What do you look for in band members?

"Good hair/dress sense" is not on this list, so basically fuck this list.

availability

"Good hair/dress sense" is not on this list, so basically fuck this list.

I think that falls under taste.

Hmmmmm. I guess, then.

so like the drummer who's maybe not so great but fits in perfectly with the look, musical style, and overall vision of what you're trying to do aesthetically vs. one who is way better but seems like they belong in a different band.

This is what drum machines are for.

taste, but with no chemistry it's all irrelevant anyway

trust fund

serious answer - reliability over all listed choices

yeah, I'm torn between people who are around, reliable, available, but not musically a great fit, vs. better musicians who are a better fit, but are never available because they have too much stuff going on.

Taste and friendship. Fuck technical ability.

Taste first, everything else usually follows. Also, a willingness to help with legwork. Not much is more irritating than everyone going flyering save for one band member who's all, "Hey man, I don't do that stuff."

I think people just have to kind of 'get it' and gel. I'm not that interested in becoming super duper best mates and I'm not even that fussed if they listen to slightly different music than me, although all these things help.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

taste -- differences in taste can put strain on a friendship if you are in a band together (have dealt with this, generally results in either band breaking up, or one person being "the leader" and the other or others compromising for "the greater good").

but serious answer -- shared expectations

At least it my case, the pickier you get, the harder it is to find people. I wasn't until I decided I just wanted to do a straight up hard guitar rock band, no pretense to any actual genre that I was able to get together a band. I went through a decade of wanting to do this kind of specific kind of thing, some ideas more obscure than others. Obviously you got to be able to play to a certain degree at the same level or have it mix and you got to get along and be willing to do the work too. It's really a combination of things. I do think if you get real specific and picky, it can be difficult to find people that know what the heck you are talking about as music is such a wide ranging thing at this point.

look for people who will dissuade you from the mostly demoralizing act of being in a band

that would be a wife

j/k

taste >>> for me but depending on what style u play playing can easily be make or break. depends on how comfortable u are telling your slap-bass god BFF that his basslines are corny i guess. friendship, idk unless the person is a total asshole from the getgo u will probably become friends thru the process of being in a band

good taste, not annoying to be around, good at what they're supposed to do in the band, own equipment, not a bum

Well, my honest to god answer for my "most successful" band (whatever that means) was people who looked cool onstage, who got the aesthetic of the band, who played stuff that I enjoyed (without giving a fuck) when they DJ'd, people who already looked and acted like they already belonged onstage. I chose people to be in my band that I thought were the kind of people I would want to stand in the audience and look at/listen to, and the kind of people I wanted to be popstars.

But that particular band was a pop band, it was an "image" band and trying to make it into something else eventually ruined it.

In other bands, it's mostly been friendship, getting along, reliability, that cluster of things. Do you enjoy spending time with these people, could you actually spend 12 hours a day cooped up in a tourvan with them because that's what it takes. And being in bands with people you get along with, but don't necessarily share the same taste with, that is actually better for the music, as you end up with more interesting syntheses through compromise. The most interesting bands I've been in have been bands that weren't aesthetically aligned, but were friends, and brought a wider pot of influences to the table, so you didn't just end up sounding like that one band everyone loved.

part of me feels that 'method' is another thing. agreeing on the angle at which you approach music is more important than what style you all want to play.

def agree with branwell's 2nd paragraph. good taste no matter what kind of taste is important, even better if they have a different set of reference points than you

The most interesting bands I've been in have been bands that weren't aesthetically aligned, but were friends, and brought a wider pot of influences to the table, so you didn't just end up sounding like that one band everyone loved.

This is interesting -- because I've often had the opposite experience. For example, with the lack of aesthetic alignment, the band ends up playing in a more limited range because that is the only thing the band members can agree they like to play. Whereas with people who share your taste, there is less anxiety about saying, "Hey, this might be kinda weird, but I also like this totally disparate thing, what if we add something like that to this song?"

Well, the band this happened mist effectively with, the lead guy (who brought us on board as a rhythm section) was really into piano-based singer-songwritery stuff, with bits of backing samples, but he didn't want to do stuff just on his own. We all got on as people really well, but I was at that time into spacerock, psych, heavy drone and the drummer was into hip-hop and a bit of jazz. The lead guy was laid back enough to just say "whatever you wanna do under my stuff, if it works, that's fine." And it sounded completely unlike any other band I'd ever played in - but it just worked?

it's cool when stuff like that happens!

I don't require anyone having the same taste as me, but a similar framework helps, definitely. The sort of thing BB describes sounds awesome, but I imagine that chemistry happens very rarely.

