DS wants to charge

Expecting him to work for free suggests everything he’s worked hard for for the past 3 years isn’t worth anything.

Agreed you shouldn’t expect something for supporting your kids, but you’d surely hope that they’d be humble enough to not want paying and grateful that they were only in a position to get paid gigs because you’d made sacrifices to pay for their studies.

He sounds superior and entitled. I’d tell him to shove his guitar where the sun don’t shine and tell him that you cannot continue to fully fund him now that he’s making money from gigs.

Definitely don’t pay him.

Does he live at home?

Scale back what you do for him. Massively.

If you're hiring a band, you pay the band's fee, not the band's fee minus a percentage because one of them is your son.

He's a kid trying to make a few quid with his pals...put your hand in your pocket!

Exactly this.

The son is a third year student, being funded by his parents. They've asked for a small favour, for a special birthday, and he's their son. Any nice person son would be delighted to offer to do this for his lovely parents. I seriously don't understand people who think otherwise.

Eek he sounds quite grabby.

It was not cool to single him out as the one not being paid. I think I would always have planned to pay them if they're good.

@CompleteOvaryAction comes across as entirely reasonable. Says she has done work for family and friends and charged nothing. This is a really normal thing that nice people do.

Of course she'd pay expenses/costs of materials if her son were an electrician and did some work for her.

Of course you should pay one fee to the band, not indvidu Members. Maybe with a parent discount. But if they regularly get paid work then they should be free to earn full whack somewhere else.

its tricky as a band as he doesn’t get final say it’s a group choice. His other members might not want to play a discounted show when they can earn more.

tell him what you can offer and let him take or leave it. There’s no need to guilt him, it maybe less hassle to just hire someone else.

Yay we’re having a big joint birthday party, shall we get a builder to pop a wall up or a sparky to do some re-wiring whilst we light the candles on the cake?

Not the same at all!!!

It feels strange to me not to treat a son you love, and presumably want to carve out a successful career in the music industry, as a musician worthy of payment, to show how proud you are of him, if nothing else. You are proud of him being in a band good enough to get paid gigs, aren’t you?

I play in a band and have played friends' and family functions.

They'll get mates' rates to an extent (generally 10-15% less than MU rates), but no more, mostly because I think it devalues the work of others.

In addition, getting to a gig costs us, in terms of practice time, travel/fuel (sometimes accommodation), not to mention our gear (PA and lights) and insurance.

Generally speaking, if I have taken on a mate's gig, I will take the hit so that my band mates still get paid in full (I can afford to do that because I have a professional day job, but two members of the band are full-time musicians).

If your son's band has X number of members, then you should agree to pay six (for example) members, but perhaps your son could negotiate his share down.

She's said she'd pay the bandmates.

And what's "within reason" ?
Presumably you'd know you needed to pay costs for equipment and parts? You wouldn't expect those funded?

If he was a solo artist, I'd agree with you OP but he has his bandmates to consider.

Why should they give you a free session?

Well I agree I’d be pissed at him, but don’t dwell on it - just hire someone else.

@CompleteOvaryAction If I were your DS, no way would I expect or demand to be paid. It'd be a thank you gift to my parents for everything they'd done bringing me up, and for their special birthday.

He's also still a student, not a professional with global clients. (Are you funding his third year?)

But, if he feels like this, I agree the best thing would be to drop it and hire other music, not argue about it.

That is your choice though

Perhaps he wanted you to acknowledge and take seriously his profession and would have turned around and said "I don't want paying, happy birthday" when you tried to pay him. Or would have returned it.

But you expecting him to give you freebies is the problem

I can see your point about not charging family, and that as parents you’ve funded his studies.

However, I do think the right thing to do here is to pay the whole band their going rate, and let them figure it out rather than isolating your son. It seems a bit patronising to expect any of them to work for free- I just don’t think it’s a battle to fight over.

Initially I thought 'entitled - no way' - but when you add in paying the other band members, it's a bit more complex.
I'd go for an alternative - if he wants to do a solo number at the event, that would be nice (FOC)

As a matter of interest, are you funding him at uni while he is earning from his band activities?

She already said she understands having to pay his mates.

Invite him to the party.
Hire different musicians.

He might not really want to perform at your party, this takes that aspect away. He should of course expect to attend a special family event, he clearly has had plenty of notice and doesn't have another job booked.
Separate the ideas of your son attending and performers. It becomes much easier.