The Musician vs. The Fan

Queen Kwong and I shoot the shit about the symbiotic relationship between artists and listeners, the tradeoff between passion and paycheck, and what it really means to live "the dream."

Nobody is immune to parasocial relationships.

When I first read

Queen Kwong

’s piece about being an American Apparel model, I was intrigued. By the time she published “The Rockstar Must Die,” I knew we’d be friends.

Call me creepy, but I was right. We met up in London a few times last month, mostly to day drink, sometimes to “talk shop,” always to kvetch. I wanted to interview her. She wanted to interview me. We decided to interview each other.

Below, eavesdrop on our conversation about loving music, needing music, what it means to be successful, and how music hits differently on stage and off.

Stick with us until the end, because Carré has been sitting on an insane new project that she’s finally going to tell us about.

The Musician (Carré, aka Queen Kwong, left) and the Fan (Gabbie, right)

CARRÉ: What’s your draw to music? You don’t play music but you devote your time and energy to writing about music and listening to it. Why? What do you get from it?

GABBIE: I joke that I got into writing about music because of a deeply rooted inferiority complex. Music is everything to me, but writing is the only way I can participate in it. This is the only way I get to be “with the band.” It's sad, really. I envelop myself in music constantly. It helps me process emotions. It sends me down historic rabbit holes. It soundtracks my entire life and pulls out memories from the ether like Proust's madeleines. But I can't make it myself. I can't even conceptualize how one would do such a thing.

I do actually come from a very musical background, though. My half sister is an opera singer. My dad plays accordion professionally (but he has a steady unrelated day job, so it's for fun, really). My cousin plays both bass and organ. My (full) sister was a classically trained pianist once upon a time. Frankly, I'm pretty much the only person in my family without any musical talent. Tack that onto going to undergrad at a college attached to one of the world's best music conservatories, and you have the makings of a real villain origin story.

Music is everything to me, but writing is the only way I can participate in it. This is the only way I get to be “with the band.”

When we hung out, you basically told me you're my polar opposite though. Making music is the easy part, but listening to music doesn't interest you? Is that right?

CARRÉ: We’re not polar opposites! I think a lot of people get into pursuing a career in music because of a deeply rooted inferiority complex. Or, a deeply rooted complex of some sort. So that makes sense. I also can relate to using music to help process emotions. For me, making music has always been a means of expression and a way of processing things in real time – especially when I’m playing shows. So much so that I sometimes worry it’s the only way I know how to express myself. When I play shows, it’s probably the only time I feel completely comfortable in my own skin.

But I’m not much of a “music lover.” Music has saved my life many times but it’s also nearly destroyed me just as many times. Nowadays, listening to music doesn’t really interest me. Honestly, the making of it doesn’t always either. It’s just what I do because it’s who I am. Being a musician has never felt like a choice.

For me, making music has always been a means of expression and a way of processing things in real time, so much so that I sometimes worry it’s the *only* way I know how to express myself.

Of course there are artists, songs, and records that are profoundly important to me, ones that will always move me. But in general, I prefer silence. That’s why I’m always intrigued by “The Music Lover.” And forever grateful to people like you, who actively listen and support musicians. Without music lovers, I wouldn’t have a career. I don’t want to disappoint people, but a lot of musicians I know feel the same way as me. I think the professional musician and the fan are almost two different types of people. We need each other, and we provide something for each other. But we’re coming from different places as professional musicians and fans of music. Does that make sense?

GABBIE: It does make sense. It’s definitely a symbiotic relationship.

This also not the first time I've noticed that musicians aren’t exactly enamored with music, necessarily. When I started New Bands for Old Heads, I thought one of the things I could do regularly to get new music in front of people is to interview musicians I liked and ask them what they were listening to. I thought that would be such a clever trick. It turns out almost nobody had anything to tell me. I got a load of responses like, “I don't even have time to listen to my own music!” After a while I totally gave up. Musicians don't listen to music, is what I decided. Or a certain subset don't.

CARRÉ: Maybe not playing music or only playing music as a hobby is what allows people to enjoy it in such a pure way. Perhaps trying to be an artist in the music business corrupts that. Do you think you’re able to enjoy it because it’s something that has only given to you, rather than taken from you? You’ve been comforted and entertained by listening to music. But you haven’t been judged, critiqued, hated, or had your heart broken because of your involvement in making it. Or have you?

GABBIE: I can't pretend that there's any comparison between our experiences with music, but all of these things have happened to me because of my involvement with music. Because of my obsession with it and my insistence on staying so close to it despite (because of?) my inability to create it.

CARRÉ: Wow. So, we’ve actually had similar experiences. Your obsession with music and my innate need to make it has put us in perilous situations.

GABBIE: There’s less on the line for me, so I won’t claim “perilous” for myself, but certainly painful and rage-inducing. The most common experience always boils down to gatekeeping, almost always from men. We've all had the stereotypical “oh, you like a band? Well, name three of their non-album singles in chronological release order” interaction. But that's not even what I mean. I just get excluded from conversations entirely (or I was, more often when I was younger).

