h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The basic question you have to ask is the following:"Why do I want to start a band?" The reasons vary, and depending on these reasons there are different strategies one must follow. (Please don't include this in the entry: My little self has played in many bands - for fun, and for money. My father was a music producer in Brazil, so - I grew up surrounded by bands and musicians. I think I know somethings about bands.)

1. For fun

This is the less problematic circumstance under which to have a band. It is very important that the other members of the band see it the same way. Few famous bands started this way (cf. Sepultura, Metallica, King's X etc...). A bunch of friends playing in a garage then at barbecue parties, then small pubs. Normally that's as good as it gets. Normally, and sadly too, music is not the priority for everyone in the band. So, people might have to move to another town or they get married to someone that doesn't like this lifestyle. Anyways then you will have to replace them to get on with the fun. Feeling that "it will never be the same". Rarely the gigs start getting bigger and bigger, and one day you get a minor record deal and the usual rock'n roll legend begins. At this point the friendship with the other band members might get disturbed, for that reason very few bands meke it in the original formation to stardom. It can be very rewarding though if the ties don't break. The most imnportant thing is to keep the friendship, and be forgiving if someone gets his notes wrong.


2. For the music.

Playing for music is the most rewarding form of playing for an individual. It's art. But there are many problems with that concerning bands: a) You can't do it with friends if they do not have the same musical priority. Improving the music, playing the instrument better, training is essential. That leads to point b) You have to hire musicians, or set up a band with people you don't have any other contact besides the music. c) It is very difficult to achieve fame and to make a living out of that (the audience for musical bands is usually smaller than for very famous groups. Some examples for music-oriented bands with small audiences: Dixie Dregs, Dream Theater, Yes. Very rare examples of musically oriented bands that made it very big: The late Beatles, Queen, Pink Floyd (PF by the way started as a 'friend type band' the moved on to 'musical oriented' in a time where the audience for music was better than nowadays.). Commonly bands that go through or start with a high musical aspiration phase collapse into solo careers: Police -> Sting, Mothers -> Frank Zappa, ELO -> virtually Jeff Lynne solo, etc...

Summing up: If you want to setup a band to make hi quality music look for high quality musicians. (That doesn't mean you can't be or will be friends, but the relationship is going to be primarily professional)

3. For the money.

To succeed as a band in terms of gig-size, amount of groupies per night, power and respect, this path must be taken. Money rules the world. There's few space for idealism in the showbiz. Including Bands. The Rolling Stones are a money making machine. The New Kids on The Block was one, Bon Jovi (the band), Kiss, Scorpions, Guns and Roses, Duran-Duran, Wham... you name it. Most of the very famous bands are a synthetic make-up, of people chosen in casting sessions by record producers and in the worst case by cover-photographers. That doesn't necessarily mean the music is bad or synthetic. That doesn't mean it's going to stay like this forever. And it doesn't mean that one or the other from the original line-up from the garage days won't survive the replacing procedure... But it's just a job. If you are the famous guy of the band then very little time and concentration will be available for music. In many cases the music isn't even made by the band. It is bought from composers by the record company, and the name of the author changed. Some guys in this medium told me it's like being a marionette. Can be depressing, but mustn't be.

If you want to make a good living out of music, you can also be just a player in a band. It's not your band (so not your responsability), you just do what you're asked to. (That by the way is the most common case of a band-musician making money. Most of the guys I met in my dad's studio playing with brazilian greats had little unknown bands) Play in the band that's supporting George Michael or Santana. If you like to play good music you can - with a little luck - end up playing in B.B. King's band. Being such a musician requires great expertise - normally those guys playing in the bands supporting guys like Rick Astley or Ricky Martin are excellent musicians. But it's not your band. You get a salary. You don't have to put in lots creativity (except if you get a solo or something like that). It's dull showbiz, always with a smile. (I've done that, too - I just had a major argument with some sleazy producer, but on stage I acted as if I was having an orgasm. It was a small local band in Brazil, that eventually made it big. But that was a long time ago - please don't include this last bit in the entry)

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Summary: Think about why you have a band.

Is it for the fun? Then remember this everytime your drummer starts getting faster. Remember that everytime the bassist f*cks a riff up. You are friends and doing it for the fun. If it is no more fun, stop it. If you have individual musical aspirations, stop it.

Is it for the music? Then surround yourself with good musicians. Not necessarily *able* musicians. Musicians that are on the same wavelength, AND are good. The band will depend on inspiration, and in many cases there are periods of drought.

Is it for the money? Then either go to castings and look sharp or start playing in supporting bands. In both cases your personality will suffer, and you'll need lots of discipline.

