what the band likes vs what audience likes & Rock + Sax

[mcnach]

I've just been recruited into a new band. It's the sax guy and drummer from one band I'm already in (sax guy is the one with the contacts and gets gigs everywhere), and another guitarist (maybe two, I'm not sure yet) and a vocalist from a locally well known AC/DC tribute band.

I was asked a couple of months ago or so and tentatively said yes... but there was no singer yet and I felt that without knowing what the singer can do it was pointless to choose songs... at the time the songs suggested were a bit all over the place.

Now the sax guy asks me if I want to do it. The idea is to have a very non-demanding band, just learn songs by ourselves and have a couple rehearsals to see what works or not etc, and when we have a set ready he'll get us gigs within a reasonable radius (so no extensive travellling or anything) filling the gaps that our other bands leave, and just have a bit of fun playing stuff we like while making a bit of cash. The focus is now on rockier stuff, which seems to be what a lot of bars around here really prefer.

I was not sure about the sax & rak thing but I know the guy enough and he knows not to destroy a song by playing when silence is best... and he has a great ear to turn songs around by adding sax, so that I think will work. However the song choice is going to be purely "what we like".

I like the idea, but whenever I see bands that choose songs that way, I find them to be of limited appeal and as good as they may be (actually they're often not very good) they end up playing to semi empty bars, which means very soon they just don't play anywhere. However that's the thing, most bands with that attitude that I have seen seem to be pretty inexperienced and not very good at all. This band will be pretty good (no thanks to me, they're all at a higher league than myself, I'm just lucky to keep being asked to play... one guy once hinted that I'm decent enough and while there may be some other better players, I'm available enough and I don't flake... so that must be it )
So I'm quite curious about how this is going to turn out.

I haven't played any rock on bass (except a brief stint with another local covers band years ago, and my RATM tribute band but that is a bit different), so I'm quite curious about that. And also about the sax. We have three songs only chosen so far, from Audioslave, Thin Lizzy and AC/DC... I really want to hear what we can make out of that, even if we don't get many gigs. They're all pretty simple on bass, so no worries for me.

If you heard your local music bar has a band playing rock covers with a sax added next saturday... would you be more likely to go "erm... I don't think so" or "Hmmm, I might check them out and see what that sounds like"?

The singer is well known around here so I'm positive people will come because of him... at least the first couple of times. Afterwards I just don't know

[Woodinblack]

We play in a band where the singer also plays the sax. It goes down really well and does add something to the proceedings.
I think it helps you to stand out rather than just be another rock covers group. In that 'oh the group with the sax'? Any little helps.

So are they saying do you want to do it - as in join the band or sing?

I think you have to start with a 'what you like' approach, as long as you then listen to the audience and be prepared to drop those songs the audience don't like.

[Trueno]

I played sax in various bands for years. Can't fit it into classic rock IMO. I've played mostly in function bands and soul bands (as part of a section), some jazz funk (great fun) and in a Springsteen tribute band (Clarence has big boots to fill). Other scenarios which are possible and I'd like to try are George Thorogood style rock n roll and ska. But some of the more obvious pub band fare.... no... unless the sax player is very handy with a tambourine.

I actually took up playing bass to get more local gigs playing the... erm... classics.

To answer your question, if I heard of a local band playing the likes of Lizzie and AC/DC with a sax player.... I think I'd give it a miss.
Good luck anyway...

[SpondonBassed]

I like a bit of brasswind but I share your doubts over sax in a rock context. Okay for Meatloaf, Springsteen and rock opera generally perhaps but it would seem quite camp elsewhere. What can the sax player do when he isn't blowing?

I can't comment as a pub goer but as a muso I'd definitely be a Hmmm, as in "Hmmm, I might check them out and see what that sounds like"

Edited June 4, 2017 by SpondonBassed

[gjones]

I know your sax player, Peter, from years back. He used to offer the blues band, I was in at the time, gigs around the Edinburgh/Dalkeith area. The only stipulation was, that he played the gigs with us.

Well we didn't need, or want, a sax player in the band.....but we did want to do those gigs. So we agreed to his terms and he tootled along on the sax while we played the gigs and he got his cut of the fee.

I figured out that he had been going around bars, that put on live music, and getting gigs for a non existent blues band (he wasn't a member of a band at that time).

Of course he then had the problem of finding a band he could do those gigs with.......which is when he called us (he may well have done these gigs with other bands when we weren't free, I don't know?).

I think he has probably realised that ska bands have a limited attraction to music bars and what they really want is rockier bands with wailing guitar solos. The fact that rock bands don't have saxophones in them, is only a problem when the band is not your band, and you aren't the one getting the gigs (as in reality no rock band is going to hire a sax player)

He will be doing that same with this new band, as he did with us way back when - i.e. if you want to do the gig, you have to have him playing sax.

[timhiggins]

I'm a bit dubious about sax working with said material too,unless you were to make it a bit more Springsteen/R and B
or swamp rock ..then i would come see ya

[T-Bay]

It wouldn't make me go to a gig, and like the others above I think it could be a tricky mix (ac/dc with sax?) but give it a go. You will know pretty quickly if it works or not I think.