I guess there's also the issue, similar to taste, but not the same, which is "what do you want the band to sound like?"

Yeah, it was fun.

I think it comes from growing up in a small town with a scene so small you either have to train people who like the same stuff to play (which I've cetainky done) or end up playing with the only 2 other people who are even remotely in the same universe as you musically, even if you don't like the same thing. (Like, growing up in a village where everyone liked country or classic rock, the only 2 indie kids will end up in a band together, even if one likes Sonuc Youth and the other is a goth - you find a way to make it work, or you end up in Skynyrd covers territory.)

i am learning a lot from this thread!

The most interesting bands I've been in have been bands that weren't aesthetically aligned, but were friends, and brought a wider pot of influences to the table, so you didn't just end up sounding like that one band everyone loved.

One of my favorite bands I've been in was like this. We had the most fun music discussions/arguments on the road. Two members would talk about early Genesis while the other person scoffed; two members would talk about FMP while the other listened; two members would talk about obscure psychedelia while the third listened and learned. And when we played, the shit cohered in ways none of us expected.

Sadly, another band took our name and has a much higher profile with it, and the guitarist recently moved across the country. But we all keep in touch and hold out hope for future playing.

I guess there's also the issue, similar to taste, but not the same, which is "what do you want the band to sound like?"

― ^ enlightening post (sarahell), Tuesday, January 28, 2014 8:22 PM

I think one of the most important lessons that I have ever learned in my musical ~lyfe~ is, basically, abandon this question.

Because, for all your intentions of going into a band, saying "we will sound like Cocteau Twins meets Can...!!!" or whatever, you will not sound like that, you will sound like what you sound like when you all start playing together.

I always say: start a band with your friends, but first make sure one of your friends is a really good drummer

i am learning a lot from this thread!

yeah me too. thanks everyone for the good discussion and advice.

for me:

playing > taste > friendship

It is super frustrating when you KNOW what the band should do or how the song should go and someone in the band, who is your buddy and awesome, just cannot do it

(caveat: most of my experience has been much more in the choir/small ensemble realm than the actual band realm; my one band actually included my boss and my boss's boss and I got to spend a lot of time ordering them around despite being a terrible-at-best keyboard player because I was the one who understood how to structure/arrange the songs)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

xp to BB - I was thinking in more general terms: does the band aspire to be highly technically proficient, do you want people to dance to your music, do you want to be "tight" or "loose," do you want to be able to play in certain scenes. I guess it goes back to goals & expectations.

Ah, OK, thanks, that makes much more sense, Sarahell. Aligned goals and expectations is pretty important - the only thing worse than being in a band where everyone except that one time-wasting dude is tight and dedicated and committed to ~MAKING IT!!!!!~ is being in a band where everyone is loose and chilled and just doing it for fun and hobby, but there's that one guy who's always screaming that if EVERYONE would be more MOTIVATED then this band could REALY MAKE IT!!!!!!!11 and always up in your grill about how you should be playing more commercially and just ugh.

Reading this thread has made me really, really miss Being In A Band. But I guess what I think I miss is being 25 and excited about making music with other people.

The certain scenes thing is weird, tho. I completely understand what you mean by that being a question. And one person wanting to be in one scene, but the other person wanting to be in another can be a massive tension. (This was a huge contributing tension to the breakup of my last band.) And that's the kind of thing that I'm really signifying when I talk about having the right "clothes and haircuts" because this, way more than your music ever will be, will see you assigned to one scene rather than another. (In London, at least, and to an extent in NYC, when I was there.) But there's another part of me that thinks you end up with the scene and the "audience" that you deserve? I dunno.

Sorry to go on at length. It's this intra-band-dynamics thing that fascinates me more than p much any other aspect of the "music scene" or whatevs.

when I talk about having the right "clothes and haircuts" because this, way more than your music ever will be, will see you assigned to one scene rather than another.

that and who your friends are and what bands you play shows with, who often have similar clothes and haircuts

Yeah, totally.

And though I feel this vague residual guilty that it's ~so shallow~ to care about clothes and haircuts, it's still one of the single most common signifiers by which people are placed in one group rather than another (thinking about this a lot, due to the genderqueer thread, and why there is so much emphasis on physical presenting/passing).

Seriously, guys, friends. Play with your friends. And a good drummer. Haircuts? My goodness. If s/he's your friend, you can tell them to practice. What if you have to spend the rest of your life with this person. What if there is a court dispute. What if there is a naked hot tub party. What if what if.

