Fame & Fortune: Rocker Eddie Money
Drugs and windmills in past, he's a happy 'working slob'
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| Bankrate:
So by this point, did you have a solid investment strategy, or were you just letting
other people handle the money? Eddie Money:
I owned a couple of windmills, and I'm pretty good at owning my house. But there
were back taxes and all kinds of BS. It came and it went, I have no idea. I always
had a really good CPA that I trusted. I don't think anybody really ripped me off.
Bankrate: Windmills? Eddie
Money: Yeah, at one time. They were in the Altamont Pass area of California.
I went to look at them, there were 9,000 windmills. I didn't know which ones were
mine. I wondered, "What kind of investment is this? Bankrate:
Were they profitable for you? Eddie Money:
Yeah. It was a big tax write-off. You're making a lot of money; you're looking
for shelters. When you're in that upper tax bracket, they're taking 51 percent
of your money. Bankrate: You continued
recording in the 1990s, but didn't quite have the impact on the charts you had
had earlier. What was your biggest source of income during this period? Eddie
Money: Live shows. I've never really stopped playing live. The Eddie Money
tour is continuous. When you have five kids, you'll do anything to get out of
the house. We play a lot of casinos, we do shows with Styx, REO Speedwagon, Survivor,
Loverboy. We put a nice package together. I got my sobriety behind me; I don't
smoke cigarettes anymore, my weight's down. Life is pretty good. Bankrate:
How many live shows do you do a year now? Eddie
Money: About 140. I try to get out every weekend. Bankrate:
What do you command for a live show now? Eddie
Money: Anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000. From that, you've got to pay for
the band, tour bus, taxes, per-diems, sales commissions. I give the CPA, like,
3 percent of the gross, then 9 percent for the booker. There are a lot of bills.
I ain't making the money that Sting or the Rolling Stones make, but then again
I'm not like Keith Richards, falling out of coconut trees drunk. Bankrate:
How long have you been clean? Eddie Money:
About four or five years, on and off. It's a disease. It can come back and bite
you in the ass. Bankrate: What
is your biggest source of income at this point? Eddie
Money: The touring is a big source of income, and I'm working on a Broadway
show now called "Two Tickets to Paradise" that takes place in the late
1960s. It's like Godspell, Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar. I'm writing a show
about me quitting the police department, moving to California, getting the record
deal, having the drug overdose, being the heartthrob of MTV. I'm gonna sell 49
percent of the play and keep 51 percent. It'll be a nice nest egg for my kids,
and a lot of people think the play's gonna make it, because it has songs like
"Two Tickets to Paradise" in it, "No Control," the song about
the overdose, the Eddie Money songs that were very, very famous. Then I'm writing
some new songs for the play. Bankrate:
Do you have funding for that, or are you hoping to sell it? Eddie
Money: I'm hoping to sell it, and I have a big company in New York that's
interested. | 
