We want to be able to legally sell merchandise and have a side-income as a company. How do I go about making this a company

I apologize if my question was naive. I have no idea about any liability issues and I should probably read up on them. I just know that non-citizens are not allowed to have any sort of income outside of work and I'm pretty serious about this being a long term thing. My thoughts of making it a company is my attempt to contractually formalize things and have something to build and develop through time. Right now it feels we're a bunch of guys that make music, but how do you get past that hallmark? In the very near future, we're going to contact promotional agencies and record labels as an independent artist to get some assistance with marketing and distribution. I would feel more ready doing that if we already had a legal entity in place, with a trademarked and all, and all that is under the assumption that we've seen success and not just starting out. I'm just trying to save myself probable future headaches by being proactive.

There's this highly respected book called "Everything you need to know about the music industry", which acts as a guide to become a successful independent artist. The first thing it suggests, is you talk to a music lawyer for the reasons I mentioned above.

Let me know your thoughts