Sturla on life as an artist and the business around it

Sturla has covered a lot of ground in the Norwegian music industry: X Factor, Idol, The Voice, Melodi Grand Prix and a few years under contract with Sony Music. Today he works for himself, aiming to play 100 concerts during 2026.

This episode has two halves. The first is how he got there. The second is what few people talk about: how the money in the music business actually moves.

Three TV competitions

The road through television

1. X FactorEntered at 16 or 17 with a friend, as a duo. The friend did not go through, but one of the judges wanted to hear Sturla sing alone – and he went through.
2. IdolPresumably the year after, auditioning in Trondheim. Immediate and enthusiastic response from judge Gunnar Greve.
3. The VoiceA couple of years later, and a far better experience: fixed audition slots instead of long waits. Coach Sondre Lerche hit the button after half a second. In the duel round he faced his own best friend, and went out.
4. Melodi Grand PrixCame later, after the record deal. A fee for taking part, and payments through Tono every time a broadcast or repeat airs – less than he had expected.

Sony and the 360 deal

The breakthrough came by chance. After three years at his mother’s house, experimenting with music and working at a clothing shop, he met a producer at a band night in Trondheim. The producer passed some simple demos to a contact who had just started at Sony in Oslo. The next day – while Sturla was folding trousers at work – word came that they wanted to sign him.

A 360 deal covers nearly the whole career – except the part the artist earns most from.

How he explains it: it is not employment, but a combined publishing and production contract. The label takes responsibility for funding studio time, production and release.
The exception: live performance. That stays with the artist.
In practice: he moved to Oslo on a student loan, and kept the shop job there for a while to make ends meet.

He left Sony after a few years. His explanation is sober: a label fights to keep its own staff, and a project that does not quite take off becomes harder to justify. He was also unsure of his own musical direction.

And then the thing worth noting happened: it was after the deal ended that things started to move. He streamed more, played more concerts than ever, and was A-listed on NRK P3 twice in one year.

The two tracks: Tono and Gramo

This is the most precise and useful part of the episode, and worth understanding even if you will never make music.

Two rights in one song

Tono

The work itself

• The lyrics and the melody
• Belongs to whoever wrote the song
• Pays out quarterly

Gramo

The recording

• The recording itself – the master
• Belongs to whoever owns it, and the performers on it
• Pays out mainly once a year, in March

Gramo income splits into two equal halves.

Half goes to the producer – whoever financed and owns the recording. Sturla deliberately keeps that role himself, because it is favourable.
The other half is shared between the performers on the recording under a role-code model – lead vocal, backing vocal, individual instrument – where the sum is split in proportion to the points each role earns.
Any business playing music commercially, from a café to a concert promoter, has to register and pay into both. As an artist, Sturla registers his own concerts in Tono's portal, with audience numbers, ticket revenue and which songs were played.

He adds a point about the system: Tono is state-owned, and the rules are the same for everyone. In several other countries, the United States among them, competing commercial bodies collect rights and sign artists with advances – which he thinks makes the system less fair than the Norwegian one.

What streaming actually pays

His estimate: around 0.006 kroner per play. About 60,000 kroner for a million.

And a play counts after a few seconds of listening.
He is open about his own position: for a Norwegian artist he does not stream badly – and there is still little to be had. The payment arrives via PayPal, where he also pays for his own Spotify subscription. By the end of the year there is not much left.

Where the money really comes from

The income sources, as he ranks them

Source	What it gives
NRK P1	the "gold sack" – what genuinely counts
NRK P3	something, but far less
Concerts	the day-to-day income
Corporate gigs	often the most profitable per hour
Streaming	little – see the estimate above

Two ways of being paid for a gig

Guarantee or door

Guarantee

The promoter pays a fixed sum

• The same amount regardless of turnout
• Gives the promoter a reason to promote it
• Predictable for the artist

Door split

The artist takes the tickets

• The artist keeps the ticket revenue
• The venue earns on bar and food
• The upside is the artist's – and so is the risk

What the work is worth

His estimates

Job	Amount
Corporate gig, half an hour to an hour	20,000–30,000 kroner
Festival set, established Norwegian artist	around 1.3 million
Minimum rate per musician, Creo	6,200 kroner
Festival's cut of merchandise	he has heard of around 25 per cent

The smelter, the Porsche and the decision

Alongside the music, Sturla worked shifts for several years at a smelter producing silicon – an element used in toothpaste, car bodies and cosmetics, among other things. The plant runs around the clock with roughly 147 employees across three shifts.

Shift work paid well, with good supplements. Some of the money went on a green Porsche Taycan, bought used for about 1.2 million. It was sold two years later for 850,000, with 70,000–80,000 of outstanding loan to cover – a loss he reckons could have been far worse.

He released a song called “67”, after the ordinary retirement age. It is about breaking out of the treadmill, and about the feeling that the job was only something he did for the payslip.

In January 2026 he left for the second and final time.

The target

100 concerts during 2026 – a target set while he still had a steady job to fall back on.

The deadline was 1 January 2026 to leave for good. When the episode was recorded he had about 60 concerts behind him.
His comparison: the Vikings burning their ships. Once the fallback job is gone, you have to make it work.
And the daily reality behind it: a sole proprietorship, accounts in Fiken, and a morning routine he introduced because nothing arrives by itself – up by nine at the latest, plan the day.

The advice

Asked what he would say to others wanting to go for it, the answer is not what you might expect from an episode otherwise about business:

Explore the music and be interested in music first. Things did not really move for me until I had a grip on what I wanted to do musically. If everything you do is based on the things around the music – not the music itself – I think it gets harder. Then you are no longer the one making the artistic choices.

The content reflects Sturla’s own experience and assessment of the industry he works in. Amounts and rates are his own estimates, not official figures from Tono, Gramo or Creo.

Main topics

• The road through X Factor, Idol and The Voice
• Sony, and what a 360 deal actually covers
• Why things took off after the deal ended
• Tono and Gramo – the two separate tracks
• How Gramo is divided
• What streaming actually pays
• Where the money really comes from
• Two ways of being paid for a gig
• What different jobs are worth
• The smelter, the Porsche and the decision to quit
• The target of 100 concerts
• The advice he passes on

Questions this episode answers

• What is it like taking part in X Factor, Idol, The Voice and Melodi Grand Prix?
• What does a record deal and a 360 agreement actually involve?
• How does an artist make money today?
• What is the difference between Tono and Gramo?
• How much does streaming really pay?
• How does an artist book concerts themselves?
• What should you think about when it comes to riders and technical equipment?
• What is it like combining a music career with an ordinary job?

Key points

• Three TV competitions gave him exposure, but he never reached the live shows in any of them.
• A 360 deal covers production and publishing – but not live, which the artist still controls.
• Things only took off after the record deal ended: more streaming, more concerts, and two P3 A-listings in one year.
• Tono handles the work itself, lyrics and melody. Gramo handles the recording. Two entirely separate tracks.
• Gramo income splits in two equal halves: one to whoever owns the recording, one to the performers on it.
• His estimate for streaming is around 0.006 kroner per play – about 60,000 kroner for a million.
• Radio play is what counts, and he calls NRK P1 the gold sack.
• A concert is paid either by a guarantee from the promoter or by the artist taking the door.
• Corporate gigs are often the most profitable: 20,000–30,000 kroner for half an hour to an hour.
• He left his steady job in January 2026, and compares it to burning the ships.