Hey,
I wanted to share something with you guys to see what you think about it, or to see if someone has been in the same boat as myself.
For a couple of years I've been in a prog metal band I started together with the singer.
I was the guitarplayer and the main songwriter in that band. It started out great, we wrote a lot of songs, practiced like crazies and at some point we had live gigs twice a month.
The singer arranged all those gigs and and he got some help from the bassplayer. The bassplayer and the keyboard player both shared a succesfull band back in the days. His experiences came to good use in the beginning.
But as time went by, I noticed the focus shifting from writing great songs and playing them well, to playing as many gigs as we can, focussing on PR, getting as many likes on social media as possible, merchandising, monitoring systems, on stage video, all sorts of changes regarding gear, backingtracks, drum triggers and so on.
It went up to a point where the bassplayer and singer decided all that stuff. All they were talking about regarded everything but the music itself. We kept on playing the same poopy setlist over and over again. I kept on writing songs, but we were so busy with other stuff, some songs had to wait 2 years until we finally could play them live.
The bassplayer decided everything, but he had trouble playing songs. He kept forgetting how to play them and said he couldn’t practice at home, because his wife won’t let him. The only time he practiced was during the rehearsals. Next to that, he wasn’t the best bass player, he had trouble with keeping rhythm. The basics of being a bass player IMO. Really basic bass lines I wrote, he kept on ff-ing up.
In the mean time he was the one who took leadership. His style was the sort of: You can have an opinion, just as longs as it fits mine. The singer had the same attitude.
The bass player critized my lack of movement on stage as well.
We had lots of conversations where I said that the band doesn’t feel the same to me. It has nothing to do with music anymore, but about being successful, PR, likes on social media and so forth.
Nothing did change.
At some point I noticed the bass player was playing a part of a song wrong for all those years on stage, like completely dissonant. And he never noticed. When I spoke to him about it and gave him a bit of criticism, he freaked out and said he feels offended and he doesn’t want to be spoken to like that and he said he wanted to quit the band. The singer responded by saying he shouldn’t feel criticized and that he doesn’t want the bassplayer to leave the band, as he is so important to him. He came up with a solution in which I will not be the sole song writer anymore. From now on the whole band will write songs, so the bassplayer wont have to play things he finds hard to play.
That was the point I quit the band.
It came to a point where the band I created with the singer was taken over by the bass player, I had nothing to say anymore.
So my question is, what do you guys think about this?
Is this something that has happened to you guys as well? The people being the poorest at their instrument taking leadership that eventually ruines the whole creative mood in the band?
I wanted to share something with you guys to see what you think about it, or to see if someone has been in the same boat as myself.
For a couple of years I've been in a prog metal band I started together with the singer.
I was the guitarplayer and the main songwriter in that band. It started out great, we wrote a lot of songs, practiced like crazies and at some point we had live gigs twice a month.
The singer arranged all those gigs and and he got some help from the bassplayer. The bassplayer and the keyboard player both shared a succesfull band back in the days. His experiences came to good use in the beginning.
But as time went by, I noticed the focus shifting from writing great songs and playing them well, to playing as many gigs as we can, focussing on PR, getting as many likes on social media as possible, merchandising, monitoring systems, on stage video, all sorts of changes regarding gear, backingtracks, drum triggers and so on.
It went up to a point where the bassplayer and singer decided all that stuff. All they were talking about regarded everything but the music itself. We kept on playing the same poopy setlist over and over again. I kept on writing songs, but we were so busy with other stuff, some songs had to wait 2 years until we finally could play them live.
The bassplayer decided everything, but he had trouble playing songs. He kept forgetting how to play them and said he couldn’t practice at home, because his wife won’t let him. The only time he practiced was during the rehearsals. Next to that, he wasn’t the best bass player, he had trouble with keeping rhythm. The basics of being a bass player IMO. Really basic bass lines I wrote, he kept on ff-ing up.
In the mean time he was the one who took leadership. His style was the sort of: You can have an opinion, just as longs as it fits mine. The singer had the same attitude.
The bass player critized my lack of movement on stage as well.
We had lots of conversations where I said that the band doesn’t feel the same to me. It has nothing to do with music anymore, but about being successful, PR, likes on social media and so forth.
Nothing did change.
At some point I noticed the bass player was playing a part of a song wrong for all those years on stage, like completely dissonant. And he never noticed. When I spoke to him about it and gave him a bit of criticism, he freaked out and said he feels offended and he doesn’t want to be spoken to like that and he said he wanted to quit the band. The singer responded by saying he shouldn’t feel criticized and that he doesn’t want the bassplayer to leave the band, as he is so important to him. He came up with a solution in which I will not be the sole song writer anymore. From now on the whole band will write songs, so the bassplayer wont have to play things he finds hard to play.
That was the point I quit the band.
It came to a point where the band I created with the singer was taken over by the bass player, I had nothing to say anymore.
So my question is, what do you guys think about this?
Is this something that has happened to you guys as well? The people being the poorest at their instrument taking leadership that eventually ruines the whole creative mood in the band?
