Music auditions gone wrong....

[spade2you]

Post some! I have tons of stories. I'll disperse 'em as I remember 'em.

[HiFi]

I remember my former band auditioning a lead singer prospect. He comes in and seems genuinely excited to be there and give it a shot.

We kick into a song--obviously he had be given lyrics and a copy of the tune ahead of time--and he proceeds to mutter through the entire thing. He didn't know the words, but even the parts he knew really well he wouldn't sing out. He eventually--after about three times through the song--admitted that he was afraid to sing in front of people. We let him down gently, but those who were there found it pretty funny that a guy trying out for lead singer was afraid to sing.

[spade2you]

From my guitar days (and why I switched to bass)

My first band was looking for a bassist to play some (now old school) metal. We get a response from a dude and he seems like a nice guy. We start into Crazy Train and something wasn't right. I hit the f# again and my ears told me that I was in tune. "Ummmm, your bass is out of tune, dude." "Ok." So he proceeded to give 2 twists to each tuner. Yup. He also wasn't aware of how to use frets either. Ohhhh, you know he talked a good game.

Same metal band playing the same tune, something the bassist was doing didn't seem right, so I stopped and asked him what he was doing for the verse. He played each note and he was playing G where he should have been playing g#. So I tell him that he needs to be playing in an A major scale. "What are you talking about???" "The G should be G#." "Huh?" (Me getting annoyed) "Hit the 6th fret instead of the 5th fret at this spot." "Dude, I don't care about that ****. I'm not a bass player, I'm a bass pounder!"

After about 6 months of that stuff, I picked up the bass myself!

[jimb213]

In my old band where I played guitar, we had to audition bass players... it was horrendous. They either couldn't keep up at all (anything beyond I IV V was too much), or massively overplayed (one guy did nothing but wannabe primus/incubus slapping, and one guy played more complex chords than what I was playing!). We eventually went with a guy who was a very good musician, a great sight-reader, and not an over-player. Actually, he was kinda an under-player, but it fit with the music okay. When we recorded our record, the producer re-wrote most of the basslines with him to make 'em more interesting.

[Aaron Saunders]

Originally Posted by spade2you

From my guitar days (and why I switched to bass)

My first band was looking for a bassist to play some (now old school) metal. We get a response from a dude and he seems like a nice guy. We start into Crazy Train and something wasn't right. I hit the f# again and my ears told me that I was in tune. "Ummmm, your bass is out of tune, dude." "Ok." So he proceeded to give 2 twists to each tuner. Yup. He also wasn't aware of how to use frets either. Ohhhh, you know he talked a good game.

Same metal band playing the same tune, something the bassist was doing didn't seem right, so I stopped and asked him what he was doing for the verse. He played each note and he was playing G where he should have been playing g#. So I tell him that he needs to be playing in an A major scale. "What are you talking about???" "The G should be G#." "Huh?" (Me getting annoyed) "Hit the 6th fret instead of the 5th fret at this spot." "Dude, I don't care about that ****. I'm not a bass player, I'm a bass pounder!"

After about 6 months of that stuff, I picked up the bass myself!

Six MONTHS? You're a very patient man.

[spade2you]

Originally Posted by Aaron Saunders

Six MONTHS? You're a very patient man.

Patient? Not particularly. Not enough for a bass at the time!

[Valerus]

Originally Posted by spade2you

"Dude, I don't care about that ****. I'm not a bass player, I'm a bass pounder!"

That is hilarious. Wow.