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Interactions with your bandmates... Friends? Or just Work?

#41
My band has a mix of friends and work. I have known one guitarist for over 40 years, we met in elementary school. I have known the drummer and other guitarist for 35 years. That same guitarist has known our keyboard player for 40 years and we have all known the singer for about 3 years. None of us really hang out together. We talk on a regular basis but usually only see each other at rehearsals and gigs. We all get along very well. I go to the guitarist's house once in a while (the one I have known since school) but have never been to the other guitarist's or the singer's house. Nobody in the band has been to my house. It isn't a conscious decision, its just how things have been going. One reason is that we don't live near each other. We rehearse at a location that is about a 50 minute drive for me and 10 to 30 minutes for the rest of the band. I really don't have a preference one way or the other. Sometimes seeing people too often can cause problems.
 
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#42
Frank Tuesday said:
I don't really hang out with anybody except my wife, so not hanging out with my bandmates is normal for me. We have a common interest in the music, and when we get together for shows or rehearsal, we get along great.
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OldCityBassman said:
More of an age thing I think. I am 51 and things change as you get older. Guys dont hang like we did when we were younger, more things that get our focus or attention...
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Man that's me. My bandmates and I have a great time playing, we cut-up, laugh like idiots, and and it's a hoot, we get along great, but these are guys I've played with in different bands at various times for 25 years. ...But at almost 57, I don't "hang-out". I used to feel compelled to be a very social animal, but no more. Piddling around with projects alone is fun for me now too. Wife, kids, and often extended family, are the only ones I actually make an effort to be around. Everybody else, I don't much need it anymore.


Maybe internet socializing took some of it's place?
 
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#43
depends.

I have a buddy who plays keys and guitar who I have played with in countless bands - it's cool because we always go to get a "PGB" (post gig beer) after we're done to chat about the silly stuff that happened at the show - and there is ALWAYS some silly stuff afoot... but if I don't know a bandmate, I don't usually hang with them unless we hit it off - which is rare. Now that jerk buddy of mine has taken up bass so we're never in bands together anymore! Where's the love!
 
#44
Been in both and both have advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes it best to meet up once a week and jam out some tunes and gig every now and then. Thats fun and it creates friendships. However you don't need to be best buddies for it to work.
 
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#45
I just started a band. I'm playing guitars, keys, and singing some lead and lots of harmony vocals.

The drummer and I are very tight; we've played in and walked out of dysfunctional bands, hung out at each others' houses and in public, and our spouses are now friends. He's the reason I'm putting in the effort with a start-up; you get a good drummer who's not an asshat in your corner, you have a chance of good things happening.

Among the many, many mistakes I have witnessed band leaders make in the past is a lack of team building and the distance that develops between band mates. No, you don't have to be best friends, but distance creates misunderstandings and impedes the cooperative spirit required in a healthy, successful band. And don't get me started on cliques and other alliance-inspired band politics, and the harm that can cause.

I intend to make the effort by planning and hosting non-band related social get-togethers, in my home or that of others and public events. Significant others, offspring, and friends invited. Maybe even quick non-band meetings before or after rehearsal. Anything is better than nothing. I know time is tight, and I don't know how often everyone can make it to a scheduled event outside of rehearsal and performances, but I will at least make the effort.
 
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#46
I play in a band with myself. So you could say the guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, mandolin player, drummer, and singer are pretty tight. Gets lonely oddly enough. ;)

But when I'm in a real setting I usually am friends on some level with most of them and am really good at making friends if we aren't already. Unless they are rude. Then I have a problem.

One of my best friends is a guitarist. He and I have been playing together for over 9 years but we lack a good musical drummer. Neither of us sing but we write, or half write, all the time. I feel like we need a singer and a drummer. But that's for another time.

One day we'll have a good band. For me if you're friends with the other members then communication is easier and more fluid. Problems get solved more quickly and ideas flow more evenly. But like my dad always says,"keep them at an arms length or they'll bite off more then you'd like." I tend to agree, if they're on good terms to be called friends but not so close where everything is disclosed then it's all good. Otherwise people get taken advantage of and toes get stepped on.
 
#48
Mix of friends and work. I currently play in 3 bands, I did make strong bonds with 2 of the guys I play with, but we don't go out with girlfriends and stuff. I guess it's mainly for playing and/or business. I gotta admit I like it that way. Growing older, I became more independent. When I was younger, I was the guy that organized get togethers with bandmates, I wanted them to be my friends and I wanted to know them more outside of music. Maybe bad experiences made me go the opposite way. Or I'm getting real old!
 
