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No fun: Popstars choose day jobs over a challenging career
Though it may look easy and endlessly fun from the outside, many musicians tire of the drama and uncertainty pop stardom brings
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With the music industry brought to a standstill during the pandemic, singer-songwriter Lala Karmela decided to try working in an office for the first time. (Courtesy of Lala Karmela/Lala Karmela)
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span>For rock band Seurieus, the end came quick. “You get on stage, play the same songs, then you go home,” recalled Dinar Hidayat, their guitarist. “You forget to ask your bandmates how they’re doing. You forget that they’re your friends, and that you’ve fought for this for years. We didn’t realize that we were slowly losing ourselves.”
In 2008, just after the release of their fourth album Serdadu Rock, vocalist Candil suddenly announced his exit. “We didn’t stop to empathize with Candil. All we knew was, we were at the peak of our career,” Ramah recalled, ruefully. “Seurieus was touring constantly, playing at least four times a week. Some of us had mortgages and bought cars. This was a disaster.”
As gig offers stopped and Candil refused to return, financial ruin loomed for the members. At the time, Ramah had a side job as a lecturer at Jakarta State University (UNJ), but Seurieus was his dream and, crucially, his main source of income. “I sold off most of my equipment to sustain my lifestyle,” he said. “Eventually, I even sold my car.”
Dinar himself faced a slew of personal problems. “Things happened during those years that made me question my faith,” the 46-year-old revealed. “I began doubting that playing music was allowed in my religion.” Driven by a lust for spiritual renewal, he exited the band soon after. Having lost two of its founding members, the once formidable rock gods slowly withered into obscurity.
Around that time period, Beage’s burgeoning career began to drift. Their second album floundered amid low sales, a messy promotional campaign and poor management. After they exited Music Factory and signed with a different artist management, they realized the full extent of their troubles.
“Our new management asked us, ‘How could you sell 400,000 copies but no promoter even in small cities wants to take you on? That makes no sense',” Carlos recalled. “Those numbers didn’t tell the whole story. We realized far too late that the only real winners here were Music Factory and KFC.”
