After a rough period grinding through the waves of being and managing my own band for the last 12 years or so. I feel like I've reached a wall. Making music has always been my deepest passion, and I've never had trouble dedicating myself and disciplining myself to a project, whether it was my own or one I joined in. But its the quality I see lacking in most musicians I've worked with.

Whether it was dudes who think being a rockstar millionaire is 4 rehearsals and a show away, who leave after even the slightest push to do better, or to even show up. To the auditionees who insist they'll only join if they can rewrite their part for everything, despite that the material is already released!

And let's talk about attendance. What can we get done when people consistently don't or aren't able to show up? Not a lot, so why are they always so shocked and betrayed when they get kicked out? Is there no sense of professionalism just because we're musicians? I think we all know its rough being in something that won't pay the bills for most of us, to push yourself as a musician week in and week out, but if thats not something you're willing to go through, why are you joining the projects y'all be joining?

I've since taken up projects in OST work, commissioned work, and other passion projects, and slowly left being in a band behind over the past few months because the difference is striking. Not only has my output increased, but people show up, they respond, they sit down and talk with me at all hours of the day so that were all pointing in the same direction.

I guess this rant is just the culmination of disappointment of over a decade of trying to get people to even do the bare minimum. I've always tried to be as transparent and supportive as possible, but that always has a limit.

Are electric drum kits (for rehearsal, not live shows) a deal-breaker for most drummers? The previous two drummers I've worked with were quite apprehensive to the idea of electric drum kits. Each drummer had their different reasons why they were opposed to it and I was just wondering if that is the general consensus among drummers.

2 of my bandmembers (drums, vocals) suddenly dont want to take time to rehearse anymore but we have an upcoming gig in 1 month. I (guitar) said I dont want to play the gig if we dont rehearse before the gig. Singer said he knows the lyrics anyways but our drummer is new and it would be our first gig in this formation. Both want to play the gig anyways but i feel more and more stressed if we dont rehearse anymore and i believe the gig will be a fail if we dont play together, eben if everyone knows their part. Last rehearsal was 3 weeks ago. What should I do?

I joined a new start up band a few months ago where everyone was around my age range and also, or atleast i thought, skill level. none of us had been in a band before so i thought it was perfect for me too. so come practice i notice the drummer only has an e-kit. which i didnt think much of cause he can always get an actual kit later on if he's good. the problem is over all these practices, he cant play anything other than a 4 on the flour beat. i have some experience on drums so i've tried telling him to play other rhythms, but as soon as he doesnt hit the kick on the 2, his brain misfires.we also practice at his place and theres already been 4 times we dont practice because he "doesnt feel good" or simply doesnt feel like practicing. not to mention he recently brought it up to us that he'll eventually be moving to another country with his gf so thats nice. now thats just 1/3 and not even all the issues i have with the drummer. i met this band on here from one of the singers posting needing a guitarist but both of the singers want to switch being the main vocalist through different songs, one of them i had to turn into a bassist because the other singer couldnt even play guitar, and that started causing drama between them. now all of us are coming from different musical influences and we only have 1 song tracked that i wrote all the instruments and verses/choruses for and fully produced all instruments. keep in mind the music is very simplistic alt rock w maybe a bit of dream pop. and i've started hinting towards wanting to leave, theres already been multiple arguments w me and the bass player/singer because i "take things too seriously and take the fun out of it" as if theyre not all using my gear (microphones, cables, interface, bass, bass amp, pa monitors) not to mention the hour drive and energy just putting up w them bullshitting while im setting everything up. at this point i just havent left because i cant find other people willing to do something different and interesting. i have so many complaints it should be obvious what the solution is but idk.

Band name came from like all bands, we kept changing the name every few months, it was...Ever Changing.

I am trying to articulate a bit of a frustration I’ve felt. So I’ve played in a great deal of bands, switching between bass/drums/guitar. One thing I’ve noticed is that in my area there is a really strong line drawn between three genres. 1. Jazz (by a jazz school), 2. Noise (generally what the people in my age play, house shows also a lot of jazz students 3. Blues (older people, cover songs, dive bars).