Gabbie’s version of a meditative sound bath: listening to three bands simultaneously at a music festival.

I remember going to a party in law school where a group of guys – guys I liked, guys I was friends with! – were talking about the Beastie Boys, one of my all time favorite bands. I kept trying to pipe up, to talk about the samples on Paul's Boutique (which they were mixing up with Hello Nasty, funnily enough) but I was totally steamrolled. I had only been writing record reviews for five years at that point. Maybe now they would take me seriously, now that it's been twenty. I doubt it, though. I have dozens of examples like this, ranging from mild annoyance to frothing vitriol.

And of course my heart has been broken by an embarrassing number of floppy haired guitarists.¹

I ultimately feel deeply unserious about all this because I'm somewhere between fan and critic. I'm not a professional anything (not in the music industry, anyway). I never had the balls to follow my dreams and become my own version of a rock star. So yeah, despite what I've described, I've definitely chosen the “hobby” option and that comes with so much less risk and pain. My steady, boring office job sustains me and there's absolutely nothing rock’n’roll about that.

I ultimately feel deeply unserious about all this because I'm somewhere between fan and critic. I've chosen the “hobby” option and there's absolutely nothing rock’n’roll about that.

Once again, you're essentially my foil – two artsy millennials diverged in a wood and I took the path traveled by literally everyone else. You took a fucking risk. You're living “the dream.” But I get there's a starving artist trope for a reason.

CARRÉ: I guess the question is, what is the dream? I’ve been trying to figure that out for the last few years. I realized pretty soon after arriving in LA that the Hollywood, rockstar version of “the dream” wasn’t all it was chalked up to be. Getting to know so many famous and successful people who were so miserable and empty made me question everything. Yet, I stayed in LA for nearly 20 years just because it felt like I was supposed to. And it’s the kind of place where the longer you stay, the harder it is to leave.

Carré, living “the dream.”

In hindsight, I think it’s crazy that I was hustling so hard for a career that I knew wouldn’t bring me happiness. I suppose when I was younger, happiness wasn’t a priority. I had a very unhappy childhood. For a long time happiness was like some abstract concept. So, success to me was being able to be a full time artist, whether I was happy or not.

Then, a few years ago, I was like… wait, wait, wait. Maybe I do want happiness. And money. Fame has always grossed me the fuck out. I never wanted fame. But, money… yeah, I want money. I need money. Money is security. The older I get, the more I can accept that. I’m no longer 20 years old thinking, “I’ll sleep on floors for the rest of my life as long as I get to tour.” So now, when I ask myself: what is THE dream? I think it’s happiness and financial security. But it’s a mindfuck because where does being an artist fit into that??

Fame has always grossed me the fuck out. I never wanted fame. But, money… yeah, I want money.

I look at you and I’m like, you get PAID for your WORK? That’s mindblowing! You get financially compensated on a regular basis for your time and efforts? Whhaaa? Health insurance? Paid vacation?! STFU!! And because you have all that stuff, you’re able to spend time doing things you love like writing about music. So, I think you’re living the dream. Good job, Gabbie.

GABBIE: Ha! Yeah, good job me, getting into six figure student loan debt just to get into a moderately slimy corporate office job. I get what you’re saying, though. You really can’t overstate the importance of stability for mental health, and that steady paycheck is what gives me the freedom to indulge my creative pursuits (such as they are), even if I’d rather be working on those full time.

This isn’t the same thing, but I remember what life was like graduating into the great recession, and it was NOT FUN never knowing where your next pay day would come from, and how long you’d get by on it. It wouldn’t have been much comfort for me if the work I had been doing had been some artistic endeavor I felt passionate about. Money is money. Looking back, I don’t feel super romantic about it. I just have this sense of, maybe if I weren’t so safe and boring I would try to do this whole writing thing for real.

Gabbie, living “the dream” (about to see Pulp with fellow music writer David Coleman)

Okay, so I think many of us have read the various thinkpieces at this point about how even award-winning, breakout artists aren’t earning enough to live on. But by all accounts we still think of them as “successful,” probably because the general public equates success with name recognition. So what are these artists actually doing to make a living, if music isn’t it? What are you doing? How do different artists define success differently? Obviously I’m not talking about Taylor Swift and her private jet(s), here.

CARRÉ: Celebrity culture has really gotten out of hand. What the general public perceive as success is smoke and mirrors.

People who aren’t in the music industry would be really surprised by how many professional musicians make their real wealth via avenues that don’t have anything to do with music (real estate investments, brand partnerships, makeup lines). But you first need fame and money to cultivate those opportunities. Mid-level indie bands don’t really have an upwards trajectory. Even the ones who are household names rarely have enough money to ever stop touring. And when you age out of touring 24/7, then what? If there’s another pandemic, then what?

