A lot of tenor sax players I've worked with have been absolute c**ks. The most recent is certifiably insane - turns up to gigs regularly announcing he's been having serious mental problems all week. Relies on using a chart for everything, including a basic 12-bar blues. Thinks he's an undiscovered genius but can't hear his way through 'Happy Birthday'. Makes lots of mistakes then will berate others for 'making him screw up'. Dresses like he's Lester Young on 42nd street. Constantly threatens to quit then recants and begs to come back. Insults members of the audience who politely walk up to him to compliment him or the band. Takes up to 5 minutes in between songs to get his charts together, and when he does come in with the head its usually after a ridiculously LONG intro. Complains he can't play certain arrangements at times when his horn is cold!?!? Often complains of a sore shoulder because - and I kid you not - he's been masturbating to internet porn all day. A real class act....
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worst bandmate you've ever worked with?
- Thread starter ROFLMFAO
- Start date
A lot of tenor sax players I've worked with have been absolute c**ks. The most recent is certifiably insane - turns up to gigs regularly announcing he's been having serious mental problems all week. Relies on using a chart for everything, including a basic 12-bar blues. Thinks he's an undiscovered genius but can't hear his way through 'Happy Birthday'. Makes lots of mistakes then will berate others for 'making him screw up'. Dresses like he's Lester Young on 42nd street. Constantly threatens to quit then recants and begs to come back. Insults members of the audience who politely walk up to him to compliment him or the band. Takes up to 5 minutes in between songs to get his charts together, and when he does come in with the head its usually after a ridiculously LONG intro. Complains he can't play certain arrangements at times when his horn is cold!?!? Often complains of a sore shoulder because - and I kid you not - he's been masturbating to internet porn all day. A real class act....
My last band didn't last long for a number of reasons, specifically the three dudes playing on stage with me.
Our lead guitar player was the youngest guy in the band. He could tear up the fretboard just by instinct but didn't know a lick about theory or how to play in a certain key. "What chords are you playing?" and then he'd just instinctually know exactly where to solo from on the guitar. It was pretty amazing actually. However, he didn't know how to read his guitar tuner. He assumed that whatever popped up on the face of the tuner was the correct note so he'd tune to that. Sometimes that would result in EbADABe as his end result!! I literally had to tune his guitar for him on stage in the middle of a set once!
Our drummer, my younger brother, is an alcholic stoner who destroys on the kit. He and I click so well and sometime read each others minds with fills and rhythmic changes and such. However, he spends all his cash on alcohol and drugs and didn't take care of his gear. When something would break, one of us in the band would have to spot him the cash or we wouldn't have been able to play the shows we had booked.
Finally, the ultimate reason I left the band, albeit a few months later than I reasonably should have walked away, was our frontman. He was a very mediocre singer, who could hit the notes just fine but would over sing and go out of key all the time. His guitar playing was pretty solid but he was under the assumption that if he tuned once before the show his guitar would stay in tune the rest of the gig... it didn't. He thought he was the best singer in the world and took zero criticism from other professional, established vocalists. He also thought we were going to be the biggest band in the universe and that the same seven people coming to see us for the last six months was just the start of a HUGE following coming on the horizon. WRONG! I had a chat with him about how music was just a hobby for me and we should be more realistic so what did he do? He decided he was going to try to make a run at pro baseball and cancelled our next gig behind all our backs for a baseball tryout that he ultimately forgot to sign up for and didn't even get to go to.
Sorry for the vent! So glad to be done with that mess!
Our lead guitar player was the youngest guy in the band. He could tear up the fretboard just by instinct but didn't know a lick about theory or how to play in a certain key. "What chords are you playing?" and then he'd just instinctually know exactly where to solo from on the guitar. It was pretty amazing actually. However, he didn't know how to read his guitar tuner. He assumed that whatever popped up on the face of the tuner was the correct note so he'd tune to that. Sometimes that would result in EbADABe as his end result!! I literally had to tune his guitar for him on stage in the middle of a set once!
