Russ

The band's called 5th Man Down - www.myspace.com/5thmandown . We did OK - we opened Bloodstock 2003 on the main stage (supporting Saxon and Blaze Bayley), did a couple of UK-wide tours, and did two short tours in the US, where we went down pretty well. Let's say we *almost* lived the dream. I seriously doubt we'll play live together again, but the material still stands up and is still selling (albeit slowly) - I think there's more that could be done there.

A bit of background... my old band did fairly well for ourselves for a few years there, but, thanks to some bad management, leading to disillusionment, we went our separate ways a year or so ago. Since then, not much has happened, the other guys are off playing in other bands now, but I've kinda kept the flame burning, maintaining our Myspace page and putting our album and EP up on iTunes (where we've made a few quid off it). The other guys haven't shown any real interest in the old band, but I think, since we have some sales going on, that we should continue to push it a bit - if not by actually getting back together and playing shows, by pushing the iTunes downloads and the Myspace page. In order to do this, it'd be nice to update the Myspace page a bit, maybe a few new pics and so on. Do you think I'm beating a dead horse here? Do you think I should even bother asking the other guys to get together to have a few pics taken? Should I just let this sleeping dog lie, or should I just not bother at all? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated...

I had a short-lived Warwick endorsement... this was back when my old band were doing pretty well, we had a big festival appearance coming up, we had the album out, and were pretty active. At the time, a lot of Warwick's UK endorsers had slipped below the radar - Stuart Zender had left Jamiroquai, Glen Diani wasn't doing anything after One Minute Silence split up, and so on, so they were after new blood. I got our manager at the time to send them our press pack, and they got back to me and offered me an endorsement... this wasn't a full-on "free basses" deal though, more like a 60% off list price deal. So I got a Streamer Jazzman... and really didn't like it (horrible, horrible, baseball-bat neck). In the end, I told Warwick I wasn't interested in pursuing the endorsement anymore, and sold the Jazzman for more or less list price. Thank you Warwick! Basically, you have to be actively gigging in reasonably high-profile situations, with some visibility at gigs and in the press. You need a good press pack, and a tenacious manager to chase it up.

Russ - thirtysomething ex-almost-rock star, quirky musical tastes, from Meshuggah to Mingus, bandless at present after old bandmates bailed after a bout of extreme manageritis[color="#FF0000"]*[/color], so I went off to live in America, and then Ireland... back in the UK now and in the process of getting back on the horse, so to speak. Quite happily playing Sei and Spector basses. Penchant for loads of silly effects pedals and unorthodox techniques. [size=1][color="#FF0000"]*[/color] manageritis - allergy to irritating and useless band managers. Can be known to come between bandmates and decrease motivational levels. [/size]