Dec 16, 2022

Independent Country Artist Turns a Profit on Tour (by Selling Drugs)

Rising country singer Les Millage recently purchased one of Merle Haggard’s old tour buses and had it refurbished into a palace on wheels. Les has also upgraded he and his band’s (the Village) array of intruments and equipment in the past year. He’s turned a huge profit on the band’s recent tour, and they’ve done all this despite never having sold more than 2000 copies of an album, only sporadically selling out shows (mostly when opening for Mike & the Moonpies), and never once being featured on Saving Country Music. So how does Les do it?

“Pills,” laughed Millage. “What you need?” He went on to explain that he’s been a ‘go to’ guy since high school and that he only got into country music while bored during a 2015 ice storm in his native South Carolina. “Yeah, I hope to make singing the main income source eventually, but until then, we have a ‘backing interest’ in the band.”


Many smaller music acts have found difficult footing in recent years, with Spotify payouts being so minuscule, and music venues taking cuts of the merchandise, it’s hard to keep a four-piece on the road. Most bands just grind it out, doing their own publicity, and holding down regular jobs when they’re home, but not Les. 


“I only go home to pick up product,” he explained. “Whatever my plug has got, I can move it. I’m more broke when I’m off tour.”


Millage opened up a road case that was made for housing an amplifier to reveal a pharmacy. “Word has gotten around, so people just come up to the bus before and after shows and we do the do,” Said Les. “I won’t sell meth, crack, or heroin… gotta have a code… but whatever else you’re in the market for, we got ya. Weed, Benzos, xannies, jellies, jets, shrooms, whatever… and I can even put in a special order for DMT or half moon… my guy is the best.”


Millage, best known for his song “Jesus and Southern Pacific,” revealed to us that his previous tours lost $1,905 and $3,002 respectively, and that he’d only made about thirteen bucks off Spotify streams. He would not say how much the current tour had made because "Feds watchin' ...and I'm just joking about the pills. I'm just good at budgeting." 


At press time, Les Millage and the Village were playing Jackson, Mississippi for $65 and a bar tab, but he expected to net around $950 for the night.


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