Your reasons for quitting bands

[HengistPod]

A singer who ...

1. Won't learn other people's song suggestions because they're "too niche" (e.g. Aerosmith, Cheap Trick), then insists everyone else learns songs by Buckcherry and Lit.

2. After 6 months of gigging, still hasn't learned the words to any songs he didn't suggest. Uses a music stand for lyrics at gigs.

3. Blows out gigs when a more lucrative offer for his other (tribute) band comes in. Claims that booking was actually in first, but his iPhone and iPad hadn't synced properly ...


Actually, you're right. That isn't reason to leave a band. It's reason to sack the singer..!

[12stringbassist]

[quote name='HengistPod' timestamp='1464618877' post='3060826']
1. Won't learn other people's song suggestions because they're "too niche" (e.g. Aerosmith, [b]Cheap Trick[/b])[/quote]

That IS driving me crazy at present.
All of my song suggestions are wrong.
Itchy feet.

[discreet]

[quote name='12stringbassist' timestamp='1465427997' post='3068223']
All of my song suggestions are wrong.
Itchy feet.
[/quote]

Hmm... that IS a terrible song, though.

[KevB]

I came up with 2 potential new songs to investigate the other week. The drummer didn't want to do one but liked the other, the guitarist didn't want to do the one the drummer liked but liked the one the drummer hated. I gave up.

[TimR]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1465429438' post='3068236']


Hmm... that IS a terrible song, though.
[/quote]


This is the primary reason that cover bands' setlists are so bland and why we all complain everyone is playing the same tunes.

Finding a group of musicians who can pick good tunes that the audience like is very very hard.

I'm not afraid to try anything but I usually say if a tune hasn't gone down well after three outings it's time to bin it.

I guess the big problem is band members who refuse to even try suggestions. It's only a bunch of notes and a few words. Learn them, play them a few times - keep/bin as required. It's not rocket science, people are too narrow minded.

.

Edited June 9, 2016 by TimR

[discreet]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1465466501' post='3068440']
I guess the big problem is band members who refuse to even try suggestions. It's only a bunch of notes and a few words. Learn them, play them a few times - keep/bin as required. It's not rocket science, people are too narrow minded.
[/quote]

My comment wasn't serious, but you have a point. I joined a country band a few months ago - I'm not particularly interested in country, but they're good musicians, do lots of gigs, I get paid and I'm having fun - against the odds - so when a new song is put forward I automatically think, 'Oh no, that's terrible...' but when we get it together, I usually end up liking it.

Others are more knowledgeable about the genre than I am, so it's refreshing not to agonise over song choices (as I don't know any) or argue about the various merits of this or that, whether the punters will like it and on and on. Serenity now!!

Edited June 9, 2016 by discreet

[TimR]

Yes when I joined my most recent band I made the conscious descision to not play any part in suggesting or avoiding playing anything.

So far I have only thrown my toys out of the pram once, when the guys spent half an hour discussing what tunes to play. Every song the singer suggested was turned down by the guitarist and drummer and every song the drummer or guitarist suggested was turned down by the singer.

An absolute waste of my time. Tell me what to play - I'll play it. Let the audience decide.

[Woodinblack]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1465466501' post='3068440']
I guess the big problem is band members who refuse to even try suggestions. It's only a bunch of notes and a few words. Learn them, play them a few times - keep/bin as required. It's not rocket science, people are too narrow minded.
[/quote]

Agreed. The group I have just joined have a much wider range of songs than previously. Some would certainly not be my choice, but not my job to come in and say what is good or not. However, I was surprised at how well some of them went down.

[Asambique]

Ok so I've got a good story.

