There are a lot of misconceptions about the life of a musician. It’s rarely glamorous. Most musicians have day jobs – and not just to pay the bills. Jobs provide new challenges, personal fulfillment and, yes, some rent or gas money. And usually when somebody is writing a new record or scheduling a tour, they have to balance that with their job.
How an artist spends their time by day will influence the creative process at night. In Don’t Quit Your Day Job, Scene Point Blank looks at how musicians split their time, and how their careers influence their music or – sometimes – how their music provides escape.
In this edition, we chat with Larry Kole. Kole is a roofer by day and bassist of The Bloody Lips (and formerly of The Lippies) by night.
Scene Point Blank: First, can you share a bit about your job title(s) and background? You're a roofer. How did you get interested in this industry and when?
Larry Kole: That's the funny thing. I never actually had any interest in becoming a roofer. I'm a fourth generation roofer. My great grandfather got a quote to get a roof on his barn. He decided he could do it himself a lot cheaper, hahaha! So here I am, 4 generations later. My dad was the first one to make a full-time business out of it. I wasn't a terribly motivated teenager. I had to have a job, and roofing was just there. In all honesty, I hated it until about 10 years ago. Manual labor is hard enough, but working for family is a billion times harder. It put a lot of strain on the relationship between my dad and I.
Scene Point Blank: What was your job path that led you to roofing? How did you figure out that it was right for you?
Larry Kole: My dad said I had to have a job if I wasn't going to go to college. He thought that the threat of physical labor would move me to be more into a college path. What he didn't count on was the fact that I'm a stubborn bastard. Years later I would finally give college a try, but in the end it just wasn't my thing. About 10 years ago, I finally appreciated how the physical labor and the problem solving involved helped my mental health, so I leaned into the roofing thing.
"My dad thought that the threat of physical labor would move me to be more into a college path. What he didn't count on was the fact that I'm a stubborn bastard."
Scene Point Blank: When did you first become serious about being a musician and, in comparison, when did you start roofing? In other words, do they overlap and was one "established" before the other?
Larry Kole: Music was always a big thing in my life. As a teen, I wanted to either draw comic books or be a rock star. In order to afford instruments, I needed a job. The only reason I worked was to get money to feed my music habit. One couldn't have existed without the other, hahaha!
Scene Point Blank: Did playing in bands influence your career choice?
Larry Kole: Only in the sense that playing in basements and dive bars never really paid anything.
In all honesty, I have dumped an insane amount of money into whatever bands I was in over the years. It's very difficult for a band to survive off of the money it generates playing shows and selling merch. Even a few years ago, I booked a tour for The Bloody Lips to New Mexico and back. I think we lost about $5000 that week between fuel, food, and booze.We played a small show at a bar in Tulsa, OK on that run. At the end of the night, they said we, as a band, rang up the highest tab they had ever seen a band drink. And if I remember correctly, only 3 out of the 4 of us were actually drinking. Maybe a band can financially work better if the band is actually fiscally responsible, hahahaha! So thank goodness I had roofing money to back us.
Scene Point Blank: Definitely a good perspective on this. But I was more curious if you choose roofing because maybe it’s more flexible for the way you’d like to tour. Do you think your playing in bands influenced the type of profession or schedule directly?
Larry Kole: Roofing was absolutely more flexible. I had found over the years that touring in summer was difficult due to all of the big music festivals and package tours. Getting shows as a no-name band in the midwest was hard and getting people in a new city to see a band they didn't know to show up was even harder. Roofing freed up the better touring months for me.
Scene Point Blank: How did the pandemic influence your work over the past year? Is it improving?
Larry Kole: The pandemic didn't really slow us down. At this point, the roofing crew consists of myself, my dad, and my Lippies/Bloody Lips bandmate Taylor. We were always kind of a small boutique operation. High end quality workmanship for a fair price. A very "working class" mindset. In a way, that always carried over into my bands. We were never really worried about making lots of money cuz we were just having fun. We all had jobs, so it wasn't like we ever relied on the band to support any of us. The idea of being able to live off money only came up right after The Lippies got signed and there were rumblings in the punk world that we were heading to bigger and better things. Both Fat and Epitaph were mentioned at one point. But I digress. We've always had a small crew, and I live with Taylor, so we were still able to work. Even with the pandemic going on, we stayed as busy as we always had in the past. Almost busier.
