Ray Pride has an excellent interview with Tim Kinsella a musician and filmmaker. I was struck by the reality Tim has lived since being in bands and making movies for almost no money:

The cost/benefit ratio has certainly stayed about the same, that is, lousy from day one, but I think I have just changed some. I was perfectly happy drifting around a different city every day for months at a time through my twenties and just being able to get away with it was enough. If we could make enough money traveling that I wouldn't need to work too much when I got home then I'd be able to work on the next record and recording is when I truly feel most myself and most alive and like I am doing what I should be doing. And having just returned from some adventure, I'd have plenty of material to think through. But touring eventually becomes twenty-three hours a day of mostly waiting around. You can't get anything done.

He pays the bills by bartending. Here is the trailer to his film Orchard Vale.