I am not a jazz musician, nor am I fan of noise so I’ve largely been the youngest guy dabbling in these blues bands.

Since like high school I’ve felt I’ve been sort of an outsider based on the music I like even though I feel I actually have very basic taste (Sam Fender, Tom Petty, Springsteen, the Killers, the replacements, love love love Dire Straits). Anyways, I just like songs with good hooks.

I’ve played in the blues bands but they often feel a bit aimless, lots of the same basic covers, endless jam, and often endless jams that never really turn into original songs. I mean I can jam on a 12 bar blues thing but that also feels fundamentally different than say, sultans of swing. Plus I always sort of want to do original songs and my songwriting tends to fall into the electrified singer singer songwriter stuff that the above falls into.

Anyways, does anyone else feels like they have sort of a basic taste but still sort of falls outside any of the prevailing local taste?

Is liking Springsteen and Dire Straits really so unusual!!!?

I’m in a four piece band and we are just starting out. We’ve been a band for about 6 months and we’ve only covered one song (my own summer) and I keep trying to push them to learn new songs and possibly start writing original songs, but no matter how many times I ask they never practice or write anything. I’m tempted to leave the band as I’m the only one practicing my stuff on drums as I’m the drummer, but I’ve also been contributing to writing guitar parts as well.

What I’m asking is do I leave the band entirely, do I give them an ultimatum, do I give it more time?

I’ve got other possible projects lined up but both of them don’t have enough members and one of them is an hour drive away.

hello. You guys reckon it's possible to achieve success without a stage name if my real name genuinely is completely unheard of for like 90% of the world?

I'm eastern European, my name is of Slavic origin . I speak fluent English, but I struggle to introduce myself to people when I am speaking English abroad because my name is pretty much impossible for english speakers. I can't even come up with a more digestible pronunciation for my name even if it's incorrect...

Not only my name is very slavic, but my last name as well. Not even the kind you may probably imagine if you're thinking of the obviously Slavic sounding last names you may hear from a Russian person in America etc .

I'm struggling to imagine how I can be recognizable by this name when it is so indigestible for english speakers and I fear if I go by this name i will not be able to reach a wider audience..

Our bass and guitar are trans, so they picked their own names and they're suitable. Our second guitar and drummer both have English equivalents to their names and have pretty basic names in general. I am the odd one out. Chances are if I introduce myself to English speakers I'm gonna have to repeat my name to them like ten times and they'll still understand it as something else than it is..

Should I settle for an alias. I can't come up with any . or is it worth a try. Anyone else struggling with this? Are there any band members who aren't English speakers by brith and work it out without an alias? I can't recall any besides Till Lindemann from Rammstein .. but I'd still say "-mann" last names are still pretty common amongst people from English speaking countries.

Also curious of the side effects long term to this. And if anyone has been able to adjust to normal night time sleeping (presuming your mate/spouse) has a regular day-time job and sleeps at night.

So don't get me wrong, I love playing gigs with my band, but as we get more recognized locally, we are starting to get asked to play a lot, and this often has me feeling overwhelmed. I am a very introverted person and deal with social anxiety, so the idea of a "big show" coming up makes my anxiety boil. However, as a sort of anxiety-coping "safety mechanism", I have tried to get myself to just "not really care" about upcoming shows, not because I don't actually care (I do and I want to play as well as I can), but because my anxiety just cannot handle the anticipation. Like I get it, let's say you are a bunch of young musicians and you have a show at the end of the month at the local coffee shop or a local venue, and this becomes the "big show". Every day you think about it. You are nervous about it. You are excited about it. But most of all, you are becoming anxious about it. That makes total sense, and for our first few shows, this is what it was like. We had multiple band practices a week for our first few shows because we were all nervous about "getting it right". But now a few years later where we are all pretty seasoned with playing gigs, and know all our material pretty well, we all just kinda... "roll with it", for lack of better words.

