The teetotal band member from hell

[Tommygun_ted]

I stick to around 6 drinks before playing, but I can do 15 pints and go to work the next day. That's also not before every show, but if we're playing a bar I like to buy a few drinks. I've gotten flak from band leaders for buying people pints and giving them our business cards, but people seem to respond well to that.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Mike used to come into work on Saturday morning & pretend he didn't know why most of us looked & felt bad.
He also made us all look bad by outperforming us.
He got promoted & even get a company scholarship.

 

[Gyver]

Lighten up, Francis.

Stripes, brilliant movie lol

 

[JW56789]

This hits a nerve, though I know it was in jest.

I don't drink ( . . . .because I get real drunk after just one or two, real sick, and then real sick tomorrow, WAY past a hangover) and I never did drugs ( . . . . . do I REALLY have to say why?), but I never preached or acted like some better-than-you ass hat. I'd just excuse myself without saying a word, and the stuff I saw . . . . . and I got let go from several bands because I wouldn't 'par-tay' with them and I was wrecking their buzz.

One more thing they never tell you: You might make the gig, but you might not make the hang, and it hung me.

This is why I'll never play out ever again. I couldn't believe it. One of them called me a year after and wanted me to drive them to rehab. Geez . . . . . I would have, but I couldn't come up with a good excuse WHO beat the hell out of him when I dropped him at the gate.

One more reason I always say, 'there's no bidness like show bidness'.

 

[BurtMacklinFBI]

I would like to high five your bandmate. Suffer, boozers! SUFFER!

 

[Thumpin6string]

It sounds like he was the only smart one in the band. When he woke up, he was the only one who didn't feel like .

 

[FerK]

Life is too short for this kind of ********. You like to drink and get totally wasted? As long as you played a good show, and you're fit for the next...you're good...knock yourself out. I couldn't care less. I won't bang on your door in the morning, or even bother to check on you at 5PM. If you're good to go on cue, I'm happy with that.

On the other hand, if you don't drink at all, or drink very little, and feel vindictive because someone was a dick last night...please, grow a pair. Take the high road, realise they were drunk, and move on. I also used to hold a grudge when I was a kid. And then I grew up.

I drink very little or nothing at all before the show (max. 1 beer), and may have 1 beer after if I plan to stay another hour after the gig. After all I have to drive home, and I hate risks (call it "Swissness"). I have a family already in bed after my show ends, and I want to either have breakfast (or lunch) with them in the morning. I don't want to feel sick, be in a bad mood or whatever hangover wants to bring with its ugly face...so I gauge myself.

Edit: After re-reading my own post, I was reminded of this:

 

[Bubble]

Just pour some near beer in a glass and they'll think you're drunk too.

 

[whero]

On the other hand, if you don't drink at all, or drink very little, and feel vindictive because someone was a dick last night...please, grow a pair. Take the high road, realise they were drunk, and move on.

There's being a dick, and there's playing badly, being rude to patrons and bar staff, standing outside a restaurant and p!ssing up against the window... basically making sure we never got invited back to what was a pretty well paying gig with a guaranteed big audience in a prime location.

 

[D.M.N.]

As a heavy drinker but also the youngest in my band, I am both you and this guy. Through Europe, my job was driver (since no one else could manage a stick shift), so you party hard, wake up early. You can sleep in the van, load the **** up so we can get places on time and start raging again. But there's no excuse to be a douche about it. Don't drink? Cool, whatever, don't punish others for having their fun. If it's not effecting timeliness or playing, who cares?

 

[nander]

I would say that, if there's disagreement within the band about alcohol use, and when people want to do what, they should have a conversation about it as adults. Just plain, what do we expect from each other. If he wants to practice at 10AM (which is a perfectly normal time to be awake), and you want to sleep until 13:00, then maybe try to find a compromise that works.

That being said, if I would be the only one sober, and feeling a bit annoyed at everyone being hung over all the time, I would probably make you coffee, and then play some really cheerful music through the speakers. You'd be annoyed, but at least you'd have coffee .

