Band Horror stories

I've not been in a proper band for ages :cry: (soon though, can't live without it :))

Our first band (although it barely qualified for the title) suffered from the age old one of our members is an arrogant little git who can't actually play for toffee syndrome. He was the bassist, he had to be twice as loud as everyone else, he had to sing along even if he didn't know the words, he had to run the entire rehearsals and worst of all, he couldn't even tell if he was hitting bum notes or not. Along comes our first gig, and guess who spends the entire 3-number set trying to hide behind me so the audience weren't looking at him? :roll: He went on his merry way shortly after that... :)

There was a band I joined in 1999 who had been going for several years and had a deal with a record company. I was hoping, when I was joining them, that they would be my first serious band. Turned out, that they only had two songs at the time - both sides of the single they were releasing. During something like two and a half years I spent with them, they kept writing songs and discarding them, quibbing about musical direction (actually it would be safer to say they had no musical direction - it was a matter of: "I don't like the stuff we're doing, let's do something else..." and looking for magical formulas such as "If we use a bunch of samples, it's gonna sound modern") and sitting around smoking rather than playing during rehearsals. We played something like four concerts during this time (all of them in the first year, when there was still some enthusiasm left) and recorded eight studio tracks that cost us a bundle, but never actually got used for anything (let alone released).

All this would be pretty horrifying, but there is more...

After I left them, I eventually formed Viridian and learnt a lot by running the band. I got some contacts, played regular concerts, had our recordings played on the radio, etc. It's still not much of a career, but we're slowly going up. Anyway about a year ago I listened to the stuff I did with the other band and thought it might be worthwhile having a go with them again (especially, since I could use stuff I learnt with Viridian to give it an extra push). It took us a while to get together, but the band did reform around March and started practicing the old stuff and writing new songs.

The result: towards the end of June we didn't have one song ready for performance, despite three-hour rehearsals each week since March. The bassist I brought in from Viridian (the former bassist was unavailable) decided to quit, because he felt the band wasn't going anywhere. It was hard to disagree, since the band not only had no idea of where they wanted to go - they couldn't even see the point of actually asking the question. I tried to explain to them, that there was no point in spending time and money on rehearsals if there were no results - and that the lack of results was caused by a complete lack of vision. They could not see my point and put my objections down to the fact that I was an arrogant person, who thought he'd achieved God knows what and was looking down on them. It proved impossible to show, that the stuff I was talking about I'd already tried out with another band and that it worked, while their modus operandi manifestly didn't. We parted ways for the second and last time.

Seems reunions weren't made to work...

When I was a kid, I could not believe some of my favorite bands broke up or members quit, or were kicked out, until I actually began playing in a band. Now I know why :D I don't really have any "horror stories" about the projects I have been in. But I've seen way to much drama and stupid arguments. I don't know whether it's better to be in a band with strangers that your only contact with them revolves around the music, or to be in a band with really good friends. I think dealing with people that you meet through ads, the internet, or from other bands that come into your project will usually be ok as long as you do your part and they do theirs. If not they go. With friends it's harder in a way. You don't want to kick a friend out, and you will tend to want to help them if they are struggling, and they usually feel the same way about you. However, it seems that most bands have similar conflicts and issues. I watched this documentary about Metallica which showed them fight and bickering about some of the same stuff my bands have delt with. One was so funny, James Hetfield told the rest of the band that he had to leave at 5PM everyday to cope with his addiction problems, and that he did not want the rest of the band to listen to the tracks and "decide" things without him. Lars was like "what the *&%$ - this is a metal band - you can't make a rule that we can't listen or talk to each other after you go home . . . . ." There are people that come in bands saying they don't care about money, it's not about the money, etc.... then constantly whine and complain about the money. Some people are way to sensitive about how they play. God forbid you make a suggestion to play the solo in key :wink:

I have more of a 'worst band member' kind of story..

I was in a band with a drummer, and all he kept saying is can he have a drum solo... then when me and the bassist wrote a riff, we thought of a perfect drum beat, and drummer kept saying 'OHHHHHHHH this is boring' and me an the bass guy couldnt beleive he was complaining about playing a rythm on the drums!?!?!?!?

I once had a bassist that didn't own his own bass. Well, he owned one, and swore he would bring it, but I've still never seen it. He'd play Sarah's old bass (with her permission) most of the time, or bum one off of another friend of his. Luckily we weren't very serious as a band anyway and I had a day job to pay the bills.

We were in a recording complex where a lot of major players at the time
were rehearsing or recording:

I thought I would walk to the canteen to get a coffee - didn't anticipate
I would be standing in the doorway, evesdropping on a conversation
between the producer, lead singer and engineer about how useless
and *#@% I was as a band member.....(all I was thinking in my mind was
sing...if we all pull together as a team...)

Or what about being paid in Pizza and having a migraine so you couldn't
eat it all and taking most of it home with you in your case.

Or what about no room for you in the car - so you arrive at the gig in the boot.

Or what about no room for you in the van - so you get a lift home standing on
the bumper holding on for dear life because the other guitarist who was driving
was so drunk, he forgot I was standing on the back!

Or what about listening back to some demos and listening to your part - asking
my mate, the drummer - it sounds a bit different - or, I don't remember playing
that part!

My mate informs me that - Oh yeah, while you weren't there today, the producer
deleted your part because he didn't like it and hired his mate for £250 (this was 15years ago).
and thats what is on the track - and he will get a credit - "Oh right. I see."