We don't practice as much because we already know the songs, and I mean, we all have other life obligations keeping us occupied. Still, we get asked to play a lot, like a show a week sometimes. I CANNOT manage the anxiety of having a "big show!" every single weekend. I cannot live in constant anticipation anxiety over having a "huge event going on" this weekend. And so I sort of just... "compartmentalize" that anticipation, and kind of tell myself "whatever. no big deal. You know the songs. Just have fun with it". Otherwise I would just totally crash out from the anxiety. Yes, we will be playing a huge festival soon and then a pretty big concert hall, but like... OK cool? What am I supposed to do with that information? Freak out that much more? All that talk of "ooooohhh wooowww, are you nneeerrrvvVOOooUUuuSSssss??" I just kinda... quiet that voice in my head y'know? It's the only way to keep myself sane in all of this. I figured this might just be because I am super introverted and hate drawing attention to myself, but maybe other folks here can relate to this?

Hey all!

Been playing in bands since I was 19. For about 10 years I played in some really fun bands that made (in my opinion) really great music, but we never really could draw more than a few dozen people even in our hometown, and whenever we toured we'd sink thousands upon thousands of dollars to play to empty rooms and sell maybe one CD a night.

Then from 29-32 I played in a hugely popular band and was regularly traveling overseas to do month long tours playing sold out show after sold out show and making pretty good money from merch and ticket sales alone. But I had to leave that band because the main person had serious issues and dropped the ball in really major ways many times and was also not very pleasant to be around.

I don't want to stop playing music, but I also don't want to go backward. I just don't have it in me to spend my 30s grinding shitty show after shitty show like I did in my 20s.

I still have a lot of connections to agents, labels, etc. through my previous band, but I just don't have a band right now. I'm trying to promote my side project to a serious full-time band but my bandmates all have their own main projects and rarely do the stars align where we're all in the same room together. I haven't gotten any offers to join any other bands either. So I figured I need to just start my own band again, and I have a few albums of songs I think there's an audience for that I've occasionally played solo, but I'm finding it very difficult to find anyone who's interested in doing music at that level, unless they're like 20 and then it gets weird because I'm 32.

Anyway I'm feeling stuck. Anyone have any advice?

I play bass in my band with my friends and played several gigs in the past year. I learned bass while the other learned drums. The drummer's friend was our vocalist and we found a guitarist from school.

Our band is pretty mediocre in my opinion, but the other members don't think so. I don't want it to seem like I'm better than them in any way, but it's starting to feel like that. The guitarist has been playing with us for about a year now, and is never prepared during rehearsals, basically learning the songs during our practice time. Vocalist is decent, but starts side conversations which also messes up the flow of practice, and also thinks of the band more casually and for fun rather than professionally and playing in a larger crowd. Rather than just family and friends. Drummer is still learning, no problems with them.

I probably won't leave this band, but see it more as a "for fun" band.

Now, I'm 16 and I want to look for bands that are in need of bassists in my area. I'm just afraid I won't fit their vibe or do something weird around them as a first impression. I'm not good around strangers even if they're around my age, and I don't know anyone in my school who would want to do music for a living like me.

Hey guys! I'm just starting out in my first band project. What is the one piece of advice you wish you had known before joining your very first band?

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but I've thought a lot about this over the years. In the late 90s I moved to Southern California from the PNW to try and 'make it' in a rock band. We probably player 100 shows over three years and never got any traction. We released a couple CDs and maybe sold 500 total at shows. I eventually got burned out on SoCal's vibe and scene. It didn't fit my personality, and I missed the seasons of home. The band wasn't gaining any traction, and I grew tired of whatever level of grind I felt we were doing with no progress, still playing Mondays and opening for other bands with few fans. Plus, the band I was in was starting to splinter with different visions of how to succeed. I decided to pack it in and head back north.

Although I was disappointed about my dream of being a huge ass rock star crumbling when I saw other acts way more talented, dedicated and with better songs struggling I knew it was a losing battle. When I got home, I finished college and have worked a series of normal day jobs ever since. I have a comfortable retirement account, a home I'm comfortable in and health insurance. I live in a town I adore and go on the usual few trips a year and am a dedicated weekend warrior to the outdoors. Pretty much an average normal lifestyle.

