Hilarious/Scary/Bizarre Musican Audition Stories

[The Owl]

We've all had 'em, audtions or us auditioning people that were just too weird, funny, bizarre or sometimes scary. What are yours?

I'll lead off with:

1) How about an awkward pre-audition? Took place in 2005:

Well, I re-posted an ad I was running a while ago for other musicians (keys and drums now, think I found me bassist). Anyway, this keyboardist from Lithuania and currently living in US contacts me, saying I am close to what he's wanting. Right away (after talking on phone with him), I got this really strong vibe of "I MUST BE IN CONTROL AT ALL COSTS".

Not only that, but he starts trying to pump me for information about contacts for a SECOND keyboard player to play his music. Hmmmmmmmm.

We actually exchanged CD's via mail, and he e-mailed me an mp3 of one of his tunes which I burned to CD. Now get this, he claims to be influenced by Mahavishnu Orchestra, ELP and Chick Corea. Well, his two CD's revealed the influence of YAWNni and John Tesh far more than anything, simply put, some of the WORST snooze-inducing New Age/Smooth Jazz cheese-wiz I've ever heard. And even before I got the discs, he would persistently phone me (not a good sign in this case). And even more hilarious, he listened to mine and said I was copying Mahavishnu Orchestra!

Dang, I even asked afew folks who heard my disc about that, everyone said, NO, you don't sound even remotely like MO.

Well, about a week later I wrote him a polite, diplomatic and detailed "Thanks but no thanks" e-mail.

Wonder if he has KGB following me

2) I can think of a number of instances when I lived in LA (1980's) where I wasn't the one auditioning but was auditioning others, and MAN, the hacks were coming out of the woodwork, so many with deusions of grandeur and a rather serious disconect from the actual state of their own ability (or lack therof). One involved travelling to a drummer's place near Pasadena, and he had this bulldog that gave me the willies (bad sign right there). His playing definitely didn't mesh with the rest of the band I was in (we were called Insect Affect), so no big loss (and a good source of jokes afterwards). Had one guy who really tried but his chops just weren't quite there, and another who was really into the electronic stuff but couldn't play very well (nice try though). Finally, we found our man just a half-mile up the street from where I lived at the time (in Venice).

Another band I was in, we auditioned a few keyboard players (in the 80's the era of the one-fingered keyboardist ), this one punk came in playing this wimpy gurly synth-pop stuff (we had more teeth than that) and made all these boneheaded comments like you don't need guitar (meaning yours truly) and other ignorant Hollywood fashion victim nonsense. We almost threw a party after he left. We had another keyboard guy come in who had this weird tendency to play this funeral-dirge/march type stuff in real slow tempos . Finally, we threw out the idea of keyboards altogether after this parade of losers!


Your turn---------------------

[winstonthecat]

I'll bite....

I've only been in this for less than a year, so my experience is mostly involved with auditioning a 2nd guitarist for our classic rock cover band.

One guy said he played strictly rhythm, and he really meant it. Useless strumming, with no change in rhythm or dynamics. For one song, we tried to show him a simple 5 note riff that repeats every few measures, and he declined to even give it a try, as he plays "only rhythm".


With a different guy, we started off with some 12-bar blues to get him warmed up. We told him "Standard 12-bar blues in A", and even named the chords. His response was "can you show me those chords again"


Needless to say, we cut the auditions pretty short, as it was obvious that after a few songs, they just weren't there.

[JKT]

I would bet if you did a study that a good keyboard player is one of the hardest to find. Been that way for us and we decided to carry on without one.

We had even gotten away from non-referral cattle call auditions and still the guy we picked turned out to have way to much baggage. But we're glass half full players, and so we're focusing on easier scheduling, more room in the music and a few more bucks in the kitty.

JKT

[Spinal Tapper]

One time our (ex)drummer had us lined up to audition a new guitarist named Charlie he found on Craigslist. So he showed up right at 8pm on time. He plugs in his guitar and right before we start playing our tunes, the doorbell rings. There's another kid at the door with a guitar. He says, "Hey, I'm Charlie, I'm here for the audition."