Our drummer, my younger brother, is an alcholic stoner who destroys on the kit. He and I click so well and sometime read each others minds with fills and rhythmic changes and such. However, he spends all his cash on alcohol and drugs and didn't take care of his gear. When something would break, one of us in the band would have to spot him the cash or we wouldn't have been able to play the shows we had booked.
Finally, the ultimate reason I left the band, albeit a few months later than I reasonably should have walked away, was our frontman. He was a very mediocre singer, who could hit the notes just fine but would over sing and go out of key all the time. His guitar playing was pretty solid but he was under the assumption that if he tuned once before the show his guitar would stay in tune the rest of the gig... it didn't. He thought he was the best singer in the world and took zero criticism from other professional, established vocalists. He also thought we were going to be the biggest band in the universe and that the same seven people coming to see us for the last six months was just the start of a HUGE following coming on the horizon. WRONG! I had a chat with him about how music was just a hobby for me and we should be more realistic so what did he do? He decided he was going to try to make a run at pro baseball and cancelled our next gig behind all our backs for a baseball tryout that he ultimately forgot to sign up for and didn't even get to go to.
Sorry for the vent! So glad to be done with that mess!
Mine was a lead guitar player........nice guy, quiet, easy-going, had professional gear, always well-prepared for practice. Sounds great, right? Wrong.......even though he could play the freakin' snot out of that guitar at practice and pull off some mind-blowing leads, every time we had a gig......EVERY TIME, he would choke on every solo all nite, seriously, if he had a paying audience watching him he couldn't play.
Lead singer in a four-piece proggish band that I was the drummer for. Really nice girl, beautiful red hair, good body, good look... and she had a good voice, too... sometimes a little pitchy but she was always training, working on it.
Getting her to come to a rehearsal was extraordinarily difficult, and getting her to come to rehearsal AND being in singing shape was another challenge altogether.
We rehearsed every Sunday. Let's say there are four Sundays in a month. Two weeks out of the four, she goes out and drinks herself into a coma, and is too hungover to even get out of bed. The third week, she goes out and sings karaoke for three hours, throws out her voice completely, and can't sing at all the next day. The fourth week, she actually comes in and hasn't lost her voice, and she might sing something halfway decent.
So, one out of four rehearsals she might have been competent.
I hate to bag her too much because we were good friends, and I still keep in touch, even though I moved a long way away. But she was just pathologically unreliable.
I couldn't really fire her.... it wasn't really my band. Just about the times I would get completely fed up, she would come in and sing really well, and the band would sound great. I was very close to quitting for awhile, if only because the progress of the band was terribly stunted... not entirely her fault; the rest of the band took forever to do anything. I recorded drum tracks for an EP in late 2008 and they STILL aren't finished.
I ended up moving and leaving the band amicably, so it never came to a head. As far as I know they do acoustic shows now without me, with her still in the band. I don't know if her habits ever improved.
Getting her to come to a rehearsal was extraordinarily difficult, and getting her to come to rehearsal AND being in singing shape was another challenge altogether.
We rehearsed every Sunday. Let's say there are four Sundays in a month. Two weeks out of the four, she goes out and drinks herself into a coma, and is too hungover to even get out of bed. The third week, she goes out and sings karaoke for three hours, throws out her voice completely, and can't sing at all the next day. The fourth week, she actually comes in and hasn't lost her voice, and she might sing something halfway decent.
So, one out of four rehearsals she might have been competent.
I hate to bag her too much because we were good friends, and I still keep in touch, even though I moved a long way away. But she was just pathologically unreliable.
I couldn't really fire her.... it wasn't really my band. Just about the times I would get completely fed up, she would come in and sing really well, and the band would sound great. I was very close to quitting for awhile, if only because the progress of the band was terribly stunted... not entirely her fault; the rest of the band took forever to do anything. I recorded drum tracks for an EP in late 2008 and they STILL aren't finished.
I ended up moving and leaving the band amicably, so it never came to a head. As far as I know they do acoustic shows now without me, with her still in the band. I don't know if her habits ever improved.
