NOFX manager Kent Jamieson describes himself as “not that ambitious.”
For example, his lack of ambition lead him to create a highly successful, all-ages, punk club so he could bring top punk band from around the world to play in his home town. He then learned to work the sound board, and was hired to be the house sound guy for local and touring bands.
The band NOFX must have related to Jamieson’s lack of ambition. A Van’s Warped Tour mainstay, NOFX has being playing together since the early 1980s, recording more than a dozen studio albums, and have been touring for close to thirty years all over the world.
In the early 1990s NOFX was looking to bring a sound guy on a tour in Europe. Jaimeson called Fat Mike, singer and bass player for NOFX, about the job, and Mike immediately hired Jamieson.
A year after being their sound guy NOFX hired Jamieson to be their touring manager. The band continued to grow in popularity and eventually NOFX asked Jamieson to be their full-time manager.
“I manage them, I manage the tours, and I book most of the tours. We have an agent in Europe, but I do all of North and South America and the rest of the world as well. So, I essentially do everything,” Jamieson said.
Oh, and he manages Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, a cover band of punk rock all-stars. Perhaps my definition of ambition is different than Jamieson’s.
The good news is that “non” ambitious people like Jamieson have found success in the music industry. Finding a way to work in the music industry in a small Canadian town helped him create the work ethic and the connections to tour the world for 20 years and more.
Jamieson has also seen the dramatic change in the music business over the decades. According to Jamieson, there was a belief in the late 1990s that bands could continue to make money of their catalogues of music even after a band breaks up. Yet now that money has all but dried up.
“Touring is defiantly the main income source for musicians now,” Jamieson said. “Putting out your music is really just promoting your band as a live entity.”
In the digital age of music there is not enough money for bands to live on. NOFX continues to have a large fan base, but too much of this generation of fans do not believe in paying for music. There is not enough money to sustain musicians who do not tour. “Selling music digitally is working out fairly well, but it ain’t nothing like it used to be,” Jamieson said.
The record labels are not helping much either. A few are making the transition, but most are not. And the ones that are struggling have never been know for their musician friendly business models. “Life for bands on major labels sucked for band in the 90s when things were good. I can’t image how it is now,” Jamieson said. “A new band should absolutely go it alone, because at this point a record label is going to want some of their touring merchandise.”
Yet as much as things change, making in the music industry has always been hard. “ You’ve got a one in a million shot,” Jamieson said. “There is still a chance to make a living at it for sure…the challenges really haven’t changed that much. You need to be good. You need good songs, be entertaining, and you need perseverance more than anything on top of that.”
“Really good songs are always going to be the mainstay of bands, no matter what the format they deliver,” Jamieson said. You will also need Jamieson’s questionable “lack of ambition.”
image by Edvill
Brett Lohmeyer is an editor for detone8.com and an online producer for the Globe-Democrat. Brett has worked in different aspects of the media industry for several years including The Montage, The St. Louis Beacon, The Webster-Kirkwood Times and SLPS Channel 20 in St. Louis, Mo. 