You guessed it - two Charlies...and we thought we only had one audition for the night! A bit akward, as Charlie #2 chilled out on the sofa in the other room as Charlie #1 auditioned for us nervously.

The best part? They were BOTH the same height/build. BOTH had short black hair, and BOTH had white vintage Gibsons with black pickguards...one was a Les and the other an SG.

We ended up picking Charlie #2 and have never looked back.

[DaveDeVille]

... i had a tryout last year , and it was pretty scary alright .

9pm , not the greatest side of town :

i show up , and there's this drunk bum standing at the front door of the apartment ,
and he say's " so YOU'RE the new bass player , huh ??... " in a rather loud ,
sloppy drunk voice .

i said " uh yeah , i guess ... " , and went on in ...


well this place looked like it hadn't seen a broom in quite some time ,
dirty dishes on the floors , old newspapers and assorted other crap laying all over the place .
i mean this place was a rathole deluxe ...

after a short run thru of some classic rock standards , this fat a$$ed slob of a singer
suggested that i was " in like Flint ..." and " just leave your bass and amp
over in that corner over there ... ya' know , just move all that sh** and set it right there ...
we'll get together agin real soon ..."



nuh uh , not gonna happen ...
as i tried to make a graceful getaway , the singer and the outside drunk musta' been buddies ,
cuz' they followed me out to my truck and kept saying how silly it was for me to haul my equipment ...

i finally had to stiff arm the drunk out of the way and told the singer i'd call him back later ... much , much later .

adios , MF ... se ya' .

[invader3k]

You gotta love the people who are completely oblivious to the total negative vibes they give off.

[Spinal Tapper]

Originally Posted by david meissner

[i]just leave your bass and amp...

Guaranteed that people have fallen for that one before. Good move.

[Vanceman]

I've got two short ones....

Trying out a rythum player, and he shows up with a brand new amp, nothing too big or extravagant, just bought it that day so he could audition. He really doesn't know any of the covers, so he plays what he knows, wants to teach us his songs, stuff like that. One thing that was weird was how slow he moved and talked. It turned out his shoulder was hurting and he had taken some Vicodin.

Another was a female singer. A knock on the garage door. As the door is going up, all I can see is legs, door still going up, more and more legs under a very short skirt. There was a collective "wow" from the band. Too bad she didn't fit the band.

[bassbully]

I was in my old classic rock band about 3 years ago and a guy was to try out at say 6:00 one night. The drummer had a shed like out building behind his home where we practiced and he gave the guy...we will call him Rick directions to.

At about 6:05 no Rick and the drummer gets a call on his cell its Rick ..he's on his way running a few minutes late. Drummer says no problem the whole bands tuning up jammin and such and we all heard the drummer say before hanging up "you sure you know how to get here..."yep Rick said he was fine.

6:45 No Rick ..ok the guy lives in the same city he could of driven in reverse and got to where we were by now...Drummer's cell rings again....Rick says he's lost Drummer talks him to the street his house is on and asks him again are you sure you know where your going? Rick says yep i see the street coming up. Drummer hangs up...we practice a song. 7:05 no Rick ...drummers cell rings again. Rick thinks he thinks he passed the road. Drummer said i thought you said you seen it last time i was on the phone with you. I talked you right to the intersection? Rick said.."opp's" he passed it and turned around ..now he knew the street and was less than 3 minutes awy...YEA!...he's going to make it....Nope never showed ***?

[Chizzops]

I was looking for a singer for an acid-jazz project a few years back, and I get this person over with an androgynous name like Casey. I really had no idea if it was a he or she, and (s)he sang like from the Crying Game. I wanted to ask the singer to try putting some more balls into it, but then decided it wouldn't be appropriate.

[Spinal Tapper]

Originally Posted by bassbully

I was in my old classic rock band about 3 years ago and a guy was to try out at say 6:00 one night. The drummer had a shed like out building behind his home where we practiced and he gave the guy...we will call him Rick directions to.

At about 6:05 no Rick and the drummer gets a call on his cell its Rick ..he's on his way running a few minutes late. Drummer says no problem the whole bands tuning up jammin and such and we all heard the drummer say before hanging up "you sure you know how to get here..."yep Rick said he was fine.

