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Why Do We Join The Wrong Bands

B

bluewine

Inactive
Sep 4, 2008
10,296
27
WI
#1
You guys probably saw this one coming. This does not need to be a long thread.

There have been more than one threads recently about guys quitting bands and frustrated about the experience after a year or so.

So, why does this happen. I don't think all the reasons things didn't work out were not evident initially before joining. Things like:

The band had no history of success or stability.

Lengthy distance for travel to rehearse.

Rehearsals in excess of twice a week for no reason.

Limited and questionable material.

No history of gigs or a market for gigs.


I say it's because we join out if emotion and we don't define our requirements or what we want out of a band before joining.

I have joined bands that were not a match for me so I will start this thread off.

Blue
 
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#2
I joined an originals pop rock band and it was not a good experience. Few gigs, way to much rehearsal and a very uninformed poor band leader.

I joined because I fell in live with the material and I forgot about everything I wanted out of a band.

I learned from my mistake after I quit.

I'm in a successful cover band now.

I defined my requirements and researched everything I could on the band before joining.

Blue
 
#3
Can't say I've ever joined a band I shouldn't have... but I've taken gigs on a sub or one-off basis that I wish I hadn't. Usually that happens either:

1) When I haven't been playing a lot and basically will do anything to get onto a stage and making some money, or

2) Because someone else is on the gig (or may be in the audience) who I want to impress so I'll take the gig as a networking move. Those have rarely if ever paid off.

I suppose you could scale these reasons up to a band level too.
 
#5
Everyone has to go through a similar experience, it would seem. One of my earliest bands was a "bowling night" band, since we rarely played out, but rehearsed regularly and rigorously.

These days, I gig more than I rehearse, and I owe that to the "unplugged" trend of the 90's that opened up the door for acoustic (or in my main band's case, "lite" electric) performances. Our "lite" gigs amount to paid rehearsals for our full band/higher-profile gigs.
 
#10
Ric5 said:
Why Do We Join The Wrong Bands

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Because there are very few good bands out there
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Good point, however I'm not sure it's a reason for joining a "bad" band.

It's a tough call, but I think I'd wait it out until something good came along.

Blue
 
#12
ma4rk said:
It's about not knowing how to pick your battles... the question to me is: Why Do We STAY In The Wrong Bands.
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Yes, another great question.

For me , I stayed because I thought the material is so great this band will catch on eventually.

We didn't catch on and where I learned that "smokin" material doesn't aways mean anything.

blue
 
#13
Kmonk said:
The main reason is that if you worried about joining the wrong band you would never join any band. You never know if the band is wrong for you unless you join.
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I can't agree with you, I think there are signs that a band is not right for you prior to joining. For some reasons that will come up in this thread, we ignore those signs.

blue
 
#14
bluewine said:
I can't agree with you, I think there are signs that a band is not right for you prior to joining. For some reasons that will come up in this thread, we ignore those signs.

blue
Click to expand...

That's true but in most cases we never really know what we are getting into until we join. People will say just aboout anything to get a quality musician to join them. Sometimes we realize that the situation is not a good fit right away but more often than not we join and find out later that things are not what we thought.
 
#15
"Why Do We Join The Wrong Bands?"


For the same reasons we date the wrong girls... you dont always know theyre the wrong girl/band until you've been through some.

IME, every girl Ive dated has been better than the one previous. Why? Because I learned something more about myself, what I want, and what Im willing to tolerate in a relationship. Since Ive lived through the negative Im now more capable of identifying those traits before getting involved with someone new. Being that a band is a multi-personel relationship, I think it holds just as true with bands.

Never settle.
 
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#18
bluewine said:
I don't think all the reasons things didn't work out were not evident initially before joining.
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IMO, its less so that those things were not evident before joining, and more so that we didnt know how to identify them before joining.

All the things you listed could be identified before joining a band:

-The band had no history of success or stability. This can be found out by looking the band up online and asking the members about it.

-Lengthy distance for travel to rehearse. Ask where they rehearse before accepting a position in the band

-Rehearsals in excess of twice a week for no reason.Ask how often and how long they practice before joining/auditioning

-Limited and questionable material. Ask how many songs are in their repertoire and what they are before joining/auditioning

-No history of gigs or a market for gigs. Ask how many gigs they have played, and check the bands market out before joining/auditioning

bluewine said:
I say it's because we join out if emotion and we don't define our requirements or what we want out of a band before joining.
Click to expand...

I would agree with that, and add that sometimes, especially earlier on, we dont know exactly what our requirements are or what we want out of a band. Those things need to be learned over time.

ma4rk said:
the question to me is: Why Do We STAY In The Wrong Bands.
Click to expand...

Foolishness or hope. :smug:

If we're in the wrong band, we have to identify why its the wrong band, otherwise we may be doomed to join another.

Kmonk said:
You never know if the band is wrong for you unless you join.
Click to expand...

You can know that some bands are not right for you before joining, otherwise we'd have to join every band to figure that out.
 
#19
All of this points out the EXTREME desirability (to me anyway), whenever possible, to have some sort of pre-existing "in" with the band you are joining.

Honestly, at this point in my life I would have to be exceedingly desperate to answer a CL ad or music store flyer and participate in a "blind" audition with 3 or 4 other people I have never met nor played with before. Before I accept any project these days, I pretty much have to:

1) know/have played with at least one of the other people involved (so I can get the straight skinny on the situation and know we'll be a good musical fit, and/or

2) have seen them play live - so I know what kind of material they're doing, what kind of places they're playing, what kind of crowds they're pulling and if their overall presentation is up to snuff.

As you can deduce, these criteria also pretty much eliminate me from any sort of "start-up" situation, for which I lost the time, energy and patience quite a few years ago. Having only anecdotal evidence to draw on but I would suspect at least 75% of the factors that cause people to be frustrated with their band situations are directly or indirectly part of the territory with a start-up band as opposed to joining an established, regularly gigging outfit.
 

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