A few people and I attempted to get something together. The guitard was musically ********. He had two playing speeds, Pantera, and Pantera on Steroids. His idea of music was to fit as many power chords as he could between each note I played (I have yet to play that fast again).
The first two practices sucked, but we were still sorting things out. He has a fancy Dean, entirely tricked out with the floyd rose and an active system, the works. It's always at Eb. I asked him if he had a guitar in E standard, to which he responds "What's that?" - First warning
A few explanations later, he grabs his laguna, tuned and everyhting. After a few minutes, he breaks a string. That's when he reveals he doesn't know how to change his strings. Or EQ his amp. I swear my ears would begin to bleed after about 10 minutes. He would always crank the treble and drop everything else, then blast it up to 11. I couldn't hear myself think.
He also had no idea how to play....if you know what I mean. He could play metallica all day long, but when it came to improvising at a moderate tempo, he would get lost. Instantly. since his guitar was down tuned, I had to follow what he was doing, and play in drop d (which I hate doing) to keep up. When it came time for him to follow what I was doing, I would play something slow (I warm up to the higher speeds, starting off fast makes my arms and fingers burn), and he would pour a billions notes in there at breakneck speed, out of key. We sounded like somebody running over cat to a jazzy bass line. Three weeks and i was gone.
The first two practices sucked, but we were still sorting things out. He has a fancy Dean, entirely tricked out with the floyd rose and an active system, the works. It's always at Eb. I asked him if he had a guitar in E standard, to which he responds "What's that?" - First warning
A few explanations later, he grabs his laguna, tuned and everyhting. After a few minutes, he breaks a string. That's when he reveals he doesn't know how to change his strings. Or EQ his amp. I swear my ears would begin to bleed after about 10 minutes. He would always crank the treble and drop everything else, then blast it up to 11. I couldn't hear myself think.
He also had no idea how to play....if you know what I mean. He could play metallica all day long, but when it came to improvising at a moderate tempo, he would get lost. Instantly. since his guitar was down tuned, I had to follow what he was doing, and play in drop d (which I hate doing) to keep up. When it came time for him to follow what I was doing, I would play something slow (I warm up to the higher speeds, starting off fast makes my arms and fingers burn), and he would pour a billions notes in there at breakneck speed, out of key. We sounded like somebody running over cat to a jazzy bass line. Three weeks and i was gone.
I was in a cheesy metal band back in the 80s with 2 guitar players. The lead player was quite gifted, and despite no formal training could throw out riffs to anything that just fit in. The rhythm guitarist on the other hand... He was capable enough to play the parts for the songs, and did them well, but only played the parts the lead showed him. I never once heard him come up with anything on his own, even when noodling on his own he was playing the band's songs. That didn't bother me as much as his "I know more than you because I'm a guitar player" attitude. He had a decent SG which sounded much like an SG should and well suited to chugging rhythm parts, but whenever he was allowed to borrow one of the lead guitarist's guitars he'd keep pointing out things as if they were some kind of secret knowledge tidbits that he was sharing with me out of pity. Look! See where the headstock on this Strat says "Contoured"? That means its a real Strat! See the pickups on my SG? They're called "humbucking" pickups, that means they're better than single coil pickups! The guy drove me nuts, but I suspect the lead guitarist liked having him there because he could fill in the sound and not step on his toes.
In my case, it was 2 guys in the same band. They fought like brothers, and often I was caught in the middle as a mediator.
One example: We had finished our show at a local bar that we played at frequently. The drummer had a bit of a crush on the bartender and the guitarist made the mistake of talking to her (in a completely innocent way) briefly. We all rode together to and from gigs. On the way home, the drummer proceeded to pull a knife on the guitarist from the back seat! I pulled the car over, trying to moderate the situation, and the drummer tries to stab ME! Needless to say, liquor was involved that night. The night ended with the guitarist hitchhiking, and the drummer (after he calmed down) and I driving around for hours looking for him. He ended up safely at home, unbeknownst to me. Ugh!
