September 1, 2004
Billy Ebeling, back in the day busking in New Zealand. Perhaps
Lawrence's most veteran full-time musician, Ebeling has made ends
meet with music for nearly 20 years. "What's health insurance?
I'll just take my sick ass back to Australia."
Stories this photo appears in:
In it for the money: When Lawrence's finest aren't rocking your ass off, they're slumming it for chump change
For every great and famous musician who's ever won a Grammy, had a hit single or packed stadiums with lighter-toting superfans, there's no doubt a lowly day-job story to be told. As legend has it, Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne wrote much of the band's early material while slinging hush puppies at a Long John Silvers; Johnny Cash spent three years going door-to-door selling appliances before walking into Sun Studios; Alex Van Halen nearly lost his finger working as a machine operator -- the list is long and frequently hilarious. For Lawrence's elite crop of working-class guitar slingers, day jobs aren't a footnote in some VH1 documentary but rather a way of life.
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