Another 'Firing a Band Member' Thread!

[ashtray]

I think the point of the thread was to come up with an honest solution, not "a kid the situation completely". The band has Ben together for years, the guy is, at the very least, owed some honesty.

Nothing pisses someone off lik being lied to.

While I too like a straight forward approach if I were the person being fired, sometimes the weasel way keeps friendships in tact, and people from getting their feelings hurt, which can have a domino effect to the rest of the day to day life.
Ie - if the person fired gets very upset and takes that frustration out on their family, or if they are losing sleep over it and it is affecting their performance at work, etc etc.
And while the band has been together for 5 years, it doesn’t sound like much of an organized band. Maybe the breakup and reorg is just what the band needs. Maybe another member decides to not rejoin, and they pick up 4 new members including keys, and sax, and are able to perform at a level far above where the previous band was at. (I say this because a similar thing happened in my band - except in that case the BL rage fired the drummer without consulting anyone else, then I quit and formed a new band with the drummer and we ended up picking up 4 more people and hiring a horn section for some shows for a total of 9 people on stage, and we were all going in the same musical direction.)

 

[LBS-bass]

If you want to avoid the situation completely, call a band meeting saying the band is splitting up. Everyone can give an excuse for leaving. Then take a 1 month break from getting together. Then form the band back together without him. If he finds out and confronts you, just say you guys called each other to jam and one thing lead to another, and started a new project in a different direction than the last band.

Yeah, this is the underhanded way that many bands do this, and no one will be fooled by it, because it is done all the time. They will just think you're a bunch of cowards who didn't want to confront the situation directly and they will be right about that. If that is what you want to transmit to the other member and the other players in your local scene, proceed with this. But it bears thinking twice about because reputations are important in music.

 

[SactoBass]

and they should easily see that the decision not to meet the required standards was theirs.

Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig +1

It's actually them firing themself for their choice of not meeting the required standards.

Everyone has the right to make whatever choice they want. But every choice is accompanied with the consequences of that choice.

@Col Pruse: it's not you and the other band members firing him. It's him firing him.

 

[Col Pruse]

I think these are all good ideas, but I don't think you can improve/change creativity in a short period of time. You either have it or you don't. So there isn't really a required standard to meet.

He's going one direction, we're going another, but he's not seeing the issue in that.