One of the primary incentives for becoming an artist, and making a living from your art, is the relative freedom it affords. Of course, it isn't always that simple. A successful artist can be as tied down to schedules and fixed relationships as any company employee, but freedom from those obligations seems more possible.
Liam O Maonlai, the leader of Irish rock band Hothouse Flowers, talks about freedom a lot, and it becomes apparent that he's freer now as an artist than he was when his band was at its commercial peak in the late 1980s and early '90s. In fact, the desire for freedom was the reason the band broke up in 1994.
"That's the thing," he says. "We did that for seven years, and now we don't any more. Even if we're playing a big show, we stay away from set lists. People can be very obedient to certain forms, and it shouldn't be that way with rock 'n' roll, you know?"