I have a band I'm supposed to track this weekend. The guitarist in the band had hired me to record a previous band of his a couple years ago that ended up getting botched at his request: they weren't ready. I left with subpar performances. Over time, he started asking me to do extra stuff (delete the other guitarists tracks and play them myself, etc.). Eventually, he told me to just stop working on it as they had disbanded and it was just garbage in their eyes.
Now he's in another band. He contacted me to come record them a while back. I was fine with this. After a while, he tried to convince me to give a discount based on getting payed for the last project (was supposed to be like $1100, only got payed $750). I said "might be able to work something out", being kinda vague on purpose because I did quite a bit of work on the previous album before they cancelled on me, and there was no agreement then to return any of it to them. This was the first point of discontent. If I had just tracked them then and didn't do any editing and hadn't been putting in extra work up until it got killed off, I probably would have given them some cash back.
Dude msg's me the other day asking if there needed to be anything set in place for when I get there. I said not really...asked if they were ready for it (since I now require bands to track to a click track). I reminded him it's been working out that I spend the first session doing just the drums and would come back later to track everything else...mostly because of bands dicking off or being unprepared, that is usually all there is time for in a weekend. He starts going "Oh...I don't think thats going to work for us. I was hoping we could get everything done in a weekend" and giving me a bunch of excuses as to why. I told him "well, I can make it work. Make sure every song has tempos/time changes written out so I can put them in and make sure you guys are able to play em". He says "I'll talk with the guys and see what they say".
Now, I'm at the point where I don't want to deal with the guy. I talked to the drummer from the previous band a while back and he lamented that he didn't care about the recording session I did with them because it was this guitar player's impatient demand that they record right away when they didn't have anything really up to speed. I'm wondering if this is a similar scenario, that he is just in a desperate hurry to get shit recorded for no realistic reason.
I am thinking of calling the drummer from this band and asking him his take on it and how he feels about it. If he gives me the idea that they don't really want to do it and it's just being rushed along by the 1 guy, I'm probably gonna tell him it isn't worth my time, payed or not. Anyone else bail on projects because of unprepared/immature/whatever musicians and you'd rather not waste your time on their shit whether you got payed to deal with it or not?
Now he's in another band. He contacted me to come record them a while back. I was fine with this. After a while, he tried to convince me to give a discount based on getting payed for the last project (was supposed to be like $1100, only got payed $750). I said "might be able to work something out", being kinda vague on purpose because I did quite a bit of work on the previous album before they cancelled on me, and there was no agreement then to return any of it to them. This was the first point of discontent. If I had just tracked them then and didn't do any editing and hadn't been putting in extra work up until it got killed off, I probably would have given them some cash back.
Dude msg's me the other day asking if there needed to be anything set in place for when I get there. I said not really...asked if they were ready for it (since I now require bands to track to a click track). I reminded him it's been working out that I spend the first session doing just the drums and would come back later to track everything else...mostly because of bands dicking off or being unprepared, that is usually all there is time for in a weekend. He starts going "Oh...I don't think thats going to work for us. I was hoping we could get everything done in a weekend" and giving me a bunch of excuses as to why. I told him "well, I can make it work. Make sure every song has tempos/time changes written out so I can put them in and make sure you guys are able to play em". He says "I'll talk with the guys and see what they say".
Now, I'm at the point where I don't want to deal with the guy. I talked to the drummer from the previous band a while back and he lamented that he didn't care about the recording session I did with them because it was this guitar player's impatient demand that they record right away when they didn't have anything really up to speed. I'm wondering if this is a similar scenario, that he is just in a desperate hurry to get shit recorded for no realistic reason.
I am thinking of calling the drummer from this band and asking him his take on it and how he feels about it. If he gives me the idea that they don't really want to do it and it's just being rushed along by the 1 guy, I'm probably gonna tell him it isn't worth my time, payed or not. Anyone else bail on projects because of unprepared/immature/whatever musicians and you'd rather not waste your time on their shit whether you got payed to deal with it or not?