One example: We had finished our show at a local bar that we played at frequently. The drummer had a bit of a crush on the bartender and the guitarist made the mistake of talking to her (in a completely innocent way) briefly. We all rode together to and from gigs. On the way home, the drummer proceeded to pull a knife on the guitarist from the back seat! I pulled the car over, trying to moderate the situation, and the drummer tries to stab ME! Needless to say, liquor was involved that night. The night ended with the guitarist hitchhiking, and the drummer (after he calmed down) and I driving around for hours looking for him. He ended up safely at home, unbeknownst to me. Ugh!
oh i was in a band for entirely too long led by nothing short of a mad man. 32 years old and lived with his mother despite owning a $3000 guitar and $2000 amp might be the first tip off...
he'd do all typical "guitard" stuff like always crank his amp, he had no ****ing idea how to work the settings and practice was very unproductive trying to introduce any musical concepts besides "here we play d, c and g, then we play c, g and d" because he'd noodle at max volume like a 5 year old with ADHD and no one could talk over it.
anyway so he's basically a nut case with a giant ego, but he had a lot of marketable pop rock material already written. at our first gig, which went ok, this awesome prog rock band gets on after us and blows us out of the water (theyd been playing together since they were kids) and while me and the drummer are talking about how great they are and what they're doing that we're not, he comes up and starts going on this rant about how their song writing isn't as good as us and it just came off as pathetically insecure.
so the next day he's worked himself into a rage about how unhappy he was with the gig, pointing at our drummer (who was quite a new drummer but we discussed extensively that we'd still bring him into the band and work with him). I was at work, then was on my way to the gym - I say in a txt message "i'm just going to the gym for an hour or so so I wont be able to check my phone, maybe hold off on any big decisions". there was also a bit of drama because he wanted to play the same venue with the same set again then next week on the same night for no money, which me and the drummer disagreed with.
So I finish up at the gym (it was a group class so couldnt have checked my phone if I wanted to), I get changed and all that, on my way out I dig my phone out of my bag to check the messages. 20, count 'em thats twenty, unread messages all along the lines of "where is your answer what sort of a band can we run if this is the level of communication we are running. you have 5 minutes to answer me" except filled with many more expletives. he also had kicked the drummer out, who was a trusted friend of mine, somewhere around message 10.
he still sometimes tells me they have a new drummer and asks if I want to rejoin...
he'd do all typical "guitard" stuff like always crank his amp, he had no ****ing idea how to work the settings and practice was very unproductive trying to introduce any musical concepts besides "here we play d, c and g, then we play c, g and d" because he'd noodle at max volume like a 5 year old with ADHD and no one could talk over it.
anyway so he's basically a nut case with a giant ego, but he had a lot of marketable pop rock material already written. at our first gig, which went ok, this awesome prog rock band gets on after us and blows us out of the water (theyd been playing together since they were kids) and while me and the drummer are talking about how great they are and what they're doing that we're not, he comes up and starts going on this rant about how their song writing isn't as good as us and it just came off as pathetically insecure.
so the next day he's worked himself into a rage about how unhappy he was with the gig, pointing at our drummer (who was quite a new drummer but we discussed extensively that we'd still bring him into the band and work with him). I was at work, then was on my way to the gym - I say in a txt message "i'm just going to the gym for an hour or so so I wont be able to check my phone, maybe hold off on any big decisions". there was also a bit of drama because he wanted to play the same venue with the same set again then next week on the same night for no money, which me and the drummer disagreed with.
So I finish up at the gym (it was a group class so couldnt have checked my phone if I wanted to), I get changed and all that, on my way out I dig my phone out of my bag to check the messages. 20, count 'em thats twenty, unread messages all along the lines of "where is your answer what sort of a band can we run if this is the level of communication we are running. you have 5 minutes to answer me" except filled with many more expletives. he also had kicked the drummer out, who was a trusted friend of mine, somewhere around message 10.
he still sometimes tells me they have a new drummer and asks if I want to rejoin...
