Change of Plans
How life has changed for musicians during the pandemic Story by Josie Long
Bob Schnieder posing for Discogs. (Photo by Discog)
Musicians play a big part in how culture has evolved, but when lockdown began because of COVID-19, musicians have had to adapt to their new lifestyle. Bob Schnieder is a musician who began his career in Austin, and later moved on to expand his reach over various places. Shaan Shirazi is an Austin based musician who plays bass guitar for a few bands around the city. During the COVID-19 pandemic, both have been affected in various different
ways and were forced to adapt the ways they perform for different audiences. One big change Schnieder made during the pandemic was in how he played shows: “I was on tour in Belgium, and we had to cut it short by week because of the pandemic. I remember it was Friday the 13th. We had about five more shows at the end of the weekend, and then we were going to be gone. Then that’s when the President said travel from Europe was going to
be suspended as of that weekend, so we had to hustle and then change all our plans to go from Antwerp to Amsterdam to Portugal to Chicago to Austin.” Shirazi was also affected in other ways by the pandemic since he wasn’t able to tour and wasn’t able to have live shows to make revenue. The change in his lifestyle affected which careers he wanted to pursue. “The pandemic made me pick up a new career as well. Learning how to do appliance repair was just something I never thought to do before because I always had an office job. This made me think of a new career or a way to make money to offset the money that I’m not making playing music.” This is a regular occurence in the music industry now, since so many small musicians have not been able to go out and play for
Bob Schneider in the cover of his album A Perfect Day. Photo Credit: Bob Schneider