I have good friends from my SoCal days that 'made it,' touring 1000 seat venues once a year, releasing records every three or four years. There was a time when I was envious, but now I look back and I'm so grateful I never got any taste of success that would have encouraged me to hang in there for life. My friends that made it are basically broke, still renting, now being forced to tour for money to dwindling crowds and sales while suffering streaming services and various levels of tinnitus and hearing loss. One friend is selling "gear used by *****" to cover bills because his last tour wasn't as lucrative as he had hoped. Another lives in an apartment owned by his folks, and so on. Nothing wrong with any of this but being financially unstable is a great fear of mine.

It breaks my heart to see artists who have contributed so much joy to our world not get deeply compensated for what I believe is invaluable work. Even musicians in huge bands, relative to my success, crowd source medical bills. It's inhumane in m y opinion. There are political points to be made here as well but this is the world we currently live in.

Funny enough, after I 'retired' from trying to be a serious musician I found a bit of success in casual projects with friends. One band I played guitar and sang in released a one-off CD that sold around a thousand copies and played several sold-out shows in our town. Another band I played drums in got lucky enough to befriend a "real" band and we opened several gigs for them including an outdoor amphitheater wit 8000 seat capacity which was the scariest and most fun thing I may have ever done. My mic stand had a piece of tape on it that said 'Zooey' because She and Him had played the venue the day before. These were unserious bands not trying to conquer the world, but just out to have fun. When they dissolved, I wasn't even disappointed. TBH at that point I had grown tired of lugging my gear around for any show.

I'm fully retired from music now except for home recording which I am sill passionate about. Even with my brief career my ears ring as I type this, but not too bad. I almost never notice it unlike one friend I have who recently cancelled a tour because his tinnitus has gotten so bad. In the end I think there was no way I could have made enough money, unless I was in the top 1% of earners, being happy as a touring musician. The idea of touring sounds miserable to me and when my touring friends crash on my couch, middle aged, tired, thankful for a home cooked meal and counting down the days when they can be with their families again it reinforces how much I wouldn't have enjoyed it. I guess I'm just not passionate enough about it. I'm standing here at my desk between low-stress work projects writing this, excited for biking to the river this afternoon to swim in the cool water. It may not be very exciting but I'm content.

I just wanted to share these thoughts I've had bubbling up for a long time. I guess what it really means is it wasn't for me. I'm sure some people absolutely love it, and I don't mean to disparage that. But the idea of being 'stuck' doing it because of not knowing any other way to make a living is scary to me. I'm still passionate about live music and have tickets for a dozen upcoming shows, but I'm glad I'm watching from the audience.

I am curious if you could set up a synced click track for your ensemble with just phones. Me and my band have been waiting to buy an interface to run packs to IEMs but im wondering if there is a reliable way to run something through our phones during rehearsals

So basically I am just wondering how different bands here handle social media presence and whether the one handling the social media posting, particular on Instagram, has ever rubbed you the wrong way or just straight up embarrassed you. I am talking like getting posted on "inappropriate" or straight up silly gig flyers, your bandmate making offensive or lewd comments on a band post, or someone posting unflattering photos of you in a new post from a recent show. Or at the same time, do you ever just cringe at how much your band posts? Like nonstop IG stories and posts? I sometimes check my IG and see like everyday several new posts about our band, and I sometimes just feel overwhelmed and just feel like ughhh... please slow down with the social media blasting... I don't want to see my face plastered all over IG every time I open my phone... And just seeing every other story posting the same material from our band. I worry our follows just see as super cringey and desperate and annoying at this point. We have one band member who handles our IG, and I feel like they just enjoy it... too much. It's like they treat it like their day job, like it's just nonstop posting, and it just makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, because it just doesn't reflect me much as a person... I am a quiet introverted person and the nonstop posting just makes it seem like I am being super aggressive about wanting EVERYONE to show up at EVERY show we play. I feel at a certain point all of the posting just gives cringey bathroom selfie vibes of like "good morning, thought I looked good just now, like my post!" y'know?

