Getting a band together......and the horrors

[Ultima Ibanez Overlord]

This has got to be one of the most difficult things I've ever done: put a band together.
It's taken almost 2 years, but my band now has a complete line up! Yay!

Anyhow, got any horror stories about your band's or stuff?

I guess I was pretty lucky; I managed to find decent musicians quite quickly. But as for the singer, man, that was a serious nightmare.
We had people coming out to our rehearsal room to audition, and most of them had no idea about singing or progressive rock at all.

The worst part was when one guy just assumed he'd got the job because we hadn't reached a decision about him. After about 4 weeks, me and my keyboard player had to tell him we wanted him to leave the band.
He called me up after rehearsal one weekend and asked me and the keyboard player to go to his place for a chat.
We chewed the cud for a bit, then told him we didn't think it was working out.
He was almost in tears, and started telling us he'd started singing after his brother died.
It turns out that he hadn't been singing long at all (which was very apparent), and he'd started only because he wanted to continue what his brother had been doing (his brother had tried to get in bands for a long time).

I guess he thought he'd achieved something for him and his brother.
But no matter what reason he was doing it for, we had to tell him he was no good for the band.
That was hard to do.

It's kind of amusing in retrospect.

So, anyone got funny stories about getting a band together? (I don't claim mine is funny).

 

[Yngvai X]

I was in a band back in high school doing a lot of Rush covers and we were booked to play a teen dance by the drummers mom. The people who ran the thing loved us but all the kids hated us....We just said fuck it and did the whole 2112!

 

[Ultimate_Symphony]

well this is my story

i have some friends that were looking for a singer so they asked me to try out well i asked them, what kind of music are you going to play? and one of them said that they wanted to play like system or linkin park oh man i turned down the offer quick as hell i had this other friend he's a pretty good drummer but the thing didn't worked out at all so he's still looking for band mates well at the end i'm still looking but it really sucks most of my friends are into nu-metal and punk the only ones that like the same music as me aren't musicians so i'm stuck

 

[RETIREDTrapped]

Yeah, a nightmare 'tis.

I've gone through a pile of different bands and lineups, usually i kick them all out because they aren't "Into It" like i am, and they don't practice... Also they don't want to play complicated stuff, which sucks a bit, metallica covers are only so amusing for a short time...

So... Any of you from Brisbane, and want to play in a technical prog/death band like Nevermore's Politics of Ecstasy or Death's The Sound Of Perseverance??

-Trapped

 

[The_Accolade]

you only had to come to my high school band's concert to see a whole armada of singing terrors!!!

the drummer and i put together this rock show at my school...a bunch of bands and shit...and we gave ourselves 40 minutes to play

at the time our singer was this girl who sings opera...she has a really great voice but she could not remember shit for melodies...we tried to play with her before and she'd be shy and you could never hear here...so fortunately she told me "you have a beautiful voice...you should sing!" and i did and i knew what i was doing...it wasn't too bad..
we finished with "her" song...the song thats really for her and she sang it good and i had to play the whole melody for her before we started the song...and you still couldn't hear her..poor thing!

then i was going to sing aces high, but this kid who knew about the show BEGGED me to let him do it. he was in ninth grade and his voice still hadn't broken or something..i really wanted to sing it but we could see how much he wasnted it so we let him....and it was really funny to hear him sing, even though he did it right..but every now and the he'd be like...."YYEEEOooww!" hehe...and after the solo he didn't realize there was a break and he kept coming in and i'd be like "no no" and the next bar he came in and same thing...we were all cracking up on stage

finally our friend, really wanted to sing with the band but he has no voice at all, as emtal as he is. we called him "the manager"...my friends said when he started singing, on the first song, he thought he was doing a soundcheck...didn't realize it was singing at all

oh well!
we held our own in the end...i sang one of mysongs, paranoid, and so what? (yeah, at school! hahahaha)...but the best shit was for master of puppets, my good buddy did it real screamy, good style, good voice and everything. HE is a singer!


the worst thing that ever seriously happened to a band i was in was our drummer (another dude) it was a punk band and the rest of us liked metal/punk...he was always like no we'll only play punk, and even telling us what kind of songs to play and what he didn't want to play...real bossy. when it came roudn to it in the studio, we started playing anythign he liked and he had no idea what to play on the drums or anything....
i was like "no big deal just hit the snare 4/4 for now and you'll come up with the rest sooner or later..."
"i can't do it!!! "
THAT was annoying....

the other bad drummer just couldn't keep his rhythm...he sped up every measure and it was driving us crazy..we finally got him on a metronome and he rips now!

