Money issues with friends give me anxiety

Hi everyone,
Thank you so much for this wonderful place of helping each other

I am a very anxious person by nature, so I'm kinda used to it. But this new conflict raised the bar higher. I never had sleep problems before, struggling to fall asleep, having nightmares about this. This the first thing I think about when I get up and the last when I go to bed.

I started a music project fifteen years ago, and I'm blessed to be a full-time pro musician from the day I left school. This requires abviously luck, but also lots of sacrifices : working 60+ hours/week, never having week-ends or holidays, not earning a lot of money so I live in a not-very-confortable tiny apartment, etc, you see the point

I hired some pro musicians to perform live with me since many years. They've becomed very close friends, even a family, and I think they feel the same about me. We lived so many adventures together.
They are obviously paid each show they perform, as we split revenues in equal parts. And then, 7 or 8 years ago, I introduced the fact to pay them 10% of my merch revenues too. It was meant to thank them and motivate them to keep engaged in this career.
Let me precise that they all have a standard 9-5 job, paying way more than what I earn doing full-time music, and I am still doing 95% of the career work by myself (find shows, negociate, organize, administration, compose, arrange mix, record, social media, etc... ) - the only thing they do is learn the songs and perform them live.

2 years ago they came at me together to renegociate, to get more from the merch. We argued so much. To me it was like this generous move transformed our relation in a boss-employee relationship.

We finally had an agreement to give them 15% only if the performance budget goes under a certain amount, to assure them to be paid a fair part at every show.

But now, they want to renegociate again.
I have said all my arguments. I am doing 95% of the music career job, I am full-time musician while they have good 9-5, I earn less money than they make. I can't make them see that I am not their boss trying to keep money from them. If they want more from this activity, I could delegate them some work I have, but no, they want more money without doing more stuff.
When they see big money, like thousands of sales in merch at shows, they might just become greedy from that sight. They don't seem to get that this money has so many cuts before going in my pocket (fees, taxes, their share, etc) and then, I have to live up to 6 months without any shows meaning any revenues, from this money.
Their arguments are : "I don't feel like we're only doing 10% of the work", which makes no sense.

I am so sick of this. I am seeing this as a strong lack of respect of what I am doing. I can't help but feel like they want to suck every hard-earned money from me. We already split equally every show money, from opportunities that I'm spending full-time searching and negociating.

Am I overthinking all of this ? What should I do ? Am I totally wrong ?

I work 100% of the time, can't get any pause, this is the life I chose. But this conflict gives me sense of hopelessness. Art life is already so hard to fight for, I don't want to have to fight my buddies too along the way.

Thank you so much for reading me.

I think that’s an issue with employing your friends (or becoming friends with employees). Whenever friendships mix with business, it’s always a problem

I don’t think them asking for more money means they disrespect you. It’s like asking a boss for raise. It doesn’t mean I disrespect my boss. Negotiating and renegotiating is common. Sometimes you get more and sometimes you don’t.

I also don’t think that the fact that they have full time jobs and make more than you 9-5 is relevant. Unless they agreed to volunteer for you for free, what they make in other jobs is not relevant.

I think you have three options. Pay them more, pay them the same in hopes they agree, fire them and look for other people. If you feel they are asking for too much for doing too little, then don’t agree to their demands.

I do agree it’s stressful. Hopefully it works out so you could relax a bit

If you are doing 95% of the work, you should not keep paying them more with zero additional input from them. They sound greedy and not much like friends.

In this instance, I would cut my losses and get another set of people to perform with you... and I would also not offer them a cut on merch and so on.

Pay them for that they actually do i.e. to perform with you. And that's it, nothing more.

Well you have to ask yourself if you want fake friends or you want to run a business where your hard work pays off. If they care about you, then they understand this is your livelihood and you do not have a 9-5 job to fall back on. That too allows them to see that you're a bit beholding to them, so they're taking advantage of your circumstances by asking for more. Its time to ask yourself how hard do you want to work for nothing or if its time to find new band members because its only going to get worse the more you allow it. In truth you never should have given them a percentage of the merchandise because that allowed them to put eyes on something that is negotiable. If the merchandise is created and/or financed by you to keep the business afloat then you must maintain that model to keep it moving forward.

If this is your business and thus your band, then take control and get some new members. Their entitlement streak is obviously more important than your well being. You deserve the fruits of your labor, not the session players who just show up and collect a paycheck. Stand up for yourself and the work you put into this. If this ruins whatever perceived "friendship" you had with them, then so be it. There's a greater principle in play here that none of them are willing to see. And again honestly they don't sound like such good friends if they don't want you to flourish for all the hard work you do. They're taking advantage so you need to cut them loose.