things 

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Bruce Houghton on 06/06/2014 in Live & Touring | Permalink | Comments (9)
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9 Comments

  1. I’m calling bullshit on this one. The Stones hired a choir to sing backup on ONE song. Most people would donate a body part for this same opportunity. If the choirmembers were unhappy with the rate of pay, they don’t have to take the gig.
    The “real” backup singers (Lisa Fischer et al) are getting a lot more money — as they should because they have a much bigger role and presence in the overall performance.

  2. Scott Feldman, shut up. They should be getting T least 200-500. No back up signers are making a career off rolling storms now. Plus the main thing to realize for this generation and going forward is ALWAYS PAY YOUR PEOPLE. it’s like tipping good, it creates more comprosery and everybody speaks of you highly and ultimately protect your bran. This is not about paying for talent, this is about protecting your brand. It’s like waiting tables or billionaire and he spends 400 on dinner and tips 10 dollars. If you support this type of behavior and you really feel as imminent shouldn’t circulate or trickle down thn you are part of the problem that has tuned Anerican ino a nation of greed that is the cause of its downfall.
    If you got money, pay everybody good.

  3. $200-500 for 7 minutes on stage? I’m not against fair compensation, but you can’t judge how much someone should pay based upon how much they have.

  4. I say… It’s my money and I’ll pay whatever the fuck I want to… Don’t like the pay? Get a new job.

  5. Most likely the Stones paid a reasonable rate to the Israeli agent tasked with getting those singers. The agent probably pocked most of the money and paid the students as little as possible.

  6. Bruce- I dare you to publish a story without any grammatical or spelling errors!

  8. The Stones are Greedy assholes! First suing and ruining The Verve’s career saying they stole Bitter Sweet Symphony from their BULLSHIT song from ’65, which clearly is a stretch. And now I hear that they made 6.7 million and paid their help 60bux? GET REAL! I WILL NEVER BUY STONES SHIT AGAIN!! FACT Burn in Hell Jagger! Fuckhead!

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