How have you usually found your bandmates?

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For those of you that are in bands... just curious.

Did you find your bandmates through a musicians wanted ad, like in the back of the Village Voice or the NME or ::insert your local paper here::?

Or did you meet them through friends of friends, at gigs, or through word of mouth?

If you've done both, has either set tended to be more "reliable" or more ... "creatively compatible"?

Tell me about how you met the people that you work(ed) with.

― Paranoid Spice (kate), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 10:17 (nineteen years ago)

I have worked with Chris for something like 9 years now. We were childhood friends with a love of the same things, so it made sense that we would eventually pick up some instruments and start making noise.

In the past we have worked with a constantly-changing array of extra musicians, whom we met through various means, although who were invariably friends before bandmates (I just find it easier this way).

Lately we have been working with a drummer, who I work in the same place as, and we hooked up through long musical discussions in which I would attack him for having rockist tendancies. He's a very good drummer, though, and the one practice we have had with him so far turned out very well indeed.

We also work with a girl who asked me to play with a group of people she had assembled--nothing serious, just some fun. When that dissolved (i.e. when the group of people she had assembled decided to go off and form their own band after arguments over vocal duties), I opted to continue working with her, as she has a stunning voice and quite a talent for songwriting. Later, as was inevitable, Chris joined in to bolster what we were doing, and I've no doubt that the two seperate bands I am working on at the moment will eventually collapse into one singularity...

― tissp! (the impossible shortest specia), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 10:40 (nineteen years ago)

my best friend and my brother are also my bassist and brother, respectively. i don't have to worry about arguments messing up our friendships or anything, as they're both pussywhipped little bitches and do exactly as i say.

― g-kit (g-kit), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 12:34 (nineteen years ago)

bassist and drummer*, obv.

fuxache.

― g-kit (g-kit), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 12:35 (nineteen years ago)

Word of mouth/friends/other bands is always is always a better way to go in my experience.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 12:45 (nineteen years ago)

I dunno; I've had a couple of extremely good experiences with people I met through the Village Voice. However, that was me answering ads (quite carefully, mind you) rather than taking them out.

― Paranoid Spice (kate), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 13:00 (nineteen years ago)

Pretty much all of my other bands were with friends and/or acquaintances, but we found our current drummer through a craigslist ad. We were pretty lucky, we only met up with one or two duds (and even they weren't even huge duds, just people who were crazier/way more experienced than us) before meeting Ben.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 13:00 (nineteen years ago)

Like any kind of personals ads, using band member ads requires a certain ability to read between the lines.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 13:09 (nineteen years ago)

So why is it every person who reponded to mine in the NME was all "Uuuhhh... I've never heard of any of the bands you list, but, like, I just want to start gigging again."

― Paranoid Spice (kate), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 13:20 (nineteen years ago)

I posted to craigslist a few times and found that on one hand, if we were too specific, we got no one. But if we were too general, we got random metal dudes, older mercenary players, etc.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 13:23 (nineteen years ago)

i've gotten some good bites on craigslist, but no one who i felt a real affinity for. it's really discouraging because I have no real connection to other musicians who share the same influences/desire to play X as me. pretty much all the musicians i know are into active rock.

but my dilema is pretty much the same as hurtings :)

― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 16:09 (nineteen years ago)

So far I'm only interesting in playing with friends, or at least friends of friends. I have difficulties with sex with total strangers too. Friendship is far more interesting to me than, say, musical competence.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 20:26 (nineteen years ago)

Our drummer isn't very competent, if that makes you feel better.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 5 October 2005 20:36 (nineteen years ago)

I just rock up to rehearsals and there they are!!

err that was lame. i know.

― john clarkson, Wednesday, 5 October 2005 21:00 (nineteen years ago)

Always friends or friends of friends. My current band are old mates from Univ (20 years ago!) who reformed in 2000, after about 15 years off. They asked me to join last year, on keyboards, which I'd never played before. I'm now working in some guitar, which is my real instrument. I can't imagine it working if we weren't all friends, but the disadvantage is that it can sometimes make it difficult to air creative differences. I tend to hold back more than I perhaps should.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 6 October 2005 06:27 (nineteen years ago)

When we started our band, our guitarist/vocalist was my girlfriend, and our drummer came up to her after a solo acoustic show and asked if she needed a drummer. She goes out with him now, but it still seems to work...

As for ads, I found them to be of no use whatsoever e.g. "I've never heard of those bands (Fugazi/Morphine/Low etc,) but my band's looking for a bass player. We're really into Robbie Williams and Del Amitri..."

― Ben Dot (1977), Thursday, 6 October 2005 15:48 (nineteen years ago)

I've always either joined pre-existing bands, i.e. they found me (2x), or a group of people around me all simultaneously decide to be a band (also 2x).

― Roxymuzak, Mrs. Carbohydrate (roxymuzak), Thursday, 6 October 2005 15:49 (nineteen years ago)

One remarkable human-resources story about us is that the drummer started out as a paid mercenary (a short-term solution after losing the original drummer) but gradually developed interest in the band until he became a full-fledged member, ponying up his own money for recording etc.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Sunday, 9 October 2005 04:28 (nineteen years ago)

Also I stole my bassist and drummer from another band, just waiting slowly for them to fall apart, grabbing members one by one. Of course, now they are both spending more time in yet other bands, so oh well.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 9 October 2005 15:44 (nineteen years ago)

xpost HAHAHAHAHA Del Amitri

― Hurting (Hurting), Monday, 10 October 2005 03:54 (nineteen years ago)

I am blown away that Tim played for the Music Machine, they fucking rule!

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 10 October 2005 13:31 (nineteen years ago)

Whoops, wrong thread, but still true.

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 10 October 2005 13:31 (nineteen years ago)

Friends. When our original drummer left we "auditioned" a couple guys, friends of friends, some people we didn't know, and it went terribly. I mean the guy had drumming gloves.

I no longer play in a band, want/need a new band, and no musician friends live terribly close by. I watch this thread with interest! give me your secrets.

― mcd (mcd), Monday, 10 October 2005 15:48 (nineteen years ago)

drumming gloves???

― Roxymuzak, Mrs. Carbohydrate (roxymuzak), Monday, 10 October 2005 18:56 (nineteen years ago)

No kidding! He unzipped this case slowly and put on these black gloves, sat down with purpose, and began to shred in a very emo/post hardcore way. Think Quicksand or something.

― mcd (mcd), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 15:23 (nineteen years ago)

I think Tim was wearing black gloves in the photo I saw on the other thread, but I guess that was different.

― k/l (Ken L), Tuesday, 11 October 2005 15:24 (nineteen years ago)

three months pass...

HOW DO I SHOT BAND?

― Guitar Phase (Matt Chesnut), Monday, 30 January 2006 06:19 (nineteen years ago)

i've found them all through people I already knew. the only times I've tried getting people off craigslist it's been a disaster.

― kyle (akmonday), Monday, 30 January 2006 07:42 (nineteen years ago)

We all went to college together. I wasn't friends with all of them when I was there, but we ran in similar circles, and post-graduation, all of us just happened to be living in Chicago.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 30 January 2006 07:57 (nineteen years ago)

Poach them from better bands in your area.

― dewey2, Monday, 30 January 2006 15:18 (nineteen years ago)

i dont know why, but i never thought of going to open mics to search out bandmates. i'm planning on starting this however.

that and myspace.

― AaronK (AaronK), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 13:53 (nineteen years ago)

punk answer: teach music fans that dress well how to play

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 18:28 (nineteen years ago)

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