Tom Dunne's Music & Me: My croissant battle and why bands need a fair split of the pie

As groups like The Band, REM and, ahem, Something Happens might tell you, financial considerations are often key to maintaining communal harmony 

Robbie Robertson of The Band, right, with Van Morrison and Bob Dylan at the Last Waltz concert in 1976. Picture: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

An Irish band somewhere in France, the late 1990s. It already sounds more romantic than it is. They are recording, which brings the Rolling Stones and Exile On Main Street to mind. Except the Stones were there as tax exiles and brought a coterie of models, dealers and fixers with them. These lads, not so much.

They are living on a pittance but the studio, a mate’s, is cheap and has accommodation. By living frugally, the words ‘Recorded in France’ will appear on the album sleeve. This is worth any hardship, even the hunger which is becoming a daily trial.