Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic “Nothing. Zero. Nada. Didn’t care,” says Matt Thomson, frontman of rock band The Amazons. He’s talking about his interest, or lack of it, in tax affairs and income streams when the group formed in Reading, Berkshire, in 2014. Three UK top 10 albums later, however, The Amazons’ singer has a different attitude towards financial literacy. “In 2025, it’s everything,” he remarks, with a hint of ruefulness.No musician is drawn to a life in music to learn about dividend payments and tax filing dates. But understanding how their finances work is almost as important in the long run as knowing their scales. The Amazons, whose name was inspired by Arthur Ransome’s children’s book Swallows and Amazons, have been compelled to think of themselves as a business, not unlike the online behemoth Amazon. “Very much so,” Thomson says, “which goes against my instincts.” Twenty years ago, a top 10 act would have earned a decent amount from record sales. But songs are mainly streamed these days, not sold. Though Spotify made worldwide royalty payments of £7.7bn in 2024, the most in the platform’s history, complaints about low rates of return from streaming are rife. Compounding this is a collapse in touring revenues amid the cost of living crisis.“Since the pandemic, for the middle rung of touring musicians, the margins have just got smaller and smaller,” Thomson says. “And then you have to factor in the pathetic streaming revenue that we can make. Every pound and penny counts. In the years that you’re not touring or you’re not in an album cycle, you really have to make it your business to know where everything is going.”The 31-year-old and his two bandmates are currently busy with the campaign for their forthcoming album, 21st Century Fiction. “Because the margins have decreased for a band, we have looked at pretty much every dimension, whether it’s crew or commissioning someone to make a tour poster, and we’ve gone: Well, those fees are going up, we’re not making the money to pay for it, so we’ll have to learn to do it ourselves,” he says.In the past, bands became businesses as a result of being successful. The Beatles set up their first company, The Beatles Ltd, in 1963. It was created to lower their tax bill, two months after they received their first silver disc for the single “Please Please Me”. But musicians these days are often advised to incorporate themselves as a first step in their career, before the hoped-for hits start climbing the charts. “We had to explain to a couple of our artists the difference between being a sole trader and a private limited company,” says Moe Bah of 5K Records, a Sony Music-affiliated label and management company. “If you want to run it as an actual business, then you’re going to have to expense it and cost it and do it in the most efficient way. Some artists can abide by that and understand it and some are just a bit more uncontrollable, I would say.”Bah and his 5K Records partner Kilo Jalloh are based in London but run a global operation. West Africa’s booming music scene is a particular focus. One of their biggest hits has been “People” by the US-Cameroonian singer Libianca, which charted internationally in 2023 after initial success in Nigeria. Their roster operates across different territories, each with distinct tax laws and revenue rates for streaming. They want to set up a department, Bah explains, “to offer artists assistance in how to deal with receiving their first cheque or advance and prepare them for taxes and budgeting. It’s very important towards building a long- term career. If an artist’s finances are not in check then how do you expect them to focus on the creative side?” Jalloh laments the absence of financial literacy in music education, and UK schools more generally. “Especially if you’re not from a privileged background, coming across large amounts of money is like a eureka moment for an artist. It’s like, ‘This money can set me up for life.’ But it’s not all theirs.” His advice to budding recording artists is succinct: “Get an accountant on board.” Perhaps the most famous, and certainly the grandest, financial adviser in pop music was Prince Rupert Loewenstein, who managed the Rolling Stones’ money until 2007. In the book According to the Rolling Stones, he recalled taking on the role in 1968: “I was then a director of a small merchant bank and managed to persuade my partners that the financial problems of a prominent rock band were no different, in essence, from the problems of any other financial organisation that sought advice in the City of London.”Prince Rupert, a scion of Bavarian royalty, was hired by the business-minded, socially ambitious Mick Jagger, a former finance and accounting student at the London School of Economics. But it is more typical for a band or artist’s manager to point their client towards the services of a bean counter.“For musicians, who might get advances or large sums of cash at different times, actual financial planning is quite unusual, especially at a young age. It’s not how normal people operate,” says Paul Bonham of the Music Managers Forum, which represents about 1,500 managers in the UK. “Ideally, a manager and an artist would get a good accountant at the earliest stage possible.”“When an artist gets their first advance, from publishing or a record deal, that’s really when they need to go to the holy trinity of accountant, lawyer and banker,” says Paul Morris of London-based entertainment accountancy firm Hardwick and Morris. “Have they got the right structure in place? Are they putting enough aside to deal with Rachel Reeves? Are they up to date in their filing? Are they doing all the right things in terms of how they look after their money?” His colleague Olivia Fuller reckons that today’s generation of musicians are a bit more financially savvy than their predecessors. “They’re more on the ball in keeping records than some people were in the past, handing in a bag of receipts months down the line. But I think there’s still a lack of education about when they should be doing it.”The Amazons benefited from a helpful accountant in their early days, based at a firm in Slough — a far cry from Prince Rupert’s milieu. “He was just brilliant,” Thomson recalls. “He was this kind of seven foot Dickensian character who just put an arm around us. He knew nothing about music whatsoever, but he knew how to make us tax efficient and clever with our money.” It took a couple of years for the band to start earning enough to pay themselves a regular wage (a couple of them have private pensions). During that time, Thomson worked in a supermarket. “I remember we all got £10,000 when we signed a record deal in 2016 and I was just completely beside myself,” he says. “I remember looking at my bank account, like: Oh my God, there’s £10,000 in there! It was a really amazing moment. And then I left my job stacking shelves at Waitrose.”They pool their earnings as a band. “It’s all about putting it all in the pot and paying ourselves a steady wage, as tax efficiently as possible. That approach completely saved our bacon during Covid,” Thomson says. In 2016, they began giving themselves a monthly wage of £500. The total went up until the pandemic, then dropped, and has since climbed again. Meanwhile, their last album reached number five in the UK charts. “Buying a house is out of our grasp, even with top 10 records,” the band’s frontman says. Amid all the cost-cutting and belt-tightening, the bottom line remains their music. “Quite simply, money is longevity,” Thomson says. “It’s about building fanbases over time. For that, you need money. It’s the only way to stay in the game.”