There's a big argument for NOT being in bands with your friends, because when you have big massive friendship fallout, the band breaks up. With strangers, who cares. With friends, if your band starts going Horribly Wrong, you've lost the friendship as well as your band. With strangers, who cares. Being in bands with your friends is the single quickest way to lose all of your friends. I used to be best friends with all of the people in my band. I haven't heard from a single member of that band in over 3 years now. Friends? Don't talk to me about friends.

Be in bands with strangers. It's so much easier.

in some ways it's like dating -- sometimes you just gotta start with whoever will have you in order to get experience and then move on from there

There are two stages of your musical ~lyfe~ in which "be in bands with friends" is really, really good advice!

First, when you're just starting out, and you're all learning, and it doesn't really matter. Be in bands with your friends, it will be fun, your friendship will keep the thing going, while you're going through the phase of being not very good, together.

After some time, when you've been in other bands, and built up your experience, and more importantly, built up a large circle of friends who are musicians, and you know who you like and trust and get along with, and who you don't. Then, be in bands with friends! It will be awesome and fun and you will all be on the same page.

But these two phases do not necessarily lead straight into one another.

I think, ultimately, there is nothing worse in music than looking back at an album cycle and realizing that you've just spent the last two years of your life with a total asshat just because he had good feel

The idea of working musically with somebody who I wouldn't have over for dinner is a tough biscuit, I shovel tonnes of musical shit for friends, I dunno, friends are rad

Being in bands with your friends is the single quickest way to lose all of your friends. I used to be best friends with all of the people in my band. I haven't heard from a single member of that band in over 3 years now. Friends? Don't talk to me about friends.

Be in bands with strangers. It's so much easier.

― these birches is awful (Branwell Bell), Wednesday, January 29, 2014 6:33 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same exactly! except i'm now sooo glad those aren't my friends.

There are band members I would say that "soooooo glad" about, but I guess these were the band members who started as strangers and became friends through the band. I don't care so much about those people, because they were the kind of friends you have around a particular activity, but when the activity stops, you find out you didn't have much in common with.

People you were friends with way before you were ever in a band with them, and then the pressures of being-in-a-band wrecks your friendship, that is the worst. But oh well, I am not the person I was "before bands" either.

Completely unrelated:

Roxy, you are probably the only person who will get this, but I'm writing another ~story~ set in the universe of bands, which is really really like The Deep Field, except 90% of the Deep Field was written when I had a ton of experience ~being in bands~ but before I had much experience dealing with the music industry. So now I'm writing pretty much the same story (gain the world, lose your soul) from the other side of the experience. But good god, writing band dynamics and how people in bands *interact* and how even the tiniest bit of local success changes everything, that is pretty much my favourite thing in the entire world.

I try to internet wayback machine those stories all the time!
I've been thinking about that a lot lately - how even the tiniest bit of local success changes everything. Does it change how people act, or does it just change how people act towards them (in turn changing how they act in response)? That's been on my mind today.

oh man, that shit has the potential to get ugly.

or when "a scene blows up"

Like, I met up with this dude in VA who I'm buddies with and haven't seen since his band started blowing up, and I couldn't help but almost instantly think "he's different." But then I thought, am I just deciding he's different? Is he actually doing anything different, or am i just viewing him through a different lens? I couldn't tell.

I've been confounded in the past by people claiming that people "act like hot shit" etc, as a result of whatever modicum of success, and I feel like, tho of course some people do let anything go to their head, most people aren'y like that, and the actual change is taking place in the eye of the beholder

It's so hard to tell, though. It's all about expectations, on both sides.

(Roxy they're on Archive Of Our Own under my old pseudonym. Updated & remixed with added extra cheesefarming.)

God tho, yes, when a scene blows up & gets ugly bcz success. It's a combination both of people change, the way they're treated changes, which changes the way they treat others, and shit gets weird v v fast. I don't know whether it's better for bands to stay in their hometown & stay grounded but deal with resentments, or move to a bigger city where everyone is going through the same crap. Small town scene bullshit & big national city scene bullshit have their own distinctive flavours!

xp i think it's the beholder 99% of the time

i have no experience with big city scene bullshit except as an outsider. but the small town stuff can definitely be rank. it's so easy for resentment to build

i think that's totally true -- it's mostly projection ime
the people i've known who actually "acted like hot shit" would have done so before or after an increase in local success because they were just sort of like that all the time.
(my experience with this is entirely from the outside as the music editor for a weekly in a smallish coastal college/boomtown in the late 90s/early 00s)

sometimes i feel jealous when other people love my friends' bands but not because i want them to love my own band, its more like if i want my special love for them to be recognized. i think that's more of an issue with annoying people. usually i'm really stoked for everyone

Oh no, by no means always. "just got signed ego inflation" is totally a thing. Usually wears off quite quick, but it totally does happen to some ppl especially prone to it *caff ahem*

Gah this phone typing = too slow & also shit.

i don't even know if i live in a big city or a small town -- it feels like both.