Or what about sitting on the side of a motorway/freeway waiting to be picked up in a car
by the lead singer. We waited for 2 hours in the rain, my guitar case had a pool of water
on top of it. I was cold, tired, hungry, pissed off - why I am still in this #@%$£# band?

Twenty minutes before he and his girlfriend turned up - all clean and ponsy, smelling of bath,
the sun came out and started to dry us a little bit. When the car eventually turned up and me and
the drummer got in - nobody said hello or spoke or anything - me and the drummer just sat there
fuming. Eventually, the drummer said, do you know we have been sat there in the rain for over 2hours?

The lead singer replied - You don't look very wet!

And he lived, amazing!

What a great business!

I have a bit of a horror story, but it's fairly recent. I'm in my second year of college right now and in the last year of high school I formed a band with some of my friends: it was myself on drums, my friend on guitar (and occasionally vocals), my other friend on guitar and their friend sang for us.

Originally it was only supposed to be a one time thing: my friends were performing a song for a talent show and needed a drummer. I believe I was the only drummer that they knew and actually liked. After the show though we decided that being a band would be fun.

Now I won't lie, we definitely weren't the best band: I was probably too quiet as a drummer, our guitarist always played too loud and with too much distortion and we really never had a bassist, but we had alot of fun and the music teachers were surprisingly supportive of us (they allowed us to practice in the music room quite often). Our strong point was probably our lead singer, she was a girl who was friends with us, she sang in musicals and in the choir and just a really talented musician. Things were alright until our singer started dating my one friend who played guitar and also sang. I won't get too much into this but basically the band started turning less into a band and more into a soap opera. I felt like I was always stuck in the middle and I told them that I wanted to be in a band, and a good band (i.e - one that practiced more) and that if we didn't want to practice more i didn't see the point in being in a band. After some arguing, I decided to quit the band. Unfortunately, my friends in that band stopped talking to me after I quit.

I guess this isn't exactly a horror story, but i think it shows how differing opinions on music and relationships can affect a band.

It's the reason I decided to go solo!

its difficult to play good music and it is more difficult to play good music with others. The problem is that everyone has a style, some people know their style very well but have difficulty adapting to others. For example, I play with a friend of mine who I love as a friend but musically were in two different boats. I like to write songs and I like to accompany other people's songs. My friend is a very bluesy guitarist and I am a very melody oriented writer. Problems arise when I try to show him a melody I wrote because he will end up just playing a chord progression he learned earlier that is in the right key but does not quite fit my melody, and if I try to tell him the chord progression then he kinda looks at me like I shouldn't tell him what to play. But if he is going to play a different chord progression then I need to play a different melody. The result is that I stopped trying to play my songs with him (cause they never worked). In his defence my songs can be rather difficult, but he is more then capable of playing them, he just doesnt like to be told what to play (and more often than not plays a blues progression no matter what the hell is going on). I end up just tailoring to his sound...12 bar blues and covers he knows. It is hard to find a good match, if you do then don't let it go!

Great points Dneck,

Thats why I ended up doing my own thing - it seems everybody elses style
is what has gone before - not willing explore or God forbid Invent New Stuff!

Steve

the really good people are the people who not only have their own style in the music they write, but who can instantly adapt to other styles, even if it is not their favorite kind of music.

Dneck, I know what you mean exactly.

stevebishop..brilliant. I see a concept album or movie.
I hear the soundtrack behind your monologue.
are you a song writer?
8)

I got a call from a guy who's looking for a guitarist to fill out his small little prog rock group. Drum, 2 guitars (including me), and bass.

The guy who called me is the band leader and lead guitarist.

So I show up for our first get together with the lead sheets I've been sent. We set up and chat for a while.

We start playing the first song, and he looks over at me and stops the song and says something like "Dude, it's a C chord!"

I look down, sure enough I'm playing a C chord. I look at the chart. I look at him. I say "yeah, I'm playing a C."

(I'm playing 1st inversion - x7x588)

He looks at my hand and says "Dude, that's like an E9 or something!"

I politely tell him that I'm playing C major -- it's E, C, G, that's C major.

He starts talking to me like I'm an idiot and shows me that "there's a couple of ways to play a C," and he shows me an Open C, an A-shaped barre at the 3rd fret, and an E-shaped barre at the 9th fret. And follows it up with "those are the C chords. Man, I thought you said you've been playing a while!"

I unplug tell the guy I can't play with someone who is going to tell me I'm playing the wrong chords when I'm playing the chart and walk out.

As I'm heading out the door he tells me that "Man you need to fix your attitude and learn the chords. You can't play with a band if you don't know your chords!"

I'm sure he'll cut a gold record soon . ..

haha thats a good story. Reminds me of when I told my friend to play this progression that was like an G D C D that switched around a bit to follow the melody (I know thats an easy one but hey that was the point when I wrote it) Anyways he plays an Am7 instead of the C and looks at me like hes done something amazing for the song and im just thinkin, of course you could play an Am7 that has the entire C major chord in it. People who don't understand chord theory are just frustrating to play with.

I hate when people don't like to admit that someone wrote the song, once the melody is written the song is written and everyone else has to consider the melody to write their part. A counter melody is the only real exception (I mean that if you write a good countermelody you have brought something new to the song) but even then you have to consider the original melody to write your countermelody. Most people don't get that either and think that their noodling in the pentatonic scale is a good countermelody simply because its not the melody.

What I mean by writing the song, is that I could write a song and have people accompany it. I can accompany other people's songs, and then you can write a song with someone else. But if I write a melody, even if you don't need me to tell you the chord progression to match my melody, it doesn't mean that you have now helped write the song, that chord progression was the right chord progression before you played it.