Independence at a Cost and the Harsh Reality of Being an Independent Artist Today
- Brainz Magazine
- Aug 18
- 4 min read
Written by Dylan Heidt, Recovery Coach
Dylan Heidt is a board-certified Recovery Specialist with a unique ability to draw from a wide pallet of extensive lived experience. A deep understanding of others enables him to connect with clients on a profound level, fostering meaningful growth and transformative change in the lives of everyone that he serves.
We’re living in an era where the tools to release music are in everyone’s hands, but those tools don’t come with instructions, support, or a safety net. The myth of the DIY artist thriving on pure grit and garage-band energy has never been more seductive, or more punishing. In truth, the road for independent musicians in 2025 is less a scenic highway and more a survival course with no water breaks.
Touring isn’t what it used to be
Touring, long viewed as the holy grail for independent acts to grow and make money, has quietly become a financial black hole. Unless you're already drawing hundreds of fans per city, you're likely paying to play, shelling out for gas, gear, lodging, food, and van rentals with little to no return. Forget a tour manager or crew. You're setting up your own merch table, settling with the venue, then crashing on someone's floor just to do it all again the next night.
When the numbers don’t add up, and they rarely do, artists are often left wondering if they’ve just invested in their career or buried it under debt.
The merch hustle
Merch is one of the last revenue streams an artist can control. But managing that hustle solo means being your own designer, production manager, logistics coordinator, and customer support team. Every hoodie shipped and every shirt folded is time not spent in the studio or on your craft.
Running an online store is a full-time job in itself, unless you’ve got a following big enough to justify hiring help, you’re the one fulfilling late-night orders, responding to DMs about lost packages, and fronting the money for reprints when things sell out, or don’t.
Social media: The necessary evil
There’s no such thing as “just” being an artist anymore. You’re also expected to be a content machine. TikToks, reels, livestreams, behind-the-scenes footage, and carefully curated aesthetics are not optional; they’re required if you want to stay visible in an oversaturated market. A great song with no algorithmic boost might as well not exist.
And the cruelest part? The platforms rewarding this content treadmill have nothing to do with artistry. Going viral doesn’t make you a better songwriter. It just makes you more marketable. So now, instead of refining their sound, artists are forced to study editing trends and jump on memes, hoping the algorithm throws them a bone.
Streaming is broken
Everyone knows the math by now: thousands of plays equal a few bucks. Spotify, Apple Music, and other platforms have given artists global reach, but at the cost of meaningful revenue. For indie artists, streaming isn't a business model; it’s a lottery ticket. If you don’t land on a playlist or get swept up by the algorithm, your music drowns.
And even if you do go viral, the payouts still don’t make rent. Exposure, as it turns out, isn’t income.
Working to work: The double life
Here’s the part no one wants to talk about: most independent artists have day jobs. Real, exhausting, soul-draining day jobs. Waiting tables, working retail, holding down office gigs, whatever keeps the lights on and the studio sessions funded. Nights and weekends are carved out for passion, not rest.
It’s a vicious cycle. You work all week to fund the music, but you now find yourself too tired to create. So you sacrifice your health and social life to chase a dream that, in the eyes of the industry, only matters if it “performs” online. Creativity becomes another shift in an already maxed-out schedule.
And yet, quitting the job isn’t an option. The music doesn’t pay enough, but the job leaves no time to grow the music. It’s a loop that burns people out long before they ever get heard.
It’s not just about passion anymore
Being independent used to mean having control. Now it just means doing everything yourself: booking, marketing, merch, content, admin, tech support, and, oh yeah, somewhere in there, the music.
This isn’t to say labels are saviors. But for the vast majority of indie artists, “freedom” is often code for “overwhelmed.” There’s power in owning your masters and controlling your vision. But let’s be honest, power doesn’t pay for van repairs, merch restocks, or health insurance.
The mental toll
What no one prepares you for is the emotional cost. Creating music used to be a form of expression. Now it’s one more performance metric. You’re not just judged by your sound anymore; you’re judged by your numbers, your aesthetic, your reach, how fast you respond to DMs, and how well you edit vertical video.
That’s not artistry, it’s labor. And it’s killing the love that brought people to music in the first place.
The bottom line
The indie artist grind is real, and it's often invisible. From the outside, it looks like freedom. On the inside, it feels like drowning in a system that was never built to sustain you.
We need to stop romanticizing the idea of “the starving artist” and start demanding real support for the people who create the culture we consume. Because right now, the industry isn’t broken for independent musicians, it’s working exactly as intended. Just not for them.
Read more from Dylan Heidt
Dylan Heidt, Recovery Coach
Dylan Heidt, formerly a thriving entrepreneur within the world of music, now spends the majority of his time helping his clients transform their lives via a holistic approach to long-term wellness and sustained recovery. A firm believer in maintaining total alignment of the mind, body, and spirit, Heidt strives to open doors and create new pathways for his clients, actively reshaping and restructuring the way in which they tend to think about the mind, body, and spirit as three seemingly separate entities, instead of one unified field of energy.