Financial and artistic success should be defined separately, and independent of each other. If you tie artistic success to money or mass appeal, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

I talk about this with my friend Izzy from Black Honey a lot. She’s respected, she’s known, but her financial stability comes from tattooing. She makes money doing something she loves, and music doesn’t have to be her entire livelihood. That’s what success is to her. That’s the balance I want to figure out: how to make a living outside of music, but still through something I find inspiring.

Financial and artistic success should be defined separately, and independent of each other. If you tie artistic success to money or mass appeal, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Unless you’re chasing TikTok trends or whatever. Even then, you’re a flash in the pan. I never gave a fuck about winning popularity contests. But, by not prioritizing mass appeal, I may have self-sabotaged in a way because it’s so hard now without some kind of viral potential.

I grew up listening to Royal Trux, Swans, Suicide, The Stooges. I thought I’d hit the jackpot if I could be anything like those bands. But can the equivalent to those bands in this day and age make money? Is there an equivalent to those bands? I guess what I’m really asking is whether a middle class still exists for bands today. Because I feel like it’s shrunk a lot, much like it has in the rest of western society.

Royal Trux (Domino)

GABBIE: I’m not the best person to address that question because I focus almost exclusively on small, up and coming bands and rarely pay attention to the inside baseball/industry nonsense of it all. The closest I can think of is possibly these prima facie hardworking, blue collar presenting bands that hit the (indie) mainstream after many years of slumming it. There are a number of post-punk acts that spring to mind: Fontaines D.C. or IDLES or Viagra Boys. They have millions of streams thanks to successful recent releases, but I don’t actually know if those translate to financial success. I have to assume that Fontaines D.C. at least are in that “middle class” ever since they put out Romance on XL.

Viagra Boys, Sheffield, August 28th, 2025

Generally I think you’re right, though, that there’s no way to find stability without some kind of outside support. I met a few other musicians on my recent UK jaunt, and they similarly have to find creative ways of supplementing their income, unsurprisingly, whether via Patreon or writing newsletters or freelancing or selling workshops. Most of my other musician friends play classical music, and every last one of them teaches lessons in their instrument to make a living outside of performance. They are their own commodities in a way. I think you have to be, right?

You started telling me about a new project you’re working on that might create a path out of the “go viral or give up” marketplace we’re finding ourselves in. Are you ready to tell the rest of the world about it?

CARRÉ: I wrote a piece called “You Don't Need a Record Deal, You Need a Community” because I honestly think community is the only future for artists. The internet connects us, but we’re more isolated than ever. But in the current financial climate, artists need to start working together if we’re going to survive.

So, I teamed up with a couple other musicians to start an artist collective that operates as a scene and releases music built around collaborative singles. I know a lot of “legendary” and famous musicians, but I’ve never been able to figure out a good use for them. Until now. Hahaha. Just kidding. Kind of.

Anyway, the collaborative singles are between bigger artists and emerging and/or smaller artists. So the bigger ones get to stay relevant and be part of an inspiring community, and they pay it forward by collaborating with smaller artists – giving them exposure, credibility, and a shot at being heard above the endless sludge Spotify spits out every day. That way, I hope to create a scene of musicians who can support each other with shared resources, connections, promotion, inspiration, etc. The collective is called SICK. We’re in the recording phase now and aiming to publicly launch and start releasing music next spring. I can’t give away too many details yet, but the roster² is pretty insane. You know all of this already, because you’re part of it!

GABBIE: Well, you TOLD me I’m part of it, but you haven’t given me homework assignments yet! I’m incredibly excited to get started. And I’m sure all of the up and coming musicians who read my newsletter will be equally excited that I may be able to funnel them over to you. I feel like a talent scout.

Seriously though, SICK is… well, sick. It’s such a great idea. Since we’re both world-weary, geriatric millennial cynics, though, I’ll ask you one last pessimistic question: do you have any thoughts about what you can do outside of music to make some money? Something that strikes that balance you were talking about?

CARRÉ: Besides being a Substack writer? Hahaha. I’m full of ideas, but few of them are profitable (yet!). The thing that’s given me the most purpose lately is death work. I’m a certified end-of-life companion, soon to have my death doula diploma. I offer advance planning, grief support, and death anxiety guidance. It sounds woo-woo, but it’s actually very practical. I’m not into euphemisms or pop-therapy jargon. I give it straight, which I think people find refreshing.

Coming from the entertainment industry, where you spend a lot of time up your own ass and around other people’s egos, it’s easy to lose faith in humanity and lose sight of what really matters. My doula training course is mostly made up of nurses and people who’ve dedicated their lives to helping others. They’re far more admirable and inspiring than any rockstar I’ve known. The work has brought a lot of joy and purpose to my life. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I felt so motivated and enriched by something. I just started a substack about it, and I also have a website people can visit if they want to learn more. You can’t truly fully live without accepting death, you know?

Shiny, happy people.

1. Embarrassing? At least you didn’t marry the guy in Limp Bizkit! -Carré

2. Nigel Godrich, Jamie Hince (The Kills), Fay Milton (Savages), Nick Valensi (The Strokes), Izzy B. Phillips (Black Honey), David J (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets) …just to name a few.