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worst bandmate you've ever worked with?

I hate being in a band that won't cooperate with the sound guy. It happens all the time when you're playing with less experienced guys

ironically i always hear about bass players having a hard time getting along with the sound guy in contrast to everyone else. i don't think i'd enjoy dealing with sound guys much either cause it seems like they always want to keep you way under the mix. the one music instructor from my old high school was sort of like that cause he was the sound guy at talent shows and such. the guy acted like he wanted me to EQ everything out but lows.. this annoyed the hell out of me cause i like a crisp, bright high-mid tone that cuts through. that's me though, i feel i'm the one playing the instrument; as long as i'm not over powering everyone else, i should be able to sound how I want to.
 
My biggest beefs are the drummers (primarily) who do not understand dynamics and cannot play beneath maximum volume and also feel a drummer's primary role is breaking sticks, musicians who mock me for knowing music theory, never try to play outside what they "learned," try to tell me I play too much of a jazz-style in the blues, tell me the bassist does not need to know the color of the chord but rather only the root note, and the guy who came to house and threatened to take all of my bass lines off of the band's record and have them replaced by the rhythm guitarist... this is the guy who would forget chords and try four or more chords before finding the right one and then later tell us, "Professionals never make mistakes on stage."

A pretty big beef too is playing with musicians who learned the absolute basics and then went straight to soloing, ahem guitarists... I cannot stand when guitarists stick to only open chords and power chords when the song clearly calls for sevenths, ninths, fourths, etc.

Oh gosh... and ESPECIALLY musicians who firmly do not believe in using a metronome when recording and also cannot keep time... what the heck, man?!
 
This thread is great... It makes me feel better knowing I'm not the only one to go through all these crazy people, incidents and episodes.

Although as a former drummer, I take offense to some of the drummer comments. ;) /jk

For me the worst was a guitarist. I knew him from another band that practiced in the same warehouse as another band I had been in. Ran into him 10 years later and I invited him to try out this new band we we're putting together.

At this point he was into working out and was huge. he would show up, played his parts great everything was cool but after a couple beers, it appeared the alcohol wasn't mixing well with the steroids and he would get argumentative about the littlest things.

One night we were working on a new song and he kept missing the bridge, after a couple restarts he starts shouting that he listened to the song and that is how it goes, and began arguing with me.

After about 10 mins of arguing back and forth, and trying to get him to listen to the CD, I suggested we just move on to another song. He gave the ol' FU and packed his stuff and left.

We sat there stunned, and noticed he left behind a CD he apparently had the songs on for practice so we played it and found that the song we were working apparently didn't record right when he recorded it and was missing the first half of the bridge before the first chorus. :) So he wasn't totally wrong, just had a bad copy.

The next day we show up for practice and there's a note taped to the door addressed to me. In it he goes off, calling me all kinds of 4 letter words and that I should learn the songs before I tell others that they are playing them wrong, etc etc etc.

The best part is 3 weeks later he calls my cell and informs me he is forming his own band and wants ME to be his drummer. :)
 
One of the guitar players in a former band drove me crazy. At rehearsals he was constantly wanking on his guitar between songs. Would go off on tangents and play things not related to the song. It caused practices to go longer than needed plus made it difficult to communicate on song issues between songs. This coupled with the lead singer who's idea of stage presence was to stand behind a music stand with his hands in his pockets, caused me to leave the band after a very short stint.
 
Worst bandmate ever was a guitar player with a drinking problem. He was great when he was sober, but sometimes when he started drinking he wouldn't stop and would get completely sh!t faced. We had a couple of complaints from club owners, but the last draw was when we got fired from a job three days into a two week engagement. I quit the next day and never looked back. He helped me formulate my rule for bandmates that drink - "Don't turn your drinking problem into my problem."
 
One of the guitar players in a former band drove me crazy. At rehearsals he was constantly wanking on his guitar between songs. Would go off on tangents and play things not related to the song. It caused practices to go longer than needed plus made it difficult to communicate on song issues between songs. This coupled with the lead singer who's idea of stage presence was to stand behind a music stand with his hands in his pockets, caused me to leave the band after a very short stint.
I had a drummer who did this. Not at half volume either. He'd just full on go for it between songs. It was impossible to think, let alone talk!
 
Drummer.

He actually said that the drums were the least important instrument in the band, and it didn't matter what he did.

The most lackluster and lifeless excuse for a drummer I've ever played with, and not only did he not bother to learn his parts, he always played slow...just sucked the life out of everything.
 
now ex-guitarist.

Borrowed my boss loop pedal, then moved to another country without saying a word. Not one word. I was txting him wondering when the next practice would be and saw a message he sent to someone else about him moving overseas.

Tried messaging him and got no reply. Posted something on his wall, it just got deleted. He won't even say a single word to me. Now he's using the same band name in his new country and promoting them with the old band pictures that include me!! And I can't get a one word response out of the prick
 
now ex-guitarist.

Borrowed my boss loop pedal, then moved to another country without saying a word. Not one word. I was txting him wondering when the next practice would be and saw a message he sent to someone else about him moving overseas.

Tried messaging him and got no reply. Posted something on his wall, it just got deleted. He won't even say a single word to me. Now he's using the same band name in his new country and promoting them with the old band pictures that include me!! And I can't get a one word response out of the prick

I had a guitarist do this to me once, and she didn't even bother to move! I let her borrow two pedals, two nice cables, and a Shure microphone. Band breaks up, I ask for it all back, she denies ever having had any of it! :mad:
 
Drummer.

He actually said that the drums were the least important instrument in the band, and it didn't matter what he did.

The most lackluster and lifeless excuse for a drummer I've ever played with, and not only did he not bother to learn his parts, he always played slow...just sucked the life out of everything.

^^^^ Got one of those drummers right now.

Those two guys need to hang up music entirely. Any person who doesn't understand the role of a drummer has no business playing music IMO..at least not with other people.
 
Of course it's a guitar player. This guy was the worst, but he was so good the drummer and I would get back together with him six months or a year after breaking up, thinking maybe it wasn't as bad as we remembered, and it always turned out worse. I could write a book on the all the crap he pulled, but the absolutely classic is THREE different times, after picking him up to go to a gig (he almost never had a car) he announced that he had hocked his guitar, and we need to go by the pawn shop and somebody's got to get it out 'cause he doesn't have any money.