Good luck,

HELL

A brilliant entry !
The most poinient? version of bands troubles I have yet heard must be Frank Zappa's Joes Garage, where a band starts playing in Joes garage, rises to almost fame, before getting shafted by the recording industry
"Because you only get one chance in life to write a song that goes like doooooooooo weeeee weeee wooooooooo doooooo dooooooo...."

Excellent entry there. I'd like to add my own two bits.

The majority of bands never become rich or famous; they just play around the town they were formed in, develop a small fan base of friends and fans of the type of music they play, and that's it. It should be emphasized that there is no shame in this whatsoever. Many, many people have normal day job and then gig as musicians at night and on the weekends. This, to me, is as valid a musical career as any famous rock stars, and indeed, if you play any style of music other than rock/pop, it's the kind of career you can look forward to.

That said, the problems I've seen in the above postings--the egos, the problems of leaving someone behind due to musical development--happen even in the most casual bands. Though young, I have been a few bands in my time and feel I have something to contribute--most of all about deciding who you want to have in your band.

This is going to sound simplistic, but I think the single most important element of a successful band is that each of the musicians are having tons of fun when playing in it. When the musicians are enjoying themselves, the music, I believe, grows to be more than the sum of its parts, and you get a much better response from the audience. If the musicians are not enjoying themselves, then the music, I think, invariably, suffers.

So how do you maximize the fun in your band? For me, the main criterium for having fun in bands is simply to play with musicians who listen to what the other musicians are doing, who have good instincts. Good musical instincts, I think, can compensate almost entirely for lack of skill: my own musical taste is of course intruding here, but I'd rather hear four well-placed notes than a run of twenty, and placing those four notes, to me, is much more about instinct than it is about skill.

How does a band full of members with good musical instincts have more fun? I have found that when each of the members has such instincts, even in the tightest arrangements, they leave room for all the other musicians to play around a bit. Even if it's just a quarter rest here, a fill there, a transition every once in a while, the sense of space, of communication--whether it be in a string quartet or a totally improvisational jazz band--is what makes the music fun and exciting, both for the players and for the listeners. When there is no sense of communication, the music, to me, becomes uninteresting, no matter how technically accomplished the musicians are.

Thus, I think the trick to finding musicians you can play well with is find people with good musical instincts who have the same attitude toward music, the same approach to music that you do--and not to worry too much about the technical abilities of the musicians. If they have good instincts and enjoy playing, those abilities can always improve. I am in a band now composed of five such people. We have been together as a band nearly two years now, and I believe that not only has our sound developed rather nicely, but everyone has gotten much better at their instruments. Practice with this band isn't even practice--it's five guys getting together to have fun. Gigs are the same way. We'll never be rich and famous (we're a jam band based on old-time Appalachian fiddle music, for God's sake), but we have ourselves a little following and we have ourselves a great time. The lack of ambition on our parts to do anything other than have fun, I think, has even avoided ego problems. And we've become friends by playing together. Financially, of course, we are a failure, but I think we play good music (and the people who see us seem to agree), and I know that we have somehow avoided many of the ego and skill level pitfalls that plague many other bands, and we have an incredible amount of fun playing as a group--and I think that being like-minded people together with good musical instincts has had everything to do with that.

Hey Dr. Funk... Seems you opted for 1. Good one. It's my favourite, too (for bands, for solo it's different). One day I woke up in a roach infested motel in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, playing with a "potential" teenie band. That was the day, when my life took a serious think-over. - It works like this: A TV producer decides it's time for them to have their own teenie-band. (Its kinda like with Joes Garage) So they get out of their offices and start casting people. Once they have enough good-looking guys they start looking for support bands (music teachers, failed studio musicians...) So in the end they have something like 5 or 6 bands (5 good looking teenie idols and a 6-man supporting combo). They send each band to a certain region of the state and start looking at the audience's response. The one with the best response is the one that will get the deal, the groupies, instant fame etc. etc. I was playing one of those that didn't make it (though one of the teen studs was taken from our group and incorporated into the 'one' that got famous. I was just playing guitar... Hoping to meet some interesting people, and to get myself into the studio musicians guild. - But it's a HARD way. Waking up at cocroach's motel makes you realize this.)

I am nowadays a scientist, but I will never stop loving music. I will never try hard to make money with music (just enough to pay the bar's bill... but that's not the point). If it ever happens it's because it flowed that way. I'll be doing music with my bands, for the sake of fun and (a lttle) for the music. Sure fame and gigs are nice, but I'll not move a finger to get there. It will have to come to me.

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My advice for bands: Remember WHY you're doing this.

Bye,

HELL