Getting in a band question

TheOtherDennis

Been trying for ages to get into a covers band. I'm happy to play either second guitar (it never did Ronnie Wood any harm, nor anyone in the Foo Fighters) or simple bass (yes I know I'm not a proper bassist, but if it gets me the gig...)

I seem to have landed myself a gig as a second guitarist in an acoustic country rock thing. (I say seem to because we've only had the one get together and everyone seems happy thus far.)

The trouble is the guy who's leading it wants to pick all the songs. That's not an issue, someone has to take charge to avoid chaos.

But the songs he's chosen are really dull. They're big hits, but fuck me, I got bored listening to them once, never mind the severalty times I'd need to in order to learn them. Really stodgy west coast stuff. Not even the exciting west coast stuff.*

So to my question - do I suck it up in order to be 'in' something and then transfer when I've got some half decent gigging experience or say "Nah, not for me" now and keep looking?



*This is entirely just my opinion - everyone is free to disagree with me, I get that, but it is just my opinion and no offence is intended to any fans.

Hoof

My advice would be don't be in a band you don't like unless there's some serious money in it.

What's the point? You won't be doing the band or the songs justice, you'll be wasting their time as you'll be looking to jump ship as soon as a more suitable band comes along and more important than anything, you won't be enjoying yourself. If the band get wind of that you'll probably be fired anyway.

EricTheWeary

Been there, done that got the t shirt ( literally...).

Sometimes songs you don't really like are still rewarding to play. Actually learning songs you really like can ruin them for you so getting to choose isn't always the best. It may be that as the band progresses some songs don't work out well or don't work live and you need to change the set around anyway but you've got to start somewhere.

I'd see how it goes, sounds better than going back to square one. At a future point you can politely leave if it's not working out, you aren't marrying them.

If you want a band that fits your image of how it should look and sound the likely reality is that you've got to do everything in making it work, the rest will be along for the ride. If you don't want to do that then you'll invariably have to make some compromises.

John_P

It depends where you're at in terms of playing experience and then balancing the pros and cons.

It gets you out and should pay, so that helps with networking and improving your playing and just having fun being on stage. I've done plenty of gigs where it really isn't my kind of music but the gig was still fun - either because I like the band members or audience.   It's a lot easier finding bands when you can talk about what you have done rather than just what you want to do.

IF you like them and the pay is ok then I'd do it - but keep your eyes out for other options as well. 

Roland

Somebody famous, but not famous enough for me to remember the name, said "there are three reasons for taking a gig: money, making contacts, having fun. If at least two aren't true then don't do it".

The challenge with boring songs is to make them sound interesting.

benmurray85

Roland said:

The challenge with boring songs is to make them sound interesting.

THIS. If you can master this art you'll never have a boring gig. 

paul_c2

Roland said:

Somebody famous, but not famous enough for me to remember the name, said "there are three reasons for taking a gig: money, making contacts, having fun. If at least two aren't true then don't do it".

The challenge with boring songs is to make them sound interesting.

Adam Neely said it but I'm not sure if he was simply quoting someone else.

mixolyd

Great advice above.

 I think it comes down to how much energy you're willing to invest. If you want to do the bare minimum of learning the chord charts and turning up then it's possibly not going to be much fun.

EricTheWeary

Tommy Tedesco.

paul_c2 said:

Roland said:

Somebody famous, but not famous enough for me to remember the name, said "there are three reasons for taking a gig: money, making contacts, having fun. If at least two aren't true then don't do it".

The challenge with boring songs is to make them sound interesting.

Adam Neely said it but I'm not sure if he was simply quoting someone else.

monquixote

If you haven't been in a band before just do anything. 

The excitement of just being in a band will make up for most things. Once you've got a bit more experience and contacts then you can be more selective. 

The other thing is that though the songs might be bland and obvious never underestimate the extent to which audiences hate anything that isn't very famous and obvious.

You have to decide if you would rather play Mustang Sally to a crowd of dancing people or an obscure song that means a lot to you to a mostly empty room of bored looking people.

EricTheWeary

I'll give you a wisdom for that although I'm genuinely torn on this stuff. The problem with wanting to play obscure stuff to two men and a dog is finding band mate's with a similar outlook. 

monquixote said:

If you haven't been in a band before just do anything. 

The excitement of just being in a band will make up for most things. Once you've got a bit more experience and contacts then you can be more selective. 

The other thing is that though the songs might be bland and obvious never underestimate the extent to which audiences hate anything that isn't very famous and obvious.

You have to decide if you would rather play Mustang Sally to a crowd of dancing people or an obscure song that means a lot to you to a mostly empty room of bored looking people.

monquixote

EricTheWeary said:

I'll give you a wisdom for that although I'm genuinely torn on this stuff. The problem with wanting to play obscure stuff to two men and a dog is finding band mate's with a similar outlook. 