On the other hand, if you don't drink at all, or drink very little, and feel vindictive because someone was a dick last night...please, grow a pair. Take the high road, realise they were drunk, and move on. I also used to hold a grudge when I was a kid. And then I grew up.

Also, no, just because they were drunk doesn't mean they just get to get away with poopy behavior. You shouldn't hold grudges, but, imo, whatever you do when you're drunk is still on you. You decided to get drunk, you acted like an *******. That being said, being vindictive is not the most constructive solution.

 

[Bobro]

No non-drinkers or vegetarians allowed in my band! We have moral standards.

 

[Deleted member 165050]

I don't mean to be a downer, but you might want to scale back the drinking to live longer and put on better shows and feel better the next morning.

Dude, it was a one-off night of excess after the gig (no-one drinks before playing). We are all older musicians, not kids on the road to ruin. Why not step down off that high horse and have a beer?

 

[Deleted member 165050]

No non-drinkers or vegetarians allowed in my band! We have moral standards.

I'm afraid two of us are vegetarian, we know it's wrong but there's nothing we can do...

 

[JimmyM]

It is unprofessional for a band to get drunk or stoned while playing. I am not talking a couple of drinks but rather actually over the legal limit. 15 years ago I was in a good band with 4 members, 2 of us drank more water than beer the other 2 would get falling down drunk. We got chewed out by a bar owner saying how he hired us to perform and not to get drunk. We were doing a $1000 gig at a big venue. Well we had to get rid of the drunks and start over. Also the heavy drinking lifestyle is not sustainable. I used to play with a semi famous blues artist who drank a lot. He died before he reached 50. When I play out I drink a water then a beer then a water then a beer and then a water and then I go home. Or sometimes I drink NA beer. Recently I looked up 2 basses players on the internet, they were both about 3 years older than me and I looked up to them in my youth. Well they played hard and partied hard and both were dead by their early 60s.

I don't mean to be a downer, but you might want to scale back the drinking to live longer and put on better shows and feel better the next morning.

I said "Lighten up, Francis" to the wrong person

 

[pcake]

Oh ridiculously early, like 10am or something. Who is up at that time anyway?

he woke you up before the crack of noon? oh, the humanity

 

[Skillet]

"Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake."
"Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on only food and water." - W.C. Fields

 

[dxb]

Ok so festival gig on Friday was followed by a night of excess involving way too much beer then also way too much champagne. Always seems like such a good idea at the time.

Next AM everyone is hungover except for the sole teetotal band member who is going round hammering on doors to wake people up, full of that energy and glee that only teetotallers around hungover people have.

The pinnacle is when he walks into the accommodation I'm sharing with one of the guitarists with a laptop, connects it to the room bluetooth sound system, and starts playing new tracks.

At this point my vision is going red and random images of axes and ice picks are appearing in front of me... I had to disappear into another room and find my inner quiet and happy place with my head under a pillow until silence returned.

Note to self: next time lock the doors and put up a sign saying "danger do not enter".

Sounds like your non-drinker is a pretty nice guy. I mean, none of you woke up with obscene things drawn on your forehead in sharpie marker.

 

[jeffb28451]

Ditto pablomago. The guy is a jerk w extremely immature conduct. We all know someone who still has a 6th grade sense of humor. They irritate grown ups, hung over or not.

 

[dBChad]

As a teetotaler myself (and militantly so), I have to raise this question: Are you sure the sober one of the group is the problem? Maybe (not necessarily you) some of the inebriated members of the band kept him up the previous night by partying while he was trying to sleep making him miserable, and this was his way of showing the band how that made him feel. I'm not saying this is the most mature way of handling the situation, but it's a method. I used to work with someone who spoke to me in a way I didn't particularly like: I tried letting them know this to no avail, but if I spoke back the way I was spoken to they seemed to understand. Last resort born out of frustration.

Then again, with everyone being adults, it's not unrealistic to establish boundaries.