Idon’t know what allows someone to say that they're a musician, and I am free to debate the topic pretty much never. It’s as grey an area as knowing when it’s safe to say that any form of art is particularly good.

It’s objective and up to the brain of the individual. I go either way on it personally but in small talk I usually fall back on saying I’m a musician by trade.

I don’t like talking about money because it’s none of your damn business but for the sake of the article I’ll be vague. I don’t make much but I really don’t pay much anymore when it comes to music and I still have to maintain a day job.

“But Devon! Punk isn’t about making money. Poop Poop Poop!”

To quote a better artist than myself.

“I wish I had more money then I have. I know it isn’t punk but I’d like to pay my rent. I can’t survive without money.”

That’s from an Andrew Jackson Jihad song called ‘Candle in the Wind (Ben’s Song)’. It sums up what most musicians at the any other level than super rich probably feel.

Look, I hate to pull the veil up from you die hard music listeners but all of your favorite musicians in the scene have a life behind the act. Yes, a few of us can pull off the long haul degenerate thing and do it well but most people like to go home to their respective partners or families and live a calmer existence for at least a short period of time.

When I’m meeting someone new and engaging in small talk if the question of “what I do” is brought up I respond with, “I’m a musician.” After a little further explanation and insight into my touring schedule and the like I’m sometimes, if the person has no knowledge of music as an industry, am met with the this reaction.

“THAT’S SO COOL!”

Honestly I don’t hear a lot of the time that anything I do is cool. Yet for some reason the initial reaction is often that of the aforementioned. As the conversation furthers I often ask what they do for a living because I’m not an impolite dick hole. More times then not its met with a statement I’ve grown to loathe.

“Oh I’m just an accountant,” or “I’m just a stay at home whatever, nothing like what you do.”

Well you know what I think is cool? What you do. I know it sounds weird but everyone suffers the outside looking in complex. When someone tells me that they just had their first kid and make enough money to support themselves and that new person they shat out I get the same feeling they get hearing what I do.

Sometimes I like to think what it would be like to come home to a different form of stability. Touring is an amazing lifestyle but what people forget is that it’s like any other job. You can be fired. Your brain tires of monotony and there is usually busy work or down time that sucks the soul right out of you.

You love the job itself and never want to leave but sometimes wonder what it would have been like had you took that other fork in the road. It’s a side of entertainers we don’t often think about. That they are human. That they wanted to do something else. That they are complete morons.

Just like everyone can’t do what I do, I can’t do what everyone else can do. I can’t maintain phosphate levels in the cities drinking water and fuck I’m glad that someone can. For without that person I’d be drinking human fecal matter and to them I say, “No man, you’re cool.”

Something fun to try: Choose a real celebrity and think of their character. I like to choose Taylor Swift. Think of the character she has worked so hard to craft.

This forever adolescent beacon of beauty and teenage angst that leads a literal fairy tale lifestyle. You can do it to anyone. Hell, let’s choose someone like Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead. A symbol of reckless abandon that is one of the last few remaining purveyors of the American rock n’ roll lifestyle. Whoever. Just choose a character.

Ok? You got one? Now think of them with gut wrenching, bowl staining diarrhea. That diarrhea that you get after a night of heavy drinking and late night meat scrap Mexican food. Basically hot oatmeal falling from your bottom hole. Now that the image is fresh in your skull remember that everyone, no matter what profession or walk of life has dealt with bowel cleansing diarrhea. Thus, making everyone equal.

DEVON KAY

Devon Kay plays in Direct Hit!, Devon Kay & the Solutions & when he’s available in The Fur Coats. Tweet him, or Facebook, and expect more articles where he thinks out loud for you to read.