Band members in other bands

[Franticsmurf]

2 hours ago, Mickeyboro said:

But pushing them to ‘choose’ means we will probably lose them and thus be unable to do gigs at all. 

I meant prioritise in the short term to cover a specific choke point. But if the choke points become frequent then perhaps it is time to have the difficult conversation? The alternative is either not knowing who will be playing on the night of the gig (if you can get a dep) or cancelling gigs because there's a clash. Neither are good and the latter will ruin your band's reputation. 

1 hour ago, Mickeyboro said:

Theory: being a blues band, we can attract people who want to do something different from their regular music. But, and I blame blues jams for this, they may think ‘near enough is good enough’ and practice is not as important. Thoughts?

 Could it be that some equate 'Blues Band' with 'easy 12 bar covers' and see it as something they can fit in without too much effort? (I should add that it's not my perception.) As you say, 'near enough is good enough'. 

[Stub Mandrel]

13 hours ago, warwickhunt said:

EVERYONE, regardless of the band they are in, has to honour the gig that goes in first

 

One of my bands has an exception to this. The BL is also in a pro band (they are playing the IoW). They have to jump when called.

[Franticsmurf]

Just now, Stub Mandrel said:

 

One of my bands has an exception to this. The BL is also in a pro band (they are playing the IoW). They have to jump when called.

But as long as it was agreed by the whole band, I think that would be fine. 

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

22 minutes ago, bertbass said:

Sorry, but if you're in one band then that's it, you don't play in other bands.  Help out in an emergency as long as no one else minds.  Not enough gigs to keep you happy, get more gigs.  Wrong type of music, leave and join another band.  I think you get where I'm coming from.

That stance does not fly in my part of the world. I'd go as far as to say being in one band and one band only is not the norm at all.

[StingRayBoy42]

I'm in lots of bands/dep occasionally and the golden rule (as others have said) is:

If you've said yes to a gig and it's in your diary, you do it.

I've just had to turn down a well paid wedding gig as I'll be up in Manchester (playing for next to nothing - an old mate's originals band) next weekend. This gig was organised months ago, so I'm doing it.

If you start ducking out of gigs for better paid ones, people will quickly stop asking you to gig... you're only as good as your word.

Use Google calendar and encourage everyone else to - this makes everyone's life a LOT easier and cuts down the potential for oopsies in my experience.

As someone above said - if someone in your band is getting offered stuff like IOW festival.... that'd be a different matter.
I'd imagine they've made that pretty clear from the outset!

And as someone else said - get a few deps on board!

As for people turning up to gigs/rehearsals without having practiced... that's just laziness, surely?!

Edited 7 hours ago by StingRayBoy42

[StingRayBoy42]

Duplicate post

Edited 7 hours ago by StingRayBoy42

[chris_b]

39 minutes ago, bertbass said:

Sorry, but if you're in one band then that's it, you don't play in other bands. . . .

 

I can see that rule working in a hobby band, if someone treats playing bass as they would the occasional game of golf, but not if you are remotely serious about being a working musician.

 

I've done the one band thing. We were gigging 3 nights a week which could be 4 or 5 on occasion and often twice on Sunday. You don't see many bands being that busy any more, so multiple bands it is.

[Mickeyboro]

7 minutes ago, StingRayBoy42 said:

As for people turning up to gigs/rehearsals without having practiced... that's just laziness, surely?!

They’re all so busy with their other bands😬

[StingRayBoy42]

1 minute ago, Mickeyboro said:

They’re all so busy with their other bands😬

I find it hard to believe that anyone's *so* busy they can't find an hour somewhere to look over some stuff they'll be playing live!

Unless their other bands are Dragonforce/Dream Theater tributes, in which case, I'd probably believe them!

[StingRayBoy42]

1 hour ago, bertbass said:

Sorry, but if you're in one band then that's it, you don't play in other bands.  Help out in an emergency as long as no one else minds.  Not enough gigs to keep you happy, get more gigs.  Wrong type of music, leave and join another band.  I think you get where I'm coming from.

What if you like playing more than one type of music?!

[Burns-bass]

Best thing to do is (wait for it) talk to them. (Ideally without alcohol involved.)

[casapete]

From my experience, the bigger the band then the bigger the problems. If you’re in say a 6 piece

and everyone of them are in other bands, then the chances of everyone being able to make all your gigs

are significantly reduced - and then you end up with one of more deps which is hardly ideal.

 

With my recent situation with a touring theatre band it was made clear that depping gigs out was 

not going to happen, and I did every gig with them that they performed in 15 years. I was fine with

that to be honest. I had to turn gigs down with my duo as a result, but as my duo mate was a lot

busier than me it wasn’t an issue. Since leaving the band, I’m now in a position for the duo to

be my first call, and we’re getting plenty of gigs - we can book them further into the future with

confidence, knowing we’ll both be there! 
 