I'm not saying either approach is wrong just that if you don't want to play Sex on fire, Dakota, etc then you will really struggle to get crowds to pay attention.

Grunfeld

TheOtherDennis said:

Been trying for ages to get into a covers band...

The trouble is... the songs... are really dull. They're big hits, but fuck me, I got bored listening to them once, never mind the severalty times I'd need to in order to learn them...
.
So to my question - do I suck it up in order to be 'in' something and then transfer when I've got some half decent gigging experience or say "Nah, not for me" now and keep looking?

You definitely suck it up IMO.
The gigging experience will be worth more than the fact the material is uninspiring.
Because it's not about playing the songs, it's about performing them. 
You can learn to play the songs in your proverbial bedroom but you can only get the feel of performing them on stage.
And the experience you gain will make you much more likely to get into another working band.
Get the experience -- it's invaluable.

TheOtherDennis

Ta for all that, folks. I was leaning towards doing it because it's about getting the experience of getting out there and doing it. My issue with the songs being uninspiring is I honestly think the audience won't be inspired either - there's only so much you can do with Take It To The Limit after all.

And I'm not trying to be snotty about any of this, as I do know it's impossible to join a band that only plays stuff I like. I'm not that daft.

it's just not my bag, really. But I take the point - if I've got the in, then at least do something and then move on. This isn't my first ever band (it's the third, really), but I've not been in anything for two years now, so it's about time I managed to get something going.

So yes, thanks for that, I'll get on and see if there's anything interesting I can do with the songs the guy wants us to play.

Besides, even among that genre, there's still the opportunity to do some stuff that can be reasonably uplifting.

Oh, and thankfully Mustang Bloody Sally is not an issue.

EricTheWeary

monquixote said:

EricTheWeary said:

I'll give you a wisdom for that although I'm genuinely torn on this stuff. The problem with wanting to play obscure stuff to two men and a dog is finding band mate's with a similar outlook. 

I'm not saying either approach is wrong just that if you don't want to play Sex on fire, Dakota, etc then you will really struggle to get crowds to pay attention.

I know, it's a genuine dilemma for me.

The other dilemma, for us anyway, is being a genre band rather than a general covers band ( I've not googled it but surely somewhere there is a band called The General Covers Band) and the OP's new band will have that. There's a country rock audience that will lap up Take it to the Limit and there's a pub audience that will find it very dull; at what point do you go 'f**k it let's do Mustang Sally and get people dancing' or stay true to what the band does. 

TheOtherDennis

That's my issue in a nutshell. Nowt wrong with country rock if it does indeed rock, but this stuff rocks in the same way that a properly cared for and inhabited cradle will.

Ah well, we'll see.

Grunfeld

Brief anecdote: 
The other week I was playing "Jean Genie" -- like I have every f*cking week for the last seven years.   My indifference to this song is well documented.  In fact in Bowie's autobiography he personally apologises to me, Oli, for ever having written it.
But while our singer was out front loving every line of his favourite song, the bass player and I were playing peek-a-boo behind the columns of the venue.  Which entertained both us and the audience.

Performance.  It is fun

PolarityMan

monquixote said:

If you haven't been in a band before just do anything. 

The excitement of just being in a band will make up for most things. Once you've got a bit more experience and contacts then you can be more selective. 

The other thing is that though the songs might be bland and obvious never underestimate the extent to which audiences hate anything that isn't very famous and obvious.

You have to decide if you would rather play Mustang Sally to a crowd of dancing people or an obscure song that means a lot to you to a mostly empty room of bored looking people.

The only way I will ever play mustang sally i if I rearrange it into a 20 minute white noise and feedback based industrial/doom cross over version and performed it completely in the dark except for the lighting provided by a tv set (CRT naturally) tuned to static.

ESBlonde

Songs like take it to the limit are all about the space, dynamics harmonies and general togetherness of the band. Master that and anything 'more exciting' you play in a future band will be the better for it. Bedroom players rarely come ready formed with those skills and regular performing sharpens all of us up.

TheOtherDennis

I can't manage harmonies on that one, my voice dunt go up that high. I'll do backing vocs for the other bits, though, which I didn't realise I could manage before now, so that's a positive for a start.

ESBlonde

@TheOtherDennis ;;I can't get up there either these days, but shadowing the harmony lower down still fills it out and adds a lot to a live situation. Some of the better live bands are 3 and 4 piece but with 3 or 4 part harmonies they sound fuller and more polished than some bands which are much bigger in terms of instrumentation. No matter the size of the band you can arrange and orchestrate to get the best out of the song, not everything is about thousands of notes on a screaming guitar...I know I was shocked too.