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How did you find the singer for your band?

#21
We decided to do vox ourselves after exploring a few other options. It has helped our songwriting, seeing as we now think of vox melodies/harmonies during the process.
Guitar player picked it up very quickly, I just support him with harmonies. Tons of fun and great to watch a friend grow in that capacity.
 
#22
HugheJapackage said:
craigslist ftw!
Finding a singer is TOUGH now a days. We knew the guy was right because we all got along so well. The dude had pipes and fit in perfectly. I'd take a decent singer who we all love over an incredible singer who we all wanna jump.
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an incredible singer will probably have an attitude and a desire to upstage everyone else anyway...you know how lead singers get ;) :rollno:
 
#23
Floyd Eye said:
We got sick of going through singers, so now we just do it ourselves.
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Absolutely. Singers are a PIA in the band world I run in. Half of them don't know what note they are singing, but they think they have a great voice, its ridiculous. So now we just spread it around the four of us and it works pretty good.

The issue for us come down to endurance. It takes a while to build up the vocal chops.
 
#26
klokker said:
Absolutely. Singers are a PIA in the band world I run in. Half of them don't know what note they are singing, but they think they have a great voice, its ridiculous. So now we just spread it around the four of us and it works pretty good.

The issue for us come down to endurance. It takes a while to build up the vocal chops.
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I found that the periods when we had a "singer" only served to make my guitarist have to practice singing the songs a lot harder after the "singer" was gone. As it is, I do most of the backing vocals/harmonies and my guitarist sings most of the leads. He can go from RATM, To Everclear to Tool pretty convincingly. I sing lead for a few old Seger tunes and the LBDA tunes we do.

We're a 3 piece and I like it that way.
 
#31
I looked in the mirror and there I was.

:hiding:

Seriously, I have looked for a different singer before. In the days when dinosaurs walked the earth, we used to have to place a classified ad and it cost money. So we did that and got 118 responses, according to my guitarist. We weeded that down to about 20 folks who we actually brought to audition. Most of them were varying degrees of nuts. One guy answered our ad but brought HIS band, a keyboard player and guitarist, I think. Another girl brought her keyboard . . . .she'd learned our material quite well but her delivery was so Pat Benetar. Another guy did his best Robert Plant impersonation for us, to our music.

When we finally found someone who fit us stylistically our drummer hated him and it basically almost destroyed the band. Of course the drummer finished the job a few months later with his alcoholism.

Anyway, not a task I envy.
 
#33
The band I play in used to have a singer (that I had been in a few bands with prior to this one) who would sit on the floor of the jam room and wouldn't participate until we "had the music finished". He wouldn't even phathom trying a melody, to maybe help shape the song, or take it in a different direction. So we let him go and I took over the vocals. The drummer and guitarist both have said the want to get in there as well and do some Alice in Chains or Mastodon style harmonies...so that should be sweet.

- but how we found him in the first place was knowing him from another band.
 
#34
The last 4 singers I've played in bands with were found as follows:

Craigslist - male, great chops, diva attitude. Yes, I meant DIVA as in, b!tchy, whiny and overall just immature. Great singer with the mentality of a HS choir singer.

Craigslist - male, great chops, flakier than a dandruff infomerical. The dude had an excuse FOR EVERYTHING regarding not learning words, missing practice, etc. He actually BAILED a gig after 2 sets with 1 set to go! Another great singer, but overall a headcase.

Longtime friend - female, classically trained, super talented, good looking. Retired, due to motherhood.

Craigslist - male, singer and plays keys\gtr. Not the best singer but great guy, talented keyboard player. Pretty good guitar player. ZERO attitude or issues. My current gig.

BTW - Understand it took A LOT of auditions to find the first 2 I listed and even they ultimately turned out to be problematic.

It's such a crapshoot finding musicians via cold calling off Craigslist or wherever. Best thing to do is network with the local bands in your area and find people. I've found more friends of friends that play music that way.
 
#35
Our vocalist moved away, so we needed a new one. I remembered someone telling me that the guitarist in my other band could sing. Apparently they heard him do singstar or something.

We brought him to one of our rehearsals, gave him some lyrics and he just hummed a melody or two, and that was it.
My drummer couldn't even hear him, he asked me later if he was any good, and he took my word for it.

He's now the center of the band. Having played guitar for 3 years, and only been singing for 6 months, he's a way better musician than the rest of us put together. And every rehearsal he's just getting better!

That's what I call a lucky find.
 

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