[Hobbayne]

The girl who plays sax in The Zutons is quite cute.

[mcnach]

[quote name='Woodinblack' timestamp='1496575162' post='3312352']
We play in a band where the singer also plays the sax. It goes down really well and does add something to the proceedings.
I think it helps you to stand out rather than just be another rock covers group. In that 'oh the group with the sax'? Any little helps.

So are they saying do you want to do it - as in join the band or sing?

I think you have to start with a 'what you like' approach, as long as you then listen to the audience and be prepared to drop those songs the audience don't like.
[/quote]

I'm purely bass player here. No singing. Yeah, the songs will have to be selected to discard things where the sax just doesn't work. I've heard some AC/DC with sax and that worked surprisingly well. On some of the more melodic stuff it also can be pretty cool... but there's a lot of things that I just cannot imagine it would sound 'natural'... we'll have to wait and see!

[mcnach]

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1496577389' post='3312371']
I like a bit of brasswind but I share your doubts over sax in a rock context. Okay for Meatloaf, Springsteen and rock opera generally perhaps but it would seem quite camp elsewhere. [b]What can the sax player do when he isn't blowing?[/b]

I can't comment as a pub goer but as a muso I'd definitely be a Hmmm, as in "Hmmm, I might check them out and see what that sounds like"
[/quote]

Not a lot... but there's few things worse than a player who feels they have to play ALL the time. Spaces are good.
It's a situation that I'll have to listen to first before really knowing if I'm in 100% or not.

[dmccombe7]

My mates band is a Led Zep tribute act for about 10-12 yrs now and they decided to acoustic set with Singer, guitar on mainly acoustic and bring in a female backing vocalist and two cello players with quite different techniques. One being very classical trained and sticks to the music note for note (i'm exaggerating a bit) and the other is more able to ad-lib as and when required.

When he told me this set up i thought it would be a disaster but it was an absolutely fantastic gig and extremely entertaining so my advice is to give it a shot and see how it goes.

Dave

[mcnach]

[quote name='gjones' timestamp='1496579493' post='3312395']
I know your sax player, Peter, from years back. He used to offer the blues band, I was in at the time, gigs around the Edinburgh/Dalkeith area. The only stipulation was, that he played the gigs with us.

Well we didn't need, or want, a sax player in the band.....but we did want to do those gigs. So we agreed to his terms and he tootled along on the sax while we played the gigs and he got his cut of the fee.

I figured out that he had been going around bars, that put on live music, and getting gigs for a non existent blues band (he wasn't a member of a band at that time).

Of course he then had the problem of finding a band he could do those gigs with.......which is when he called us (he may well have done these gigs with other bands when we weren't free, I don't know?).

I think he has probably realised that ska bands have a limited attraction to music bars and what they really want is rockier bands with wailing guitar solos. The fact that rock bands don't have saxophones in them, is only a problem when the band is not your band, and you aren't the one getting the gigs (as in reality no rock band is going to hire a sax player)

He will be doing that same with this new band, as he did with us way back when - i.e. if you want to do the gig, you have to have him playing sax.
[/quote]

The ska band is doing well, how he manages to get the gigs he does I don't know. Well, I sort of know... I see him in action everytime: he has a nose for business and knows how to talk to the right people. Over the years I guess he has accummulated a lot of 'friends' in the right places. It just seems the band has some pretty busy periods and others when there's barely one or two gigs a month... so this new band is his idea and it's pretty much a "let's play something that is easy to get gigs for and that we like". As much as we like playing in ska bands... none of us is really a big ska fan It's just a lot of fun to be a player, but our background is definitely more 'rock' (or in my case rock and funk). This new band is *his* band, his idea, he choose the people etc... so he's most definitely playing I have no problem with that at all. I'm pretty curious to see how it works. He mentioned he did play in another band doing some blues/rock stuff so I wonder if that was with you. He mentioned a cover of Audioslave's "Be yourself"...

Local bars... We (the ska band) played a couple of Whistle Binkies gigs, where I've been regularly playing with a number of bands for years, since they replaced the guy in charge... and we've just been told that the management has decided this ska band is not the kind of band they want to have at their bar. It is true, there's only a handful of places that would have a ska band regularly around here.

[mcnach]

[quote name='timhiggins' timestamp='1496579628' post='3312396']
I'm a bit dubious about sax working with said material too,unless you were to make it a bit more Springsteen/R and B
or swamp rock ..then i would come see ya
[/quote]

I think it might end up going that direction, so that the sax can fit well. Who knows!

If I saw a band advertised in a music bar I often go playing rock/sax... I don't think I would rearrange my plans to go to see them, but I'd be pretty interested if I'm going to be in the area.

[mcnach]

[quote name='T-Bay' timestamp='1496580072' post='3312403']
It wouldn't make me go to a gig, and like the others above I think it could be a tricky mix ([b]ac/dc with sax?[/b]) but give it a go. You will know pretty quickly if it works or not I think.
[/quote]


it's pretty cool!

