Alex Johnstone works in the gig economy, but not in the most recent sense of the term, which often means driving for Uber.
He plays music, specifically fiddle and mandolin, with a group called RapidGrass.
“I’ve been gigging for a living since 2001,” he said.
It’s easier to make a living playing bluegrass in Colorado than it is in other places, partly because the music is more experimental and jam band-ish in Colorado than it is in Appalachia, according to Johnstone. That makes the appeal broader.
“We are often hired to play corporate events and weddings, more than rock bands or jazz bands,” he said.
That’s because RapidGrass, which has a vocalist, also has musicians familiar with various genres.
“We can play the Pachelbel Canon,” he said, but the band also takes requests such as “Can you play Neil Young’s ‘Harvest Moon’?”
That said, making a living is a relative term.
“I’m not making incredible house-buying money or anything,” Johnstone said. “I make somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000 (a year). It takes a lot of gigging to make that money.”
His income is about par with the average: about $24,000 in Boulder County for the sector that includes arts, entertainment and recreation. It helps that Johnstone is single, with only his own mouth to feed. He also supplements his musician income by filling in as a caregiver at Imagine!, which provides various levels of support to developmentally disabled people in Boulder and Broomfield counties.
Johnstone got his start at the Princess Wine Bar in Crested Butte when a ski bum asked him to play with him.
“He liked what I could do …” Johnstone said. “I played “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and “Orange Blossom Special.”
The latter is sometimes known as the fiddler’s national anthem for its displays of fiddling virtuosity, some of which includes train sounds.
“We started making tips off the Texans,” Johnstone said. “It started there.”
He went on to form a band with friends called Spring Creek, which produced four albums, and along the way he moved to Lyons. In mid-2017, as he and his band members prepared for their eighth Clear Creek RapidGrass Bluegrass Festival in Idaho Springs, Johnstone said he’s happy to be where he is.
“There’s always been a ready and willing fan base for the jam band approach to bluegrass in Boulder County,” he said. “It’s how I continue to make my living.”
