Band politics or the art of BS.

[MusiquedeReve]

I was in an all original band in my mid-to-late 20s - we had a female lead singer who left because her "church" told her that singing anything other than P&W music was a "sin" - we then auditioned about 20 singers and found one we could get along with - a male this time - he tried too hard to sound like Eddie Vedder but the vibe was there - until the bass player (my roommate at the time and at whose house we rehearsed) discovered that his wallet was always lighter after rehearsal - in something out of an 80's sitcom, he set up a video camera (not that easy to hide in the late 90's) and discovered the singer would excuse himself from the rehearsal and go lift some cash from the bass player's wallet - needless to say, he was immediately fired

The band broke up shortly thereafter as I was approaching 30 and figured I was never going to become a rock star

I took about 15 years off of playing guitar and writing music and a couple of years ago thought I would try to put a band together for fun - I scoured the usual spots - Craigslist, Reddit, Bandmix - all to no avail

That is when I developed a passion for writing orchestral/cinematic type music - no vocalist necessary - of course, should I need one, I can go on Soundbetter and hire one

 

[Ovibos]

My experience has usually been about disparate expectations. Some people want to be polished, some just want to have fun, some just like hanging at band practice, some are just escaping their spouses. Early clarity helps.

 

[Boogie]

These types of issues and being up until 3AM two nights a week are the exact reason that I am making the turn to trying to write my own music. I am getting too old and losing my patience for this stuff. I am a very dedicated player and run the band like a business. I tend to end up doing everything. I own the PA and know how to use it. I usually pick the songs and do the set lists. I do the bookings and I pay everyone. If I have someone in the band that is causing waves and not doing anything to help with everything I am doing, they are not going to last long. I will try my own music and recording to see if that fulfills me. I have always been a guitar player that just loves to play for a live crowd. I am finding composing to be very challenging but I think I can make it work. I am very familiar with how to use a DAW. I am hopeful on this new path.

Been there, done that, bought the tee shirt.

One of the beautiful and most challenging aspects of the band I’m in now is that it’s 100% originals. Every practice is an organic evolution of everything we’ve written, writing, and going to write. There are times where I have to step up and go, “no! Don’t mess with that one, it’s perfect” but as a rule of thumb, everything is fair game for twists and on-the-fly adjustments. Not jam band style, but more Jeff Beck-esque stepping across the lines and challenging each other to keep up. Sometimes it completely blows or falls apart, but other times it morphs into pure fluid genius - if I do say so myself.

We generally don’t show up with full songs to present, but pieces and riffs to throw out during warm up. That way, no one person can guess where we’re going until we’re there. The journey is the mind blowing fun. Having something decent on the recording is a fringe benefit.

This is an old example where we beat to death a core concept to attempt to distill it down to something solid. It became too meandering and utterly unreproduceable. Murray is on a fret less bass making constant microtonal friction, I’m doing everything to cause unfriendly speaker excursion and play off the pedal tone. Mike is just a ball of energy.