There was a pretty good singer who could not come in on time after any guitar solo or drum fill. Practice practice practice and he would still f it up at gigs. It didn't break the band but it sure never helped us get anywhere.
I saw him years later and he's been doing some pretty big shows, I says "how the hell did you get those gigs?" The penny had apparently dropped that all bars are the same length.
I saw him years later and he's been doing some pretty big shows, I says "how the hell did you get those gigs?" The penny had apparently dropped that all bars are the same length.
The rhythm guitarist in one band was always twice as loud as everyone else. He also had only one setting for his amp...full distortion. He even played Sultans of Swing with full distortion. I once suggested that the song would sound better with a clean guitar sound, he disagreed saying that that was "my sound, man".
I quit shortly after that...it was a shame because the lead guitar player was great and the drummer was awesome, but they were all friends for years and I was new, so I knew it was a losing battle.
I quit shortly after that...it was a shame because the lead guitar player was great and the drummer was awesome, but they were all friends for years and I was new, so I knew it was a losing battle.
I had a guitarist a few years back that was a raging alcoholic. We finally ended up staging a band intervention, letting him know that if he didn't cut back, he was out.
He responded by hiding it. Seriously. Hiding it. I started finding empty beer cans on the street leading to my house. He was pounding them on the way to practice!!
The band practiced in my basement. He'd frequently take "bathroom breaks", like ALOT.
After practice I forget what led me to it, but I opened the cabinet under my bathroom sink. There was about a case of empty beer cans under the sink. For REAL?!?
I don't drink. He got the boot.
He responded by hiding it. Seriously. Hiding it. I started finding empty beer cans on the street leading to my house. He was pounding them on the way to practice!!
The band practiced in my basement. He'd frequently take "bathroom breaks", like ALOT.
After practice I forget what led me to it, but I opened the cabinet under my bathroom sink. There was about a case of empty beer cans under the sink. For REAL?!?
I don't drink. He got the boot.
Best drummer I ever played with showed up to the gig with a kick, a snare, a little bitty ride cymbal and a pair of bundles. That's it. I was the only guy in the group who had never played with him before and I was worried, but the other two guys said it would be cool. They were right, the guy was phenomenal.
Mine was a drummer. Our practice space had a basic kit with high hat, you just had to bring your own cymbals and snare. Get a call from the owner the day after a practice and she says they are missing the high hat and stand. Could I check with drummer to see if he has it, please? I ask him about it and he says "oh, yea, I do have it. I guess I just grabbed it with my cymbal stands by accident." Couple of week go by and something else turned up missing. He doesn't know anything about it. When our month was up, I went to pay for the next month and she says she won't rent to us anymore. Our first gig, he gets stoned and drunk, stops playing for 15 seconds in the middle of a couple of songs, loses time all over the place, etc. We finish the set, and we're offloading the stage while the next band is bringing their gear up. Their drummer comes outside where we've brought our gear asking about his floor tom. Sure enough, there it is in our drummer's pile. He's like "oh man, someone must have grabbed it in the rush to get everything broken down." He had borrowed my son's kick drum for the show because something was wrong with his. Found out the next day that he lost one of the nuts for the tom mounts. We fired him that week.
Yea...that's a story I've heard a few times. I was a guitarist in a band for about 3 years and our "bandleader" was outright abusive to us. He's constantly mope around if things weren't just right, turn his back to us, complain that he wrote all the songs (but never accept anything brought to him. Ever. Period.) and was just generally a massive d**khead to everyone he met. I had enough and went back to playing bass.
As a side note, I started off playing bass in this band but he decided he wants to play bass instead (I can play circles around him) so I switched to rhythm (I'd never played guitar before). When our lead guy left, he never bothered replacing him yet would bitch to other bandmembers about how bad I was.
Basically he's just an insecure douche. And yea, the "band" is totally still together...they just need a drummer, guitarist, and singer...
I'm the worst bandmate I think I have worked with. Always pointing out issues to a casual cover band that could really care less.
