Macon Magazine

70 maconmagazine.com | June/July 2025 level [was]. I think there are people who just was like, eh, "I don't really feel like it. I got used to not going out at night." But I think when I look around at other colleagues and just in terms of shows, I do think audiences are getting back to one, because there's nothing like seeing a live show. MORRISON: There's starting to be a backlash, I think, about screen time and about staying at home in isolation. KILCREASE: I feel like from a fan perspective… it all has steadily been recovering. But young kids just don't have the etiquette or the training or the knowledge of how to go to a show, because there weren't those shows. There's not the scene that's being built because of it. WRATH: There always has been a big opportunity in Macon for some kind of cultural shift, in terms of not even just young people, but anyone coming out to a show, to be more social and support local artists. The colleges are so big. MADDUX: When you think about the economics of a gig – whether it's travel, the gear, the time and prep, whatever the travel is – how does compensation usually stack up? MIMS: I get paid better out of town, than I do here. WRATH: There are a lot of venues. We are kind of locked in a competitive base pay with acts who may be okay with playing for free. So that creates a range of, it can be anywhere from zero to 500 bucks, but usually it's non-negotiable unless you have some sort of representation. But that's what's keeping Macon a music scene, and not so much a music industry. MORETTI: You don't want to price yourself out, but you also don't want to be taken advantage of. What strikes me funny about the perception of artists and musicians, nobody has a qualm when an athlete gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per day. Right? But God forbid a musician wants to charge $250 or $300 to play a gig. It's like you should be doing this for fun. MELVIN: Depends on what kind of music you're doing. LATHAM: Yeah, original music always gets paid way less than if… MELVIN: You play a 45-minute set of something that you love and that you made. Or do you want to play a three-hour, four-hour bar gig for a bunch of people that really just want to hear a jukebox? That depends on what you are willing to do. As a musician, I don't put my nose up in the air at anybody that takes a hundred or $150 solo. But I don't want necessarily – especially in my own hometown, when I know there's going to be people there – want to take a $300 full band gig. WRATH: And all of us have played for beer at least once, I'm sure. KILCREASE: That's at least 10 hours of y'all's time that I take from [the band] when we go out and play in Atlanta. We have to… load in and drive there and everything. It's pretty much, standard base price, $250 as support in Atlanta. It's way less here, but it would be less time. MELVIN: But we're talking for a 30, 45-minute set. Seventy-five bucks a head, for a 30-minute set. That's fine, really, to me, if I'm showing up and there's a backline. KILCREASE: But it's the 10 hours of your time though. DAVIS: I think we're kind of used to undervaluing ourselves, honestly. MELVIN: I look at it like… that's a hundred bucks in 10 hours or seventy-five bucks in 10 hours, where I could go and work a job and make like, $12-13 an hour. MORRISON: On the flip side of you all getting paid more out of town, do you all feel like out of town artists are valued more? WRATH: I believe there is a sort of residential bias that comes with local artists, and it is an assumption that our local artists are not maybe legitimate or have the accolades here to play bigger shows. MORETTI: Yeah, I think there's always this perception that, oh, it's better if it's from out of town. DAVIS: That's one of the reasons we try not to play a lot in Macon is because we don't want to oversaturate. MADDUX: Is there anyone in Macon who's getting it right? DAVIS: Brandon Lawler. I credited him in our album release program as the patron saint of downtown music. He reminds me to value myself. He's like, "You need to ask for more." And he cares about the sound reinforcement – it's a priority of TOP LEFT Alex Wrath in discussion at the artist roundtable. BELOW Cam Latham (left) and Caleb Melvin (right) share a laugh at the roundtable.

• Cover