Anyway, this one dude who has been in dozens of bands and was a fixture in the "scene" finally had one of his bands get big, and he's pretty much the same dude, except he has more money now. A couple years back he wished me happy birthday from the stage and he gave generously to a mutual friend's chip-in effort after he got in an awful bike accident.

Yeah, ppl are affected by it in different ways bcz ppl are human. I've seen both things happen - but maybe the ppl whose egos blew up big were people with chips / overly developed senses of entitlement to start with.

(Fully admit, I have always been unbearable, in any size scene.)

"If your band does not have a Cotton, you ARE the Cotton" <- Mixerman: so true

i worry that i have a small chip! at least i have crippling self doubt to fall back on in case one of my bands blows up.

reminds me of an inexplicable tshirt i saw once, "there's a chip on my shoulder, and you're hungry"

omg.......im the cotton

the best thing about having one of your bands blow up would be reading the ilm thread about them

like, incognito

I know Amanda Palmer feels that way

We are all Cotton, deep down.

*throws chair through studio window*

srsly, imagine how much time she spends reading about herself, googling herself, etc

xp lol!

did AP post on her own ilx thread? i never read that thread

who is cotton

Tell me yr worst anecdotes about bratty scenesters & I will include them in this current story. I need more background bands to make it work.

your singular or plural?

a former BFF of mine and a bratty scenester in my town, when i asked him if he knew a local i could throw on a show i was booking, said "i don't know any CASUAL bands"

Everybody who has bratty anecdotes, lay 'em on me.

I've got 2 successful bands in this story, but for ever band that "makes it" I need a dozen who sit in Max Fish and snark.

I'd have to pm you.

Argh this email isn't connected to anything. Never mind if you can't say it publically.

(I should just use my imagination anyway.)

one of my "friends" karate chopped a former ilxor at the first big ears fest, screaming "i have a record deal"

Ha!

Good lord this is why I thought this scene was not for me -- is it possible to make music with other ppl and +/- avoid the drama? Real q! I don't think I'm cut out for competition. Honestly I just want to not-suck.

it totally is possible

Ok thx. That's reassuring.

It is very possible, especially for drummers. Drummers (Cotton notwithstanding) usually seem to be pretty chill, non-competitive friendly people who get on with everyone. It's guitarists who wish they were the singer and keyboard players to avoid if you hate drama.

(Completely biased and opinionated advice.)

Drummers (Cotton notwithstanding) usually seem to be pretty chill, non-competitive friendly people who get on with everyone.

I wish this were true

I appreciate having the opportunity to straight talk with experienced ppl like yrselves, seriously.

Good drummers are almost impossible to find, but I don't think I've *ever* had a personality conflict with a drummer, once we found one?

they do tend to sort of get along better with everyone. TEND to, they dont always

i think its because drummers are so scarce comparatively, theyre used to playing with all different kinds of people

Now I feel like drumming is a public service, which appeals to the side of me who likes to feel useful. :)

I'm going to really just try to be myself/be honest and reliable and hope that good things will follow. Those must desirable qualities in a band mate, right? Im not 25 but I'm also not an asshole.

Haha, awesome, LL, if you can see drumming as a "public service" and know that makes it good and positive because of that, I have no doubt that you will make an *excellent* bandmate.

Be honest, be reliable - you really cannot go too far wrong if you take those as your guides.

(Being honest about your commitment levels will help a lot with the reliability. This, I think is where some people fall down, that people don't discuss first whether "this is just for kicks" or "we want to MAKE IT and rehearse 3 times a week and play gigs every spare night". It's bad when people make assumptions about your commitment level, but it's also bad when you let them.)

((There's also a certain amount of dishonesty required in order to play the personal politics within a scene. But if, like me, you are not a good enough to liar *not* to say things like "your band has only just started out and we've been going for 3 years and have a fanbase, no you are NOT fucking headlining this gig" then you should probably leave the scene politicking to someone who is.))

Ha, chances are less than nil that anyone with the ambition of "making it" would ever want me in or anywhere near their band. I'm just looking for a chance to play the sort of music i want to play with other people. Ideally people who are in the same room, but remote options seem more likely. Scenes and gigs and tours and all that is something I missed out on the chance to try when I was younger. I'm ok with that! I'm not even prepared skill-wise for all that business even if it were an option for me, which it is not.

i have to say it's pretty interesting watching the 'blowing up' process for a certain local band, complete with the one dude who was kicked out before they started recording their first 'real' album, many other local bands wanting some association with them, etc (don't want to say much more on here).