6:45 No Rick ..ok the guy lives in the same city he could of driven in reverse and got to where we were by now...Drummer's cell rings again....Rick says he's lost Drummer talks him to the street his house is on and asks him again are you sure you know where your going? Rick says yep i see the street coming up. Drummer hangs up...we practice a song. 7:05 no Rick ...drummers cell rings again. Rick thinks he thinks he passed the road. Drummer said i thought you said you seen it last time i was on the phone with you. I talked you right to the intersection? Rick said.."opp's" he passed it and turned around ..now he knew the street and was less than 3 minutes awy...YEA!...he's going to make it....Nope never showed ***?

Classic. Did you ever hear from him??? Thank God for text message directions...
If they STILL screw that up, they shouldn't even be in the band

[Rockthesnakepit]

I got a good one, my band was auditioning singers about a year ago and we had posted an add on craigslist for the first time. Well one of the first responses we get is from this guy i'll call bill (to protect the guilty) who claims he's been in bands since he was in middle school, loves our influences and really thinks he can hang. We are all freshmen in college and our add mentioned that we were looking for someone close to our age.... well at rehersal that night this guy shows up late, in his mid 30s and looks like he's one step short of insane. but we figure, lets just see (after all some of the best singers/frontman are crazy). Well this guy who claimed to love our influences (Guns N Roses, Led Zep, Stones) suprisingly didnt know one of their songs, even though we gave him a list of 10 to choose from (hell at least pick ONE). So we walk him through Welcome to the Jungle, or at least the first verse, when he decides he wants to hear some of our stuff and just add words to it as he "feels it". This guy came up with some of the funniest crap i've ever heard, i really wish we could have recorded it cause i nearly cried . after a few minutes of listining to him make up words to Van Halen riffs, he tells us that we are just getting a preview of him, and once he gets on stage he really "lets the tiger out of its cage" (thats a direct quote)
.... after that our lead guitarist told him to put the tiger way back in its cage and lock the door. He never called back

[whitedk57]

Originally Posted by david meissner

nuh uh , not gonna happen ...
as i tried to make a graceful getaway , the singer and the outside drunk musta' been buddies ,
cuz' they followed me out to my truck and kept saying how silly it was for me to haul my equipment ...

i finally had to stiff arm the drunk out of the way and told the singer i'd call him back later ... much , much later .

adios , MF ... se ya' .

They needed some beer money...

[bassbully]

Originally Posted by Spinal Tapper

Classic. Did you ever hear from him??? Thank God for text message directions...
If they STILL screw that up, they shouldn't even be in the band

Funny thing is no. He never showed or called back. We finished practice and shook our heads. The drummer did try to get ahold of him on his cell but he never answered it and he never retunned his call back . The guy might have been to ashamed or a goof who knows....oh he played guitar so go figure

[Scionreality]

We went to audition a drummer at his practice space, becuase he lived fairly close and said he would apprieciate not having to move his kit if he didn't have to. We (just me and the guitarist/lead vox) said sure, we'd just bring some simple practice stuff, easy to move, see you then.

We got there, and his practice space is actually in the loft of a smallish, warping barn. There were stairs on the outside leading to the loft door, and they were more than uncomfortably soft and crooked. We had very light gear, and fairly optemistic spirits, so... whatever.

The loft was covered in moldy blankets. I mean, like, floral print and Ninja Turtle stuff. He said it was for soundproofing. ...Okay, whatever.

We play hard rock, numetal kinda of stuff, and he pulls a sheet back to reveal a kick, snair, one rack tom, one symbol.

My friend and I look at eachother, and exchange a "Well, if he can make it rock, more power to him," look.

Which was... ill founded. We started playing and he played the most basic riffs I could have possibly imagined. Supposedly, three and a half years of practice, two years in bands, on display for our listening pleasure. I just... wasn't sure what was going on. We asked if he could do any songs we all knew, and we picked one he said he really liked (some Breaking Benjamin song, IIRC) and he again played the same kind of Introduction To Drums practice material. He moved around alot, smiled, he was fun to watch, his technique (from what I could guess) looked good, he was on time, confident, I just had no idea why he wasn't playing anything... interesting. At all.

