Have you ever waited seven months for the nod?

[revlimitbounce]

Sharing time.

Auditioned for a band back in January. They liked me. I liked them. They continued their search, diddling around for several months. I refrained from searching during this time, because I wanted to be ready to join at a moment's notice.

Got a callback in April. Did fine, I thought. Turns out so did they. They wanted to have a get-together to talk about business, styles, expectations, songwriting. Set that date. They had to cancel. This was about the sixth time they cancelled one thing or another over the whole seven months.

A couple of weeks later, I pinged them again to ask when we could reschedule for. Got a reply that they were real sorry, but they had found someone else, even though I was "an awesome player."

And we're not talking about the backing band for Roberta Flack or Robert Plant or a new Steely Dan touring band (I'd happily wait six months for the nod on having the bass chair for that one!) Just a local rock band with good original material that seems to take forever to make a decision.

I guess it's just as well, cause my expectations of managing style and business planning are higher than it taking seven months to find a bass player.

Thoughts?

[jaywa]

Next time you'll know to keep auditioning for other bands till you get the callback.

As has been noted on numerous other threads... good bassists are in short supply in just about every market except maybe NY, LA and Nashville. More often than not you have the leverage. I understand you were just trying to do the right thing, but that's a lot of time (and potentially paying gigs with other bands) that you lost waiting for those yahoos.

They were clearly playing you as a hedge, until/unless they could find someone who would work cheaper or fit their image better or had the "right" gear or whatever... so in those situations the shoe fits on the other foot and you would be perfectly entitled to hedge them with other auditions. If another band made you an offer you go back to the first band and say "here's the deal, am I in or out?", give them the right of first refusal and if they say no (or put you on hold again), you say thanks anyway and go with the other band.