no, Democracy usually never works... you spin in circles and the best songs and ideas get diluted. Benevolent dictatorship, or Creative Junta.... the latter meaning the most creative, both in terms of music and ideas in general, control things. i will never again be in a democracy with a band... even if that means i'm one of the ones with diminished "say so". sorry, it's just no good to give, say, your bass player... who while he's a great guy and excellent player/performer... but can't write to save his life and thinks he can and is proud of his amateurish efforts, an equal say in how anything at all musical goes. Or to let a singer, who while he has a great voice and stage presence and writes killer melodies... but sux ballz at writing lyrics but he really really wants too even though they come off like 6th Grade D&D horseshit, have an equal say in lyrics... fuggedabowdit. i generally don't like working with democracies as a producer either... gimme a band with one main guy, that's also the primary song-writer (usually works out that way by default anyway) and things can get done. i have no time to sit and wait for a band to argue about something in the studio..... main guy says "it's gonna be like this", hopefully in consensus with me as producer, and off we go. it's very, very rare for everyone in a band to be equally bad-ass at all things and to all be on the same page at all times.