How do you all feel about this? I of course feel conflicted in feeling this way, because while the posting might make me feel uncomfortable, another part of me thinks "dude, you should honestly be grateful your band mate puts so much effort into moving your band forward while it sounds like you are doing nothing". Or perhaps the sentiment could be "you gotta promote, nonstop, promote, promote, and then promote some more. If you want to slow that down, it sounds like you are just in the way of the band and should probably just quit. Either get used to promoting or don't play in a band." Honestly, I get it, I do. Which is why I was hoping to hear some outside perspective on this, as I am totally open to being called out for being unreasonable. Thanks!

so we're a 3 piece cover band, been playing bars and breweries around richmond for about 2 years. nothing crazy, usually $400-600 a night split three ways. we play 80s and 90s rock, some newer stuff when the crowd is younger.

for the first year and a half we just showed up with our instruments and PA. the bar has some lights on the ceiling, maybe a couple colored floods pointed at the stage, whatever. we played fine, got decent reactions, booked regularly enough to keep going.

about 4 months ago our bassist saw some band at a brewery that had their own light setup and came back saying we needed to do it. i thought he was being dramatic but we went in on it together. grabbed a couple small beam movers and a couple wash fixtures, a little dmx controller, and 2 stands. whole thing came in around $1400 between the three of us so like $470 each.

the first gig with lights was at a place we'd played maybe 8 times before. same stage, same crowd, same setlist basically. but the owner came up after and said it was the best show we'd done there. people were filming us on their phones.

that was the moment i realized people dont just listen to a band. they watch a band. and most bar stages look like shit under flat white ceiling lights. you put some color movement behind a band and suddenly it looks like an actual show instead of three dudes standing in a corner.

heres whats changed since we started bringing lights:

our average pay went from about $500 to $650-700 per gig. we didnt even ask for raises at most places, the venues just started offering more because they saw bigger crowds on our nights. two places gave us an extra $100 specifically because "you bring production."

we book fridays and saturdays now instead of mostly weekday slots. that alone probably doubled our actual hourly rate since the crowds are bigger and the tips are better.

the weirdest thing is how venue owners react. before lights we were "a good bar band." now owners introduce us to people as "a full production act." nothing changed about our music. we play the same songs the same way. but the perceived value went through the roof just because there are some moving beams behind us.

if youre on the fence about adding lights to your bar gigs, just do it. its the highest ROI thing we've spent money on as a band, more than any pedal or mic upgrade. the only downside is my car is now permanently full of light stands.

anyone else in here gone through this? curious what setups other bar bands are running and if you noticed the same booking/pay jump

basically the title I'm just curious because I want to either make a band or join one when I get to college next month so

Getting a gauge of interest on my bands merch! This is our first run and I personally think the came out Sweet!!! What do you guys think?

it's me, I'm the vocalist. I'm having this issue where my bandmembers don't seem interested in my vocals or have anything to say about them or my lyrics other than that it's nice. Now as a vocalist I'm mainly focused on them, but it might be that they just don't really care. It's making me think that they secretly hate them, especially when I focus on what has been said in the past, like we might need backup vocals or that I should use a pitch shifter (We're a death metal band). It kinda hurts because I put a lot of effort and emotion in my lyrics and vocals and I realize that it just might be my ego that needs stroking, but I'm wondering if any of you vocalists experience the same thing in your band.

For context, I'm in high school and throughout my life , I always wanted to play an instrument (guitar, piano, drums, etc) and failed each time. Now all of a sudden, 3 other friends/classmates wants me to form a band with them and let me be the bassist with this one experienced friend (he has been in a band before as a guitarist/bassist) teaching me.

They want to play at like basically a concert organized by the school that's in a few months, so, how realistic is this? Can I really learn to play bass within just a few months? Moreso on a stage???

Any and all advice is appreciated.