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I QUIT!
- Thread starter tbirddad
- Start date
Absolutely fantastic email! What a douchebag that BL is!
I actually would have quit over the whole missing bar tab thing.....let alone the rest!
I actually would have quit over the whole missing bar tab thing.....let alone the rest!
Great letter, well thought out for sure, comedic yet seriously fragile!!! Started to sound like a "Country" hit, seriously though why not make it easy and more to the point and just Drop him!!!! The perfect time would have been his rant after a gig. I guess if I was in your situation the band would have never left the rehearsal stage cause anyone yelling at me was soon to be "looking up"!!! Young man any musician who resorts to yelling is either with morons or is a moron. Mz. Franklin said it best its ALL about RESPECT when you start a band that is a MUST even if you don't agree the respect for each other can bring a band a long ways. Now that your a free man kick back and then look for some fellows who want to work hard so they can play hard too!!! Doc
You really should discreetly drop by the band's next gig, and see how they are doing. Remarkably few bandleaders are capable of working with subs.
In my area, this keeps happening because there are so few musicians that bands get desperate and take them back. Case in point: my band's former drummer, who is a diva in every sense of the word. He's a great musician, singer, and showman, but he has quit every band he's been in since the age of 14 (he's now in his late 30s) when he got bored.
In 2005, I joined Band #1, which consisted of him, 2 distant cousins, and the brother in-law of one of those cousins. Three of them had been together in various bands over the years. In 2007 he quit on us and joined a band with some other former bandmates of his. Why? He was bored, though the music they played wasn't much different from what we had been doing. When I asked our guitarist if we were going to audition new drummers, he replied that he was tired of dealing with band drama, and added that he would never play with Diva Drummer again.
When Band #1 played its last gig a month later, DD begged to come back, saying he'd made a big mistake. The rest of the band told him oh yes, please, come back, but I said "Yeah, whatever, you'll just quit again." Apparently that wasn't the reaction he was looking for, so he threw a string of expletives at me and yelled "Forget it!"
In 2009, I decided it might be time to give him a second chance. I'd been through some serious drama with other groups in the interim, and decided that nothing he had done was really that horrible in comparison. I called everyone in the band and asked if they'd be willing to give it another chance. Much to my surprise, everyone said yes right away. DD was still in Band #2, and those guys were not happy about this turn of events, probably because they assumed he would quit soon.
Things in Band #1 were okay for awhile, but I soon started to see the same old drama begin to resurface. At the beginning of summer 2010, Band #2's bassist quit and I was asked to sub while they looked for a replacement. After our first gig, they hired me as a permanent member.
Somewhere during the summer of 2010, DD joined Band #3. Both he and I were unhappy about the developments in Band #1, but I was the only one who voiced my concerns to the band in May. They pretty much dismissed everything I said. I realized that nothing would change, so I quit in September. DD followed about a month later, and made a point of begging me to stick with him in Band #2. I said no problem because I hadn't seen the drama and control issues that existed in Band #1.
Around that time, Band #3 broke up, and DD returned to Band #1. They happily took him back because they couldn't find anyone else. They're also on their third bassist, who is the father of the lead guitarist.
A month after DD quit Band #2, he called our guitarist and gave him the "I'm sorry, I made a big mistake, can I come back?" spiel. The guitarist said no way. DD tried again a few months later, and got the same response. Then around spring 2011 when we hired a new drummer, DD asked if we could have a Band #2 reunion! Not gonna happen.
I think he did this because he's getting bored with Band #1 and may finally be near the end of his list of local musicians he has used up. I also suspect it's only a matter of time before he bails and calls us again. Now that I'm no longer in a band with him, his behavior is interesting to watch from a distance.
Incidentally, our new drummer is nothing like DD. Thank goodness!
+1
As justified as the feelings are, delivering them in print is not prudent.
The unfortunate part about burning bridges is, if you use too much fuel, the fire spreads to the road and follows you.
The OP looks like something I would write and save, then read after a couple of days and decide it's not worth it to actually deliver.
I agree that there's no good that can come from a resignation rant - that goes whether it's verbal as well as in print, private as well as public.
Besides the "burnt bridges" & "stuff that can be used against you" aspects, it's not going to change anything for anybody that's left, & since you're gone anyway there's really no point. Just because it may feel good to you at the time to vent, doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.
As big of a d-----bag as the BL may be, he probably still has friends. He may be the biggest d-----bag among his friends, & some of those friends may be people that you'd be willing to work with someday. You may have eliminated those future opportunities.