Scene Point Blank: It's cold in Michigan. What do you do in the winter? Is it seasonal work?
Larry Kole: We are fair weather roofers, hahaha! We really hate working in the cold. In my 30 years doing this, I've only roofed in the snow a handful of times. It's about as miserable as it sounds. I've been lucky in that I make enough in the summer that I really don't have to have a job in the winter. I pick up odd things here and there: Bartending, small repair jobs, drawing flyers for bands...things that get me drinking money. Otherwise I just lay pretty low in the winter and focus on my band(s).
"In my 30 years doing this, I've only roofed in the snow a handful of times. It's about as miserable as it sounds."
Scene Point Blank: Does your music ever come up on the job?
Larry Kole: I'm blessed that my job is so chill. I get to work with my bandmate. We talk about band stuff often. If we go into the studio, we are able to listen to what we recorded on the roof. We listen to music all day.
Even growing up on a roof, we always had a radio playing. I remember having a boom box with detachable speakers that I would rig at the peak of the roof and a booklet of cds to rotate throughout the day. I dare say that not many people have spent more time listening to music than I have over the past 46 years of my life. And every different genre and style.
Every once in a while, a customer will recognize Taylor or myself from playing in bands in Grand Rapids. That's always kind of fun.
Scene Point Blank: Are there a lot of "punk rock roofers" out there? Tell us a bit about the workplace culture.
Larry Kole: I've only worked for a few other companies between Michigan and New York, and I'm sure my experience isn't typical. What I can say is that the reputation in roofing is that you have to be insane or on drugs to run around a 90 degree roof for 10 hours a day for shit pay. That's pretty accurate. In the trades, roofers are either Hispanic, or they are meth head white trash ex-cons. I know a few "punk" roofers, but I think punk is more highly associated with kitchen culture. We are typically found in the back of the restaurant in the dish pit or working the line.
"The reputation in roofing is that you have to be insane or on drugs to run around a 90 degree roof for 10 hours a day for shit pay. That's pretty accurate."
Scene Point Blank: Has your music affected your ability to get a job -- questions about availability or concerns that your career might come "second" to music, or something?
Larry Kole: Not really. Essentially, I've been self-employed, so I could take any time off I needed. Even when I was bartending, my boss had no problem giving me any time off because he knew that touring and playing shows was a big part of my life. I also made him a lot of money booking shows at his bar, haha!
Scene Point Blank: From a distance, it seems like a seasonal position where summer is a heavy workload. How does the job affect your creative work or schedule?
Larry Kole: It absolutely has in recent years. Summer is when I make the majority of my income, so I've taken my bands and told them we really aren't going to do much during the summer. With the weather so nice, I like to spend as much time as I can enjoying it outside and just drinking with my friends. Band practice became difficult to schedule. Some days I just wasn't physically up for it.
Scene Point Blank: Has your work influenced any specific songs you've released?
Larry Kole: I just write music, so I'm sure some of the more aggressive songs come from a place of being angry at working so hard or being frustrated.
Scene Point Blank: What advice would you give to others who might be interested in roofing or a similar line of work?
Larry Kole: The trades are a dying beast. Hard labor sucks. It destroys your body. So unless you hate yourself, maybe don't do it.
Scene Point Blank: Anything you'd like to add?
Larry Kole: Work is called "work" for a reason. If work was fun, then it would be called "fun"! But I was also willing to break my back to maximize my income so that I could do fun things like play in bands, tour all over the US, and make sure that when I wasn't on the clock, I was living my best life. Totally worth it. Would definitely do it all over again!
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Check out previous entries in the Don’t Quit Your Day Job series.
Full disclosure: Kole is also a regular contributor to SPB.
