I've always had to carry a ton of weight in all my bands as far as ENFORCING REHEARSAL, taking care of the gear, promoting marketing and getting gigs, and basically everything besides actually playing the show. Recently, I've started to just say "fuck it" and let the other band members make a fool of themselves when they don't show up on time or they're not practiced up and forget the songs.
I know exactly how you feel dude. I am going through the same shit with my band. Practices could be no more important than a monday night football party, and it's never productive anymore. Our bassist acts like we're trying to slam his dick in the fridge for bringing up writing music, he starts bitching like "I'm not going to stand here with my bass and do nothing while you guys play guitar, when I don't even know the song"...and we're like "Um, we don't know the song either. Thats why it's called *writing music*!" I've never been met with such counter-productivness in a band before.
Our drummer can be productive every now and then, but when our bassist (who he came into the band with) starts being a pee-pants about doing anything, he just conforms to what our bassist wants to do...which is usually just fuck-off. Our bassist actually thinks we should start playing MORE covers because "nobody knows our songs and they will like us better if we play songs they know". The rest of us argue that "hey, maybe if we could actually record a disc instead of play through the setlist to placate you, as well as play more covers for your entertainment, then people WOULD know our songs."
Smoke and booze usually preoccupies our "rhythm section"s interest more than being a band, they are more wrapped up in the attention they get from playing in a band rather than the work required to be in a band. Our bassist still thinks all we need to do is get Gene $immon$ to listen to our band and we'll be signed on the spot and we'll never have to work again. He's obviously smoked too much weed in his lifetime to realize that Gene $immon$ isn't looking for a thrash/death band who needs help and guidance in any amount (mostly because of unrealistic members in the band), he's looking for catchy hard rock that can write a ballad every now and then who have already carved a niche and can carry themselves...he just puts his stamp of approval on it.
My biggest complaint about the band as a whole is I'm the only one who does any promoting, putting any money in, providing transportation for the band to shows, and recording. Literally, on the recording part. We have demos that I made using EZ Drummer and recorded all the guitar parts, and on 5 of those songs I actually got our singer to do some vocals. Any other recording we have is from when I set up my firepod/laptop at a show.
It also came down to merch. We had little money to begin with. I proposed we get some shirts to tide us over making some funds while we are preparing to record. Our bassist ended up giving 3/4 of our shirts away to his friends, not charging them a dime or even proposing that they help us out in any way. When I asked him what the fuck, he had no remorse...didn't even care. He still thinks we should get more merch to give away to his friends. He doesn't even have a clue that his 'friends' don't even care about the band, they just care that they have a live jukebox for when they come over to smoke weed.
Needless to say, the band is about to tank. If anything, it's going to fold in order to allow some new people to fill the weak points. I've also started a couple new projects with some other guys because I'm getting tired of the bullshit. I hope it does cave in. I hope they do realize that they fucked up a good thing, and I'm not going to carry them anymore.
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