This happened in the last band i was officially part of. We were an originals band trying to make something, to earn a living off making music that was the dream!!!.
Achieved decent success and decided to hire a manager so we could focus on being creative and let him run the business. One of the guys in the band knew him and thought it was a good idea. He seemed ok, a bit strange but had the gift of the gab. Things started off great, decent shows, tours and money was coming in we were able to be self sufficient and keep things rolling. We played some amazing shows, supported some good people. Playing the 02 Arena in London is still a personal highlight of my bass playing.
Decided to make it official and get a contract sorted basically stating he would take x amount for his troubles. He handled the business we handled the 'product'.
So a couple of years down the line after working with him we start to question things, so where exactly is the money? I never took anything home, luckily at the time i was still a student studying a music degree so being a 'working' musician was a bonus.
Obviously some money went back into the band, buying a van (renting sleeper buses), hotels, venue hire (we hired venues directly on our own tours) petrol etc. We didn't put any money out of our own pocket for these things.
So we'd sell merch etc online (all managed by Mr Manager) however more and more frequently we would receive messages on social media saying items haven't turned up. First incling of something wrong.
Confronted Mr Manager as he had access to the email account which was used to deal with everything. He wouldn't give us the password so we could try and help with things. He started to become really flippant when questioned on important issues. Second incling of something wrong.
By this point things were turning a little sour, gigs weren't selling as well and generally things were heading south.
So late one evening we manage to hack into the account, turns out Mr Manager owed a lot of people a lot of money (not just merch sales). Third incling, what the hell is going on??
So maybe we weren't so self sufficient? He had lent a pretty large sum of someone he knew and was now unable to pay it back and was trying to pass us off as the debt holders. We didn't know what was going on? were we liable? We did have a contract with him after all?!?!
It took us getting this lenders phone number and personally phoning him to straighten things out and to find out he was after Mr Manager for the money and not us.
Not only that there were emails between Mr Manger and his landlord, where his landlord has been chasing him for 6 months of rent arrears. Mr manager was kindly threatening to run away to Malta in these!
So with our money and the borrowed money but he apparently doesn't have money (rent arrears) where the hell was it all going? Still to this day i couldn't tell you where it all went.
It was after discovering all these things that we the band collectively decided to call it a day. We cut our losses and it was over.

A couple of months after things have settled down a letter pops through my door. I lived with the keyboard player at the time and it was addressed to both of us.
Debt collection agency, apparently we owed £20.000 odd to Mr Managers Company!?!?!?! So now you can see the sort of money he had lent.
Luckily the keyboard players mother was a lawyer in a pretty large law firm and was able to pull some strings and get things looked at.
I'm unsure of the details but he didn't have a leg to stand on in coming after us for the money.
It turned out that the contract he had drafted up he never even paid the law firm either!
That letter was the last i herd off Mr Manager.

The whole experience left one hell of a bitter taste in my mouth. Things were a lot more complicated but i've tried to summarise it for the purpose of this post.

I haven't officially been in a band since then and still after all that have any desire to join another. That was about 6/7 years ago now.
All good life experience mind haha.

In short, I quit the band because the manager was a lying, robbing c**t!!

Whats still shocking is that i know for a fact he is still managing bands/artists, or at least was the last time i checked up.

I could go on for days.........

[uk_lefty]

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1464392504' post='3059237']
1.When someone asks you to do something say yes. You might not like it but say yes anyway.
[/quote]

Yes!! Songs I hate listening to have been fun to play with the right band. Anyone remember "foundations" by the irritating mockney Kate Nash? Good fun to play in one short lived band. Honestly.

[joey1234]

Just quit a band I had joined before Christmas, we did one rehearsal as a band, I had spent a few weeks listening to their ep and learned 3 songs inside out. When we rehearsed they had another 10 or so songs that I picked up easy enough. We organised another rehearsel then the drummer quit (fall out with singer) then the guitarist. So it was me and the singer, he wanted to carry on I thought fair enough, but he couldn't be bothered helping look for other musicians and wanted to just jam in his flat. This went on for a few months and I thought enough is enough. I quit and did my first gig as a solo guitar player last Friday

[blue]

I joined a band once and realized after 2 rehearsals I realized they were all amateurs and were on their way fast to nowhere.

Blue

[Barking Spiders]

# 1 at least one of the others being a knob'ead
# 2 not having fun
#3 the music being sh*t - not as in badly played but as in dull, bland, tuneless etc

[BrunoBass]

[quote name='HengistPod' timestamp='1464618877' post='3060826']
A singer who ...

Uses a music stand for lyrics at gigs.

[/quote]

No no no no no.

[discreet]

[quote name='PaulGibsonBass' timestamp='1467385637' post='3083341']
No no no no no.
[/quote]

+1 +1 +1 +1 +1.

[interpol52]

I've just quit my band for reasons 1 and 2 in my original post to start this thread. Some things never change.

It also became more and more apparent that guitarist 1 and guitarist 2 didn't actually know how to interact and complement eachothers lines. We started doing Californication and they thought that it sounded good with them both playing the intro. It didn't, it killed the dynamics of the song as it progresses.

I'm getting a bit demoralised by playing in bands.

[TimR]

[quote name='interpol52' timestamp='1467639654' post='3085036']
I've just quit my band for reasons 1 and 2 in my original post to start this thread. Some things never change.

It also became more and more apparent that guitarist 1 and guitarist 2 didn't actually know how to interact and complement eachothers lines. We started doing Californication and they thought that it sounded good with them both playing the intro. It didn't, it killed the dynamics of the song as it progresses.

