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Band image matters

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#21
You will soon find out what "guilt by association" means. I would drop these people as soon as possible.

The company I work for is 100% apolitical. We take no political positions, we do not pay any lobbyists, etc. During the 2008 presidential election, I had one salesrep who was incapable of NOT talking politics with clients. I warned him once and the next day he was back at it -- in front of me AND a client! At the end of the day, he was no longer an employee.

There are plenty of bands out there who play the stuff you want to play and who are not hell bent on offending people. THOSE are the ones you should want to associate with.
 
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#22
An ounce of image is worth a pound of substance. At many levels this band thing is a business. You are hired to put butts in the seats and sell drinks and you will get hired more often, and get to play music more often, if you polish up a little and wear decent clothes. As for politics, tone it down. The Captain and Tennile sold more records than Billy Bragg.
 
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#23
Even if they are great musicians you will be painted with the same brush if they insist on wearing their beliefs on their sleeves at gigs.
It could also backfire on you when you try to get gigs with others. I know a guy who had a band like that when he was 18. It was just a stupid phase he went through. The band lasted a year and became pretty notorious.He grew out of that & became an excellent first rate musician. Great skills,excellent music reader,etc. He's been fired from gigs(pit show work,studio,house band) for having once been connected to that scene.He's 36 now. He was just "let go" by a good paying wedding band.Even though he's not at all like that now client's remember.
 
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#25
electracoyote said:
Since this is one of those "democratic" bands where everyone's opinion has equal weight and all ideas are theoretically "great" ideas, with no designated leader who can supply a filter, tie-breaker, veto power, etc., and since your band mates literally wear their political beliefs and routinely broadcast them on social media, in short, you are screwed. I have no ideas on how to work this out to everyone's satisfaction.

When a band waxes political, it becomes a big part of their image. Some bands can get away with it. Some can't. Depends on your target client and audience. Since you and your mates didn't sit down in the early days of the project and talk about image, direction, format, etc., you are now at their mercy.

I know that in my band, where I am the BL/BM/MD, it was made clear to everyone coming into the project that we will be an apolitical entity and never shall the band's rehearsals, performances, or social media/internet presence be used to espouse personal beliefs about politics, race, or religion. I can't control what people do on their own FB pages and blogs, but we don't even tempt fate by using the band as a vehicle. The country is just too damned divided right now. People no longer discuss politics in a civil manner.

And you are absolutely right: Publicly leaning hard in any direction on matters of politics, race, religion et. al. will alienate half of your potential talent buyers and audience members. Now, this might be okay if you really please the other half that agrees with your expressed stances. ;) But it's a gamble.

For a start-up trying to become commercially viable and marketable, it's an albatross, something you will have to work through, and work harder as a result.
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I had a drummer that wanted to get our publicity pics taken with the band standing in front of a Confederate Flag. I said no. No hard feelings if they wanted to replace me, but that isn't the image of myself I want circulating around. It turns out the singer and guitar player didn't want to either, they just didn't say anything.

We have freedom of speech in this country, even for speech some people find offensive and abhorrent. However, we also have freedom of association and we don't have to associate with people who's views are so different from our own that we are embarrassed to be associated with them (the people and the views). I'm sure I've had band mates that felt that way about me, and I'm OK with that.
 
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#27
lfmn16 said:
I had a drummer that wanted to get our publicity pics taken with the band standing in front of a Confederate Flag. I said no. No hard feelings if they wanted to replace me, but that isn't the image of myself I want circulating around. It turns out the singer and guitar player didn't want to either, they just didn't say anything.

We have freedom of speech in this country, even for speech some people find offensive and abhorrent. However, we also have freedom of association and we don't have to associate with people who's views are so different from our own that we are embarrassed to be associated with them (the people and the views). I'm sure I've had band mates that felt that way about me, and I'm OK with that.
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Indeed; free speech works in multiple directions. Most directly, it means the government cannot dictate what you can say or penalize you for what you say. But it also means others cannot be penalized for what they say back to you. It doesn't mean you have a right to have anyone provide you a platform to amplify or disseminate your speech. It also means you can't usurp the right to speak for others (a corporate body, for instance) against their wishes, since they also have the right to decide what they do and don't want to say, or have said on their behalf.
 
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#28
You sound like a very reasonable person and you're approaching this in a thoughtful manner.

If they're wearing clothing with provocative imagery as a political statement and they intend to do so at gigs, then you're in a political band and you will be associated with that statement. If they're unwilling to set their politics aside while performing despite your reasonable request not to, then it's time to decide if you're OK being in a band that promotes a political message, particularly one you may not agree with.

Personally, I'd have a hard time with it. Life's too short and there's always another gig.
 
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#29
I don't mix politics and music, but I do occasionally put some political thing on my FB. It's nothing extreme, but depending on your extremities, it might matter. I believe in free speech, but nothing that advocates killing people or murder or shutting down others.

Edit: wanted to add if you can't convince them to leave the politics out of the band, then you really have no choice but to leave
 
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#30
A personal anecdote/cautionary tale:

I was once in a band with a small but loyal cult following and a record deal. On our first two albums, i wrote most of the lyrics, another member wrote a lot too, and we often collaborated. Usual topics were horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, generally based on books, movies, and video games that we enjoyed. Occasionally we would write lyrics that were "topical" but not really political... just commentaries on the state of the world. The other guy really liked writing that sort of thing, but since I was the primary lyricist, i steered it away from that most of the time.

I left the band after the second album. Other guy takes over all of the lyric writing. The third album's lyrics are 100% political. He's a registered member of the party opposing the then-administration, and made that very clear in his lyrics. The album was very poorly received, poorly reviewed, and sold horribly. The record label was pissed and dropped the band.

Since then, they've self-released an EP (no political lyrics on this one, back to the old horror/sci-fi/fantasy stuff), and haven't officially broken up, but have been "inactive" for years.
 
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#31
remember that time Kentucky Fried Chicken used "Sweet Home Alabama" in a commercial like those two states aren't really far away from each other?

Yeah, that was some dogwhistling b*llsh**.

You don't want to end up like that...head over to Popeyes and find some new bandmates.

Popeyes_LoveThatChicken.jpg
 
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#32
I'm European, so I appreciate my mindset is different and I possibly come across as intolerant of a person's right to be intolerant, but I got the shivers from reading the first post. I, personally, would regard my differences with two of those band members as beyond mere politics and, the greater their technical wizardry, the more of a Faustian Pact you enter into. Being literally on the same stage as people who want to use the band to actively propagate such stuff makes "I just dig the music" really hard to not sound - sorry - lame.
Aside from all that, I have no experience of your gig scene but I knew of bands like that in the UK and their gigs got ugly - really ugly. Even if my principles only extended to keeping my speaker cones safe from flying mayhem, that's enough reason for me.
 
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#33
Wandering Bass said:
Anyone have any ideas as to how to work this out?
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Pack up your gear and run...

I've never been able to understand why human beings have to be so controlled by emotional issues... But then again I don't get the whole hype surrounding the "game" of football either... I can think of at least a 100 things I would rather do than sit in front of a TV and watch a football game.
 
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