He really liked our stuff, we said thank you and we left. It was unfortunate, because he was a nice guy, and seemed to have a lot of "pro"s.

When we told him we were going to have to turn him down, he said, "That's okay, I'm going to Juliart (sp?) next year anyway, and I won't have time for this. Thanks anyway."

[invader3k]

Heh, scionreality, your description of the drummer's place really reminded me of a drummer I used to play with. Same small barn, creaky staircase, etc. Only difference was that he actually had a really nice drum kit, and no Ninja Turtle blankets, at least that I remember. Too bad he usually had trouble holding onto two drum sticks at the same type. Ah well.

[Humblerumble]

About 10 years ago I saw an ad for a bass player for a CCM group. I thought it might be fun so I called the guy and He said they wanted to play youth groups and Christian Festivals and such. When I showed up to audition they were all in there late fifties and played no name guitars and teenie little combo amps. He had invited a drummer to audition who had brought his own bass player to audition as well. I had brought an Ampeg 115 combo and a Warwick Corvette and they all went crazy like I had a Fodera and an Epifani stack. The leader then told me they didn't want to do standard CCM but that he had written a rock opera about God vs The Devil and he started going through all this theatrical stuff and telling me how the "youth" were going to go crazy for it. I sat there for a moment and said hmmm I don't think this is what I am looking for and told him I was leaving. He said "Anyway you could leave the equipment?"

[sevenyearsdown]

I was auding a drummer once that brought his wife......it was very ackward. They were nice enough people - no bad vibes, just ackward. He had an emaculate set, all in new cases...whole nine yards, but he couldn't keep time for crap. It was alot of me and the guitar player doing the ol', "Why don't we try something different...is there anything you want us to play that yo know a little better?" His wife just stood there against the basement wall.............NEXT!


I actually ran into the same guy a year later when I was auding for bands......needless to say I didn't join his.

[COOL AND DEADLY]

I play in a band that plays reggae sort of like Sublime. We have two guitars, a drummer, and me. We have had a few percussionists, one worked out, one didn't. I wanted to add some keys to give us a more traditional reggae feel. You know, play on the off beats, maybe fill in some horns parts etc.
This guy answers the flyer I put up saying he really wants to play reggae. We bring him out for a practice and I wondered what kind of reggae this cat was listening too. Maybe he was trying to impress us or something. He played like jazz fusion keys ( very fluidly ) and was way, way to busy. He never dropped in any kind of bubble or bang or stabs or anything recognizable as reggae.
Then when we took a break he talked like he was in the band already. He asked if we ever played any "Guerrilla shows." None of us knew what he meant. He explained it as setting up in some public area with a generator and rocking out until the cops came. Sounds kinda cool until I get arrested or lose my rig and our PA. He would be great for a jazz band, not for us.

[sevenyearsdown]

Originally Posted by COOL AND DEADLY

I play in a band that plays reggae sort of like Sublime. We have two guitars, a drummer, and me. We have had a few percussionists, one worked out, one didn't. I wanted to add some keys to give us a more traditional reggae feel. You know, play on the off beats, maybe fill in some horns parts etc.
This guy answers the flyer I put up saying he really wants to play reggae. We bring him out for a practice and I wondered what kind of reggae this cat was listening too. Maybe he was trying to impress us or something. He played like jazz fusion keys ( very fluidly ) and was way, way to busy. He never dropped in any kind of bubble or bang or stabs or anything recognizable as reggae.
Then when we took a break he talked like he was in the band already. He asked if we ever played any "Guerrilla shows." None of us knew what he meant. He explained it as setting up in some public area with a generator and rocking out until the cops came. Sounds kinda cool until I get arrested or lose my rig and our PA. He would be great for a jazz band, not for us.

I've had those before too. The guys that are great at some other genre than the one you are playing.

Once when I was in a psychobilly/surf kinda thing we auded a guitar player that was a three chord punk guy. I started showing him this guitar lick (dick dale rip-off) with all kinds speed picking and such. I remember the guy just looked at his picking hand...........NEXT!