I set out to play music as much as possible while still at school, knowing full well that to do so as much as I wanted would require working out how to make it pay- it's not about being a 'breadhead', but that to play as much as I wanted, it could only be done if there were enough proper payers to sort the bills.
It was quite a few years back that I was able to stop 'working' and could 'play' as my work. It has never been easy, and I don't expect it to ever result in a gold watch and a party, but 2020 was looking like breaking the back of the setup of one band in particular, so the real kick in the balls has been the stalling of progress on that. That said, we've done some solid leg-work and have enough traction from previous musical careers (HA! Careers... jeez) that the momentum feels backed up and ready to burst back into action. If anything, it feels that the wheat has been separated from the chaff over this time. Not a nice process, but ultimately valuable. There's probably some trite thing I could spout about learning who your real friends are in a crisis but, well, no-one like hearing that stuff.