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#50
This is a complicated subject for me. I live in a small area with a shallow talent pool. I'd like to be friends but I want to be part of a good product onstage; due to our small community, players do not critique each other the way they should. It becomes harder to do so when you become friends. I have been friends with my bandmates in one project and it means that I have to bite my tongue when they suck. Two gigs ago the guitarist was so friggin awful that I wouldn't even speak to him that night, and that's a problem because we're friends outside of the band but now he's moving away and I'll probably never see him again and we have this tension between us (there's a story but this is not the place for it).
Once I made the mistake of becoming friends with a "guitar player" who wound up in one of my bands, and he turned out to be an enormous fraud. Again, small community, we wind up in the same crowds often and exchange casual banter which occasionally involves the exchange of "you're a great bass player!...i also think you're a huge d**k but you're a great bass player!..." and "Thanks! I think you're an enormous fraud with a ridiculous mullet but a nice enough guy..." I have sworn to never share a stage with him ever again under any circumstances, and that sort of thing happens easily and often here.
I just have to keep it professional. I have a new guitar player now who'd like to hang out and keeps offering his garage and great equipment for free practice area. It's real close by, too. I'm trying to avoid telling him that neither I nor my existing bandmates will ever set foot in his house, which is overrun with insects, dog poo, rats and mice, mold, mildew and filth worthy of the worst episodes of hoarders. He himself is clean, reasonably attractive and a helluva nice guy...and he has absolutely no idea why women aren't interested in him. There's another great talent down the road who's the same way but always broke on top of it and he can't understand why I never call him.
I moved to this island with my best friend in 2006, and last week we played a gig as our own band and we were very well received, but I can't continue it because his incessant pot smoking has eliminated his memory and nothing rehearsed is retained any more. 25 years ago he was brilliant. Now I have to fade away from it.
 
#51
HolmeBass said:
When I was younger, yeah, sure, I'd hang with the guys a lot. Hell we even all moved in together. What a freakin' disaster.

Now everyone is too busy to hang out much at all. Families and such. I am ok with it. Sometimes I wish I had some more interactions with the guys in my oldest band, but there is so much going on. Plus, I play in a lot of bands now. For most of them it just has to be more business-like or I would never get home at all.
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+1
 
#52
I work with several bands so it's an interesting mix. One of the BL's I work with is probably the closest friend I have. We just got back from vacation together today and are playing tonight. Most of the people I enjoy being around are musicians I work with. however I have no problem spending time and spend and working with people I don't know or are "gig" friends. Something to be said for showing up to a gig, having fun, then not seeing those people tile the next gig. Where I draw the line is if you're a comment ass, find another bass player.
 
#53
I've been in both- currently I'm a hired hand, the band leader calls the shots, I do my job and get paid well. We are friends (and were before I joined), but I understand who's in charge, and it works well. We aren't real close, but definitely friendly at the gig, but not any "off the clock" stuff. I've been in bands with friends before, and the friendship often stands in the way of the band being the best that it could be. Things that should be addressed aren't for fear of hurting a friendship.I guess it depends what you're looking for.
 
#54
DanBass said:
Back in the day, when I was in a band, we were all friends. We hung out, wives got to know each other.. It was more than a band, it was a social event, a circle of friends if you will.

That is what I was always used to. Band events, and non-band events, we all hung out. To me, it made the experience all the more fun.

My current band, I've been in for 8+ years. A few lineup changes, but myself and the guitarist have been the constants for those 8 years. All original, good stuff. But I have noticed that we all don't socialize. I mean we get along, but it seems to be business only. It's just strange to me. I am used to the friendships, the camaraderie. This outfit? Meh.

We practice, play shows, socialize well enough at those times, but when there is no show, no practice, there is NO interaction at all. I was on vacation for a week and then had a trade show to attend the following week.. The amount of interaction?? One text. "We practicing?" Straight-forward answers to said text and that was it. NO whazzup, general talk, nothing.

As I said earlier, it is just strange to me. Every band I was in prior, it was like "Band of Brothers".. This is not anywhere close.

Even though it's been 8 years and walking away is hard after so much invested.. the lack of "banter" if you will, takes a lot of the fun out of it for me. Makes you feel like a hired hand.

And since we are all original and make dreck - a hired hand?? Bwhahahaha

Just curious how others interact. I imagine every scenario is different.
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I think we all hung out more when we were younger. I have made some really good life long friends in a few bands I was in. I do go out quite a bit with three of my current bandmates. My drummer and I played back in a band in the early nineties and have been back playing again for a few years now. My bandmates also been alot emotional support with a pretty major tragedy I went thru. We not only click together as musicians but they will always be in my heart as well.
 
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#55
My current band has only been together a few months. However the drummer and I have known each other for about nine years. We played together in a classic rock band for about three years and even after that band broke up we stayed friends. He has gone with me to several concerts and he also helps me work on my car!
Last Saturday evening we had a rehearsal for about three hours at his house. Afterwards he fired up the grill and we sat around and drank beer and talked until dinner was ready. Ended up spending most of the evening there just hanging out, eating and getting to better know the other two band members.
 
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#57
When I was in my late 20's into my mid 30's the band I was in was my second family. We did everything together. Our girlfriends and spouses were in with us. I think it was a different world then. We did not have any of the modern conveniences to keep our minds busy so we had to create our fun. Now there are so many things to keep our minds busy there is not much time to get bored. The band I am in now is my second family and we have finally learned how to use this new technology to our advantage. We travel a lot so we spend a lot of time together, we usually get to the gig, set up then go and have dinner together then hang out joke and laugh until gig time. I am really blessed to be in this group of people that have become my family.
 
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