 

[suacy]

i had the same problem last year. a friend of mine is a decent metal guitarist who had been working with a number of bands most of his teenage years, and never able to get a singer. when he got one he invited me to play lead guitar alongside him, and i believe the singer showed up at practice 3 times altogether. i eventually quit the band to focus on practicing malmsteen/satriani songs instead of wasting time with a band just waiting for a singer to make a committment.

 

[Bix]

Once I was in a band looking for a drummer, and we tried out quite a few.
So one day a really enthusiastic guy called, and wanted to come and try out... at the time he lived like a 5 hour drive from us, but he said he would move to our city soon.
He "warned" us that he'd only been playing drums for like 2 years, but claimed to be really talented.
Also - he wanted to bring his own set with him for the "audition" instead of using the one we had in our rehearsal-room....

So...the guy arrives in a Chevy Van, packed with drums - this was the biggest fuckin' set of drums I've ever seen!
We were very impressed as we helped him carry the stuff up the stairs...
And then the nightmare begun...
We started to jam and try different songs - and the guy was like a total... well - let's say I could play better drums than that! (and I suck big-time! )
It was really embarrasing...we didn't know what to say.
The worst thing was that he didn't even hear it himself - how awful it was. He kept saying "this is great, right!?" or "I'm pretty good, huh?"
Finally (like after on hour of this hell), as we said that it was quite enough he confessed that he'd only been playing the drums for 2 months... "but you can't tell, since I'm really talented and good, huh?"
We helped him to carry his HUGE set down to the car, and said we had some other guys we wanted to try out...don't call us - we'll call you...

 

[Nevermorian]

Originally posted by Trapped
Yeah, a nightmare 'tis.

So... Any of you from Brisbane, and want to play in a technical prog/death band like Nevermore's Politics of Ecstasy or Death's The Sound Of Perseverance??

-Trapped

Fuck it! Why do you have to live in Australia/Why have I to live in Germany? I think we could work together in a damn good way!

 

[Ultima Ibanez Overlord]

That's sort of how it was for my band with this singer guy, Bix.

When he'd sing, we couldn't hear him and he'd always blame the mic. But we'd always record with some mics in the room and we'd DI his mic to the mixer.
When we'd listen back, we'd all be looking at each other as if to say "what the fuck? he thinks he's a singer?".

The trouble is we kidded ourselves he could do the job because when he'd done his stuff, he sounded ok.

We should have done what you did.

It's all funny stuff to look back on

 

[Dustin]

There are so many horror stories about finding people to jam with or even playing in a bands with them at that! ....I wouldn't no where to begin.

If the truth be known, If you think finding a bunch of cool kats to jam with is hard....try keeping them in the band and interested long enough to make something happen!

Utah is not just a desert in the literal sense...
our bands exsistance is a fluke.....or fate....either or...

 

[Orlock]

Finding the perfect vocals is always HARD!
So I hope there are some people who loves instrumental music

 

[RETIREDTrapped]

Fuck it! Why do you have to live in Australia/Why have I to live in Germany? I think we could work together in a damn good way!

ha ha, yeah, it sucks.. there is NO-ONE here to start a band with, i don't want to have to move back to melbourne! Noooo!!

 

[the_Eyes]

Starting a band, rating: hard.
Keeping the band together: xtremely hard!!!!
I'm in a band now for 8 years and still the members keep on changing! Guess I've seen all the problems: friendship, money, relationships, dedication, family matters, emigration, record labels, empty promises, playing in several bands, musical differences, you name it, I saw it.

 

[JSebek]

Getting a band together sucks, my band Lucid Undercurrent has gone through like 6 singers in the last 3 years, none of them measure up to the standards that we want/need out of a vocalist. It's the same thing with finding a GOOD bass player around here, I guess living in Maine doesn't help, if any of you guys are in the New England area and either sing/play bass and are into technical/prog metal then feel free to email me.

 

[ElPredicador]

I have this band, which really sucks, btw, but it is as good as it gets, since I am not an amazing guitar player to´play with the people that really play.
Anyway, the drummer has this really old drumset, about 15 years or so (imagine how was it like). The drum that's on your right (don't know the name in english, 'timbal' in spanish) had one leg missing, so it was supported by the bass drum, which didn't have legs. What happened was that this drummer once hit the crash cymbal too hard, and it fell on the bass drum, so it rolled to one side, and the other drum fell to the floor, and the rolling bass drum hit the ride. Finally the drummer ended up under the fallen drumkit, and when we stopped playing, laughing our asses off, the drummer says "Why the hell did you stop playing????!!!!". That was really funny. Too bad he fixed his drumkit...