I'm getting a bit demoralised by playing in bands.
[/quote]

I joined a band where the guitarists both wanted to play lead. Sounded awful. I managed to steer them around and get them to share it about and the songs all instantly sounded 100% better. It's worth pressing them sometimes. They might just not be aware of how awful it sounds to everyone else.

.

Edited July 5, 2016 by TimR

[discreet]

[quote name='interpol52' timestamp='1467639654' post='3085036']
I'm getting a bit demoralised by playing in bands.
[/quote]

Don't let them get to you. There are good musicians out there. They may still be assholes, but if they can actually play it helps a lot.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1467721335' post='3085600']
It's worth pressing them sometimes. They might just not be aware of how awful it sounds to everyone else.
[/quote]

Tru, dat. I sometimes get results by being persistent. IME guitarists in particular seem to be on the spectrum for some reason, so if you can explain clearly and logically why you think they should do something, it sometimes works... but sometimes not.

[Guest MoJo]

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1461960416' post='3039233']
......The next was due to general stagnation, but also combined with discomfort at the creepiness of one band member towards women young enough to be his daughter. It was a pattern of behaviour I saw repeated several times, and while he didn't quite reach the stage of abusive behaviour it was still no fun to be around. Oddly, my wife picked up on it straight away and still almost bristles in his presence if we bump into him.
[/quote]

You were in the Glitter Band?

[Smythe]

The last band I left was because the after-party was more important to them than the actual gigs. You can tell I'm getting past it when I say that!!

[zbd1960]

Gosh, all this to look forward if I ever get to the stage of wanting to be in a group of some sort on bass. There seem to be several common themes. One is around what the actual objectives/aims of the band are: is it for fun, fame, or fortune? That dictates the general direction needed.

Repertoire planning is another big one. There are two basic routes: one person is [s]benign dictator[/s] music director and manages it all and everyone signs up to it, or consensus. If the latter, then expect to spend some time on that as you work out genres/styles, original/covers, manageable or not.

I've done this kind of thing for different musical styles/groups and you quickly realise you cannot please everyone in a group, so there has to be some reality check. Basically, a more professional approach, key to which is understanding people's capabilities/limitations.

[BrunoBass]

I joined a band several years ago that were influenced by Britpop era indie rock but all original material. I was quite excited by it as the demos of the songs were pretty good, they had their own rehearsal studio in a converted outhouse (rich parents, one of them), and the singer and the lead guitarist had a real passion and fire when they talked about what they wanted to achieve. So far, so good. The first time I was due to rehearse with them, I turned up to find find they'd been sat on the couch all afternoon and evening watching DVDs and were totally p****ed, and totally incapable of practising. The next time, the drummer had been called last minute to a dep gig so the other two had once again got smashed together watching movies. I arrived and was passed a can of warm lager while they shuffled up to make room for me on the sofa. I made my excuses and left. The next time we did actually manage to go through a couple of the songs I'd learned but soon enough the session degenerated into an extended fag break with added lager. Before long the gear was switched off and the band were on the sofa nodding away to a DVD of an Oasis concert. I packed my stuff and left, for good. They did call a month or so later, saying they'd found this amazing guitarist from eastern Europe who was gong to move to England and take them to the next level. I wished them luck and told them I was out. Utterly delusional.

[blue]

[quote name='zbd1960' timestamp='1467754558' post='3086015']
Gosh, all this to look forward if I ever get to the stage of wanting to be in a group of some sort on bass.

I've done this kind of thing for different musical styles/groups and you quickly realise you cannot please everyone in a group, so there has to be some reality check. Basically, a more professional approach, key to which is understanding people's capabilities/limitations.
[/quote]

Unfortunately your probably only going to find that sort of management in a professional band.

Blue

Edited July 6, 2016 by blue

[interpol52]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1467721651' post='3085603']


Don't let them get to you. There are good musicians out there. They may still be assholes, but if they can actually play it helps a lot.



Tru, dat. I sometimes get results by being persistent. IME guitarists in particular seem to be on the spectrum for some reason, so if you can explain clearly and logically why you think they should do something, it sometimes works... but sometimes not.
[/quote]

I tried to explain that the song should build, going in with two guitars on the intro left very little room for the song to grow into. They just thought it sounded 'fatter'. I thought that it was supposed to sound gentle and delicate, not fat.

Then the drummer played the song using a Cajon! A fantastic instrument but completely out of place.

[zbd1960]

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1467759537' post='3086078']
Unfortunately your probably only going to find that sort of management in a professional band.

Blue
[/quote]
It's how other amateur groups I perform with work, but they're not bands - chamber orchestras, symphony orchestras, wind bands and choirs. So we're looking at groups that are from about 16 upto over 100 in size.