I’m reminded of that famous Duke Ellington quote - “ There is nothing to keeping a band together - 

you simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money! “ 😄

 

 

[tauzero]

1 hour ago, bertbass said:

Sorry, but if you're in one band then that's it, you don't play in other bands.  Help out in an emergency as long as no one else minds.  Not enough gigs to keep you happy, get more gigs.  Wrong type of music, leave and join another band.  I think you get where I'm coming from.

 

As long as you don't think that your rule should be imposed on anyone from bands other than your own, fine.

 

I'm in two bands - the originals band isn't going a lot as yet, the covers band just has 8 gigs for the rest of the year at the moment, plus I'm the house bassist for a couple of open mic nights and occasionally am asked to learn a song for it. I'm the only one in more than one band, though our singer also does musicals (he's the monster in "Young Frankenstein" in July) which takes some time up, and also does dogsitting which takes occasional weekends.

 

@Mickeyboro, how easy have you made it for the other band members to practice? With my covers band, I've created a Dropbox folder containing MP3s of all the songs in the set, with a sub-folder for new ones that we're rehearsing. For the originals band, the singer/keys/writer shares his fully produced tracks with the drummer and me (the released tracks are solo but for live gigs there's also drums and bass). That means that it's very easy to practice - better than hunting on Youtube to find a song and then practicing to the wrong version of it.

[chris_b]

11 minutes ago, casapete said:

From my experience, the bigger the band then the bigger the problems. If you’re in say a 6 piece

and everyone of them are in other bands, then the chances of everyone being able to make all your gigs

are significantly reduced - and then you end up with one of more deps which is hardly ideal.

 

As I said, get your gigs into the diary first. Problem solved!

 

Then it depends on the deps. Deps can be good or bad. If you've got a bad dep then it's your fault for not booking a good dep. Make the right choices and the deps can be better musicians than the guys they are replacing.

 

[casapete]

2 hours ago, chris_b said:

 

As I said, get your gigs into the diary first. Problem solved!

 

Then it depends on the deps. Deps can be good or bad. If you've got a bad dep then it's your fault for not booking a good dep. Make the right choices and the deps can be better musicians than the guys they are replacing.

 

I guess it really boils down to how you view yourself - a band member or perhaps a musician who happens to 

play with whoever gives them work? 

I’ve played music for a living for over 30 years, and wouldn’t have been able to do so if I’d not been 

loyal to the bands I was in. It’s different in London I know ( and maybe other big cities ) where there are

plenty of great deps who allow lots of flexibility if the situation allows it. But commitment and reliability

count for something outside of that sphere, and in my world I couldn’t have constantly been depping

my gigs out whenever I’d had a previous / better offer. I’m not saying either option is wrong or right,

just not the same for everyone.

Similar problems can arise when band members have day jobs that define their availability - being in a

band ( earning big money) with 3 teachers in it got to be very annoying for me. 

(Best bit was when we got some deps in to enable the band to carry on working, and they were better

than the guys working in school!)

Naturally it all inevitably came to a messy end. 

[Cat Burrito]

When I was young, you had your band and that was it. Getting into my 30s, I realised a lot of people had a few different projects on the go. I wound up doing the same and would regularly be in 3 bands at once. It peaked around 2019 where I was in six bands. However, being in a band means you put the work in. You show up on time, learn your parts and commit. I operated first come first served with bookings and actually having clashes was rarely an issue. Equally, you have to be gracious about people depping for you, if you are playing in a few groups.

 

I've just gone the other way and currently have my duo that is pretty regular and just one band that is more of a recording project that do a few gigs a year at most. I was definitely becoming guilty of not saying no to things but I actually think if you aren't learning the songs, it's quite rude. Rehearsal is to learn to play as a band, not for the ones who are thinly stretched to be taught the songs, especially if they then forget them for next time. People have different levels of enthusiasm and offer different levels of commitment. However, there has to be a common minimum standard and if players are not meeting this, something needs to give. 

[Mickeyboro]

19 minutes ago, Cat Burrito said:

Rehearsal is to learn to play as a band, not for the ones who are thinly stretched to be taught the songs, especially if they then forget them for next time. 

How very true! 
 

We sacked our first singer as he always had an excuse. Three years was probably giving him too much rope…

[Lozz196]

Even worse is using soundchecks to rehearse

[Stub Mandrel]

6 hours ago, Franticsmurf said:

But as long as it was agreed by the whole band, I think that would be fine. 

 

It's his band, but we old farts want the young un' to succeed.

[Mickeyboro]

8 hours ago, Len_derby said:

Another thought, do these ‘less than fully committed’ members have any say in the set list? Maybe letting them choose a song they particularly like, within the genre, would make them keener? In my bands we call it ‘throwing them a bone to chew on’. 😀🐕🦴

We have, and it’s worked to an extent. But they already tend to know those songs, so no/less work needed!