BUt then I also enjoy bands like Hayseed Dixie and Jazz Against The Machine

[mcnach]

[quote name='Hobbayne' timestamp='1496580181' post='3312404']
The girl who plays sax in The Zutons is quite cute.
[/quote]

Not sure this applies here (sorry Peter )

[mcnach]

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1496582194' post='3312425']
My mates band is a Led Zep tribute act for about 10-12 yrs now and they decided to acoustic set with Singer, guitar on mainly acoustic and bring in a female backing vocalist and two cello players with quite different techniques. One being very classical trained and sticks to the music note for note (i'm exaggerating a bit) and the other is more able to ad-lib as and when required.

When he told me this set up i thought it would be a disaster but it was an absolutely fantastic gig and extremely entertaining so my advice is to give it a shot and see how it goes.

Dave
[/quote]


That sounds pretty cool, actually!

What are they called? If they play around here I'd like to see them.

[Trueno]

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1496581828' post='3312421']


Not a lot... but there's few things worse than a player who feels they have to play ALL the time. Spaces are good.
It's a situation that I'll have to listen to first before really knowing if I'm in 100% or not.
[/quote]

I've never played sax all the way through a song, in fact it was a shock when I started playing bass and found I had to play all the time in every song (except "All Right Now") heh! heh!
At the other extreme, you feel a bit of a knob if you have to shake a percussion thingy all the way through a song... and a waste of a perfectly good sax. It's all down to song choice... some Stones and Floyd can be very saxy... or you can try a bold new arrangement of something well known, but the punters might not like it.

[Guest Jecklin]

I'm not your target audience as I avoid cover bands at all costs.

However if a band like The Thing took the stage in a pub and belted out their twist on rock covers in a similar fashion I may stick around.

Ditch the guitars, insist sax man plays bari and get wailing

[Trueno]

[quote name='Jecklin' timestamp='1496591606' post='3312519']
Ditch the guitars, insist sax man plays bari and get wailing
[/quote]

Now you're talking...

[blue]

If I played in a band that played the music I like I'd be broke.

Blue

[Lozz196]

Hanoi Rocks managed to get the saxophone into glam/sleaze rock pretty well.

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1496581828' post='3312421']

Not a lot... but there's few things worse than a player who feels they have to play ALL the time. Spaces are good.
It's a situation that I'll have to listen to first before really knowing if I'm in 100% or not.
[/quote]

Sounds like he's going to get an easy ride compared to the rest of the band. Does he not do BVs?

[mcnach]

[quote name='SpondonBassed' timestamp='1496644143' post='3312823']
Sounds like he's going to get an easy ride compared to the rest of the band. Does he not do BVs?
[/quote]

Well, somebody has to drink the beers that accumulate onstage

[Monkey Steve]

Thin Lizzie have the odd bit of Sax on there, and I could see AC/DC It's A Long Way To The Top with sax replacing the bagpipes, and there's a lot of stuff that has horn sections on the odd song (some Aerosmith, Chili Peppers) and some that have horn sections in the band (Rocket From the Crypt, Mighty Mighty Bosstones if they're not too ska). And beyond that I reckon you can get away with new arrangements with non-original instrumentation, as long as you're doing it really well (and that's the test...). Maybe don't sell the set as being sax based and see whether the punters think it's a nice surprise...

For song choice, my last covers lot were doing hard rock/metal but with an emphasis on doing stuff that wasn't cliche'd or that every other hard rock/metal covers band would do - the "No Paranoid" rule. Basically so that we wouldn't get bored, but always stuff that we thought the crowd would know. So we'd do a Metallica song but it would be Master Of Puppets rather than Enter Sandman, Neon Knights rather than Paranoid, Touch Too Much rather than Whole Lotta Rosie, etc. Specifically stuff that any punter who was going to see a metal covers lot would know and like, but didn't usually get to hear. We only ever played a handful of gigs (and split up due to lead guitarist issues when we were gearing up to make a proper push on getting gigs) but the ones we did play went down really well, and always the same feedback - "it's really nice to hear somebody playing stuff that isn't the same set that everybody else plays"

So i reckon you can get away with some more unusual/less obvious song choices if the crowd are there to hear that sort of a thing in the first place. We reckoned that our audience would probably know 60-80% of what we played, and only played stuff by very well known bands - it was never "here's Meanstreak by Y&T which you won't remember but you'll love once you hear it" it was "here's a less obvious song by Anthrax or Megadeth or Iron Maiden". And we structured the set so that if there was one song that we knew would be less well known, we followed it up by a more well known one so there weren't whole passages in the evening where everybody would be scratching their heads.

[SpondonBassed]

I agree with Steve above. Maybe don't sell it as a sax based thing.

If you do, you're likely to get an audience expecting Gerry Rafferty and Billy Joel style tunes. I like both artists but I doubt they'd fit your rock themed set. Then again, tunes by those artists might be useful for your repertoire if you get an older crowd on occasion.

Edited June 6, 2017 by SpondonBassed