The highs—and oh so many lows—of dating a musician

Thanks to Audrey Watts and Dave from the Tits

In the Bad Ideas Hall of Fame, dating a musician ranks with having one more drink for the road, getting a credit card in college, or assuming that rash will clear up on its own. Despite the stereotypes about band dudes—that they're self-absorbed, financially capricious and eternally resistant to growing up—women still insist on hitching their starry-eyed wagons to the backs of tour buses.

Los Angeles drowns in actors and New York swells with writers, but Nashville's dating-pool albatross is distinctly guitar-shaped: You can't throw a dart here without hitting a gig bag. Of the 619,626 people who reside in Nashville, according to the 2008 census, all but five are musicians. At least that's how it feels when a girl walks into any bar, restaurant or grocery and takes a good hard look for potential suitors.

Maybe you date band dudes the way some people do bungee jumping—fun to try once while you're young and crazy. Or maybe you try them on like earrings, more accessory than romantic pursuit. Either way, you'll find the music life nothing like advertised in the brochures.

So before you saunter side-stage batting your eyelashes for that free band beer, read on: This road has curves ahead, and it's slippery when wet.

Just ask Kelli Craig. After nearly a decade of immersion in the band-dude grind, the 34-year-old now finds herself making headlines. It's not for authoring a collection of short stories or designing the Gilded Cage clothing line. She's better known as the plaintiff in a lawsuit against ex-boyfriend Jack Lawrence, The Raconteurs' bassist, over something decidedly less glamorous—the division of their personal assets.

Craig claims she supported Lawrence financially for the last eight years. He'd agreed to split future music income with her as repayment for investing in his career, she asserts. But when Lawrence started to make bank—enough to purchase a nearly $400,000 home—he put the house in his name only. The couple headed for Splitsville, and Craig headed to court.

Suddenly, the backstage passes, rock star meet-and-greets and surprise trips to New York vanished.

When news of the lawsuit spread in December, surely every woman dating a musician cringed. It may sound like an endless party with a house on Cribs at the end of the rainbow. But since nasty odds dictate that most bands are tickets to obscurity, think of it as more like putting your boyfriend through medical school—without promise of future payback.

From the cheap seats, it's tough to muster much sympathy. In Nashville, the image of the bum rocker is ubiquitous. A common joke: What do you call a musician without a girlfriend? Answer: Homeless. Anybody naive enough to play this game deserves the tinnitus as much as the credit card debt.

But Craig—who would only answer questions via email—says she didn't know any better when the relationship began in 1998. He's the only musician she's ever dated, the only boyfriend she's ever had.

"I grew accustomed to the relentless touring and him not having an income," she writes. "I wasn't opposed to supporting him, because I was well aware that if he had to work a 9 to 5 and do music, that he would never achieve his full potential. I encouraged him to focus on music 100 percent, because that was his talent and what made him happy. I strongly believe that if you do what you love, that the money will eventually surface."

Try telling that to women around town, and most will snicker. If you're looking for dinners at The Palm and vacations to Mexico, they say, you're barking up the wrong tree. Most musicians will reach their economic zenith serving caramel macchiatos at Starbucks.

Another joke: How do you get a drummer off your doorstep? Pay for the pizza.

"With a musician, any time you want to go to a nice dinner or take a weekend trip, you have to pay for it," says Emily, a 32-year-old lawyer who wishes to remain anonymous. She's dated her fair share of musicians—one for each instrument in a band lineup, including a keyboard player. But paying for the trip doesn't sound so bad compared to never being able to actually take one, as Craig found.

Lawrence is now known internationally for his work with The Raconteurs, but he's been touring extensively since the mid-'90s with his garage-rock band The Greenhornes, which formed in Cincinnati in 1996. He also plays banjo for the Detroit band Blanche. But he's one of the lucky few: It only took a decade for Lawrence to see a payoff. Broken Boy Soldiers, The Raconteurs' debut album, reached No. 7 on Billboard and has sold nearly a half-million copies.

Craig was there for every painstaking step up that ladder. And Lawrence's frequent absence was a fact of their relationship.

"Scheduling any sort of vacation or out-of-town trip was nearly impossible," she says. "Jack toured the world with three different bands, so when he was home, he liked to stay home. If there was some interest in going on a trip, we couldn't seem to work around the touring. As someone who enjoys pleasure travel, it was very annoying to me. On occasion, I went to out-of-town shows to see him. However, I do not consider hanging out in a hotel room in Minneapolis for two days to be a real vacation."