Our guitar player has a tendency to not listen to live songs when he practices, he plays to chord charts and tries to race through as many as possible when he practices privately to cram them into memory, usually triple speed. So he gets onstage and launches into songs way too fast and when I say something, I just get glares from the band like 'well what is wrong with that?'
I bring up dynanics, same thing. When we come into what are supposed to be refrains at full volume, I get blank stares like "what is he tripping on now."
When I bring up things like feel and playing behind the beat a little, they act like I am trying to sell them mushrooms.
Meanwhile I probably make a mistake and get minor-league lost in many songs we play. As an ear player with 4 hours of material in our band, it is hard to remember sometimes.
But they are perfectly happy as is until I bring everyone down about these issues, so it is me...
Our guitar player has a tendency to not listen to live songs when he practices, he plays to chord charts and tries to race through as many as possible when he practices privately to cram them into memory, usually triple speed. So he gets onstage and launches into songs way too fast and when I say something, I just get glares from the band like 'well what is wrong with that?'
I bring up dynanics, same thing. When we come into what are supposed to be refrains at full volume, I get blank stares like "what is he tripping on now."
When I bring up things like feel and playing behind the beat a little, they act like I am trying to sell them mushrooms.
Meanwhile I probably make a mistake and get minor-league lost in many songs we play. As an ear player with 4 hours of material in our band, it is hard to remember sometimes.
But they are perfectly happy as is until I bring everyone down about these issues, so it is me...
The lead guitarist in my last group wasn't THAT bad, but your story reminded me of him. He's a dear friend and I hope he's always in my life, but I'll be honest, he's the most technological naive musician I've ever played with. The kicker? He has a PHd from Yale. He's the smartest person I've ever known, but like I said when it comes to anything relating to gear he has no clue. He got a digital modeling amp and had to have our lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist set it up for him. His cables were always a rats nest and though he'd from time to time have tuner trouble with weather he had to tune up or down. Though that was rare.
A former drummer of mine has his own wiki page, but that wasn't really the problem. More a total lack of commitment or talent.
Turned up to practices often two hours late, without any warning of his impending lateness, with a four-pack of supermarket lager. Found it difficult to count bars. We had a song where the guitar and bass continued playing the same riff, but the drums and keys would change. I thought it brought a bit of variety to the song instead of pummelling the same riff at the audience for thirty-two bars.
It was pretty simple stuff to be honest; sixteen bars of fast and frenetic metal drumming, then sixteen bars of more Bon Jovi-style big '80s snare backbeats. Every time, failure failure failure. Now maybe I'm being over-expectant, but surely counting bars is one of the key responsibilities of the drummer?
Then, while rehearsing a new song, he suggested "putting a reggae beat" to a riff that was essentially a Ride The Lighting-era Metallica rip-off. My brain did backflips trying to figure out his thought process on that one. Upbeat, downbeat, whatbeat? There's genre-hopping, and then there's just trying to shoehorn the one beat you can play well into a song that's too challenging.
I think the kicker was when he turned up to practice, four-pack of Super Tennants in hand (one open, swigging from it), without a drum stick or cymbal on him. By this point I'd started turning up to practices with my own sticks just so we could try and make a bit of headway before the drummer deigned to arrive. That was his last practice though. Put ads out for a new drummer the next week, and we were pleasantly surprised by finding a lady who not only learned all the songs, but was genuinely interested in playing them.
Since then, I've not really had any bad bandmates. Musical differences, yes, but they've always been able to explain them in a rational fashion, instead of flailing away at the ride cymbal thinking they're channelling Bob Marley.
I couldn't even get through more than 2 pages here, but I'll just say this: if you are constantly finding that all the people you play with are "guitards", "drumtards", or any other "tards", you're probably a tard yourself.
Drummer in my old band I clashed with. Hard hitter on the kit, but without the finesse or technical skill to make it sound good.
Pity as before him we had a drummer who could actually play and sounded a lot better.
Ended up with me and him at each others throats pretty much.
Pity as before him we had a drummer who could actually play and sounded a lot better.
Ended up with me and him at each others throats pretty much.