Now, if the guy asked you for an "exit interview"/debrief then you should tell him how you feel, but keep it civil & pro. Otherwise, a simple "I quit" with some certain "as of" date, keep booked gigs, etc. is all you need. Also, if it really was that bad, you should have gotten out long ago.
Besides the "burnt bridges" & "stuff that can be used against you" aspects, it's not going to change anything for anybody that's left, & since you're gone anyway there's really no point. Just because it may feel good to you at the time to vent, doesn't necessarily make it a good idea.
As big of a d-----bag as the BL may be, he probably still has friends. He may be the biggest d-----bag among his friends, & some of those friends may be people that you'd be willing to work with someday. You may have eliminated those future opportunities.
Now, if the guy asked you for an "exit interview"/debrief then you should tell him how you feel, but keep it civil & pro. Otherwise, a simple "I quit" with some certain "as of" date, keep booked gigs, etc. is all you need. Also, if it really was that bad, you should have gotten out long ago.
I'm just amazed people like that can still get gigs!
Anyway, you probably did say too much, but it seems like it's one of those things where everyone knows it's true but doesn't say anything to try to keep the peace.
It's pretty hard on the nerves.
Best of luck finding civil human beings to play with.
Anyway, you probably did say too much, but it seems like it's one of those things where everyone knows it's true but doesn't say anything to try to keep the peace.
It's pretty hard on the nerves.
Best of luck finding civil human beings to play with.
I disagree with the people saying the OP was wrong to write and send that off. People like this band "leader" deserve to get told off when they screw people over. You can only take the high road so many times before you get run over.
And we're talking about quitting a cover band here, not resigning from a Fortune 500 company.
And we're talking about quitting a cover band here, not resigning from a Fortune 500 company.
I'm surprised you lasted as long as you did. I would have quit long ago. But I think I would have refrained from the (well deserved) rant and just said "personality differences were too great to overcome, so I'm gone" and left it at that.
That's definitely when it's most effective... when everyone jumps ship at once. In essence you are "firing" the bandleader vs. the other way around.
That doesn't happen very often though, and even when it does the worst of the D-bag BLs are still too dense or arrogant to get the message.
I quit my last band for pretty much the same reasons you did. Our BL wrote all the songs, sang decent, had a killer practice space, but had no clue on how to run a modern-day band. He was pretty much living in the past, expecting a record contract to come dropping in his lap like in the old days. I kept trying to educate him about the need to do things ourselves (got a lot of killer info from here on TB), but for some reason he wouldn't listen. All we were doing was rehearsing with no prospects for playing out. So one day everything came to a head, and he told us that everyone in the band was expendable at any time. I went home and wrote him an email telling him that if that's all he thought about all the effort I put in then he could find himself another bass player. This was last April, and they still havn't found one yet!
I've come to realize that band success is 25% music-related and 75% interpersonal relationships.
I've come to realize that band success is 25% music-related and 75% interpersonal relationships.
Yep, agreed. I'm sure it felt good and necessary to get that all out, but no point in stooping to his level. Best to just take the high ground and move on. But oh well, live and learn. At least the OP is out of that situation, which is what's really important.
Wow ...you are one patient man....I would have walked after the first one but not before leaving a little " Glasgow kiss"..I wouldn´t let anyone speak to me like I was in the army or prison. I agree entirely with your email.
One point I would like to make is that the quality of the people you hang with is much more important then the musical talent of the band. Musicians can always get better however character flaws rarely improve. In retrospect....while nice to get the rant out......might have been better to just say your something like "you have enjoyed your experience with the group but feel that is time to move on to other musical pursuits and projects." Short and sweet without burning any bridges. You will be running into former band mates for years .....and time will heal many of the slights........it's a small musical community.
Exactly. And yes, it goes without saying this is not a Fortune 500 company we're discussing, but it is a community of musicians and word gets around. If you have any intention of maintaining a good reputation in that community, you compromise yourself with rants of this nature and the bad blood that results.
Walking away from a dysfunctional situation is perfectly understandable, but airing grievances and critiques on the way out only gives others an excuse to smear your name in retaliation.
I think the time to get that stuff out in the open is when you're still in the band and you have a chance of maybe highlighting and correcting some of the dysfunctional behavior. If you get it out in the open when the band is still a unit, and nothing changes, then you don't have to rant about it on the way out when you do decide to walk. You can just simply say, "Hey, we've discussed my concerns, and nothing changed. Wishing you the best."
