Doing the band leader thing?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark Faulton
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Mark Faulton

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Hello everyone, first time poster here. I just stumbled across the site today and I gotta say this looks like a VERY cool place. I skipped around the different forums and it looks like there are a lot of experienced knowledgable cats hanging out here. Glad I found this place.



There's something that has been eating away at me for a while and I was hoping I could get some feedback here, so here it goes...hopefully there's nothing wrong with me posting this topic here.

I'm a bassist and over the past year I've been working on writting material for a Funk/Soul/Rock project. I'm at the point where I have enough songs written to put a band together and record the first album.
Now the problems arise....

I'm not even remotely sure how to go about doing that. Hopefully I don't sound like a total jerk here but I really want complete control of writting the songs. I know exactly what I want to hear and what I want to do musically. I've been in bands in the past where everyone had equal input, and I've had a blast in the process, but this is different, this is my baby here.

Is it a matter of having to compromise my vision to some extent, to give some ammount of creative license to get people interested in doing this? Or do I just keep trying to hunt musicians down that really dig the music I'm making and are willing to play it as it's written? I just can't imagine getting a group of musicians together to record and locally tour all of my music with no creative input of their own, for little to no pay. I wouldn't even know how to propose that to musicians I'd like to work with without sounding like a complete jerk.

I know that a new group just starting out that plays completely original material can expect to make hardly any money at all at first. And the music I've written would need atleast an 8 piece band to pull it off. If it's a matter of me having to pay all those people for recording sessions and performances all out of my own pocket than I worry that this will just never be able to work. That really scares the heck out of me considering all of the time and heart I've put into making the music.


I'm really just curious to hear some examples/opinions on how I could try to make this work. Anyone have any thoughts?


Thanks for reading, sorry for it being so long winded.
 
wecome aboard, mark...

i too am a bass player, though in order to record my own stuff, have branched out into guitar and drums.

i love to record, and if someone (who i like), asks me to record there stuff, exactly as written, for no money, i would probably do it just because i love recording and going into a studio is fun. you get to check out the studio and talk to the engineer. i've done this a few times over the past few years for a couple of different friend who are singer/songwriter types. and, you get credit on the album. cool.

if that same person (who i like), asked me to play the music out, for no money, exactly the way its written, i would probably say no, because for me playing out is only fun if you get to improvise and be creative. that's the payoff for me (when moneys not involved).

good luck with you project
 
Getting a recording band together will be a lot easier than trying to get a touring band together. For touring you will need to pay unless your music is so damn cool they feel honored just to play it.
 
I hear where you guys are saying, thanks for the welcome and the input.

I feel pretty much the same way when the shoe is on the other foot. I've laid down bass tracks for a few people in the past for no charge. Basically because they were pretty close friends or I just respected what they were doing. But if someone approached me asking if I'd be interested in performing their material live and possibly touring, I'd definitely need some green in my pocket for it if I had no say in what was being played, basically being a side man/hired gun.

Perhaps I need to focus on just trying to get people to record the album for now. I can handle the bass, guitar, vocals and keys on my own, my main concerns are drums and brass. Alot of the songs have horn arrangements written for tenor, trumpet and trombone. That's an area I sure as heck can't touch. Paying session players to knock that stuff out in the studio in one night wouldn't be a major problem. But if I had to pay them out of pocket for multiple gigs I'd end up homeless real quick. ;)

Looking beyond the album...

I don't feel the music would have any appeal to major labels and the mainstream. I honestly don't hear any hits on the record that would fit into the current rotations these days. So I don't think that just pressing the album and shopping it to major labels is the way to go for me. That's too bad though, I figure if I were more marketable and I was lucky enough to get major label attention maybe they would supply the musicans to form the band, if they were really interested? I really don't know how that sort of thing works though, I'm open to hear any comments on that as well.

So the way it's looking from my eyes is that I would definitely need to form the band, gig and tour. It's not mainstream material at all so I'd have to work and hope to find a strong cult following and be happy with that, which I certainly would be. I can't just rely on an album, no band and a major label dream. I just don't know how I'm gonna do this...pretty frustrating stuff.
 
One thing to look into is art/wine/music festival circuit. There are companies that book them in different regions. You may have to pay to rent a space but you guys can play and sell CD's. I worked with a new age keyboard player and we would bring in anywhere from $800-$6000 per weekend on CD sales.

Art festivals are a good market for non mainstream music.
 
Hmmm...

When I hear a statement like "I don't know how I'm going to do this..." I get a little worried. I know that when I don't know what to do...I just don't ever end up doing it.

Sounds like your vision is big and strong, but you don't have any idea how to take the first few steps. Like climbing a mountain- at the bottom its really easy to look up at the top and say "I wanna go there!". Then it gets more difficult when you think "OK, where do I start? Which way to do I go? What do I need to take with me?"

Don't feel bad about that at all! Most folks live their lives that way- wanting things they have no idea how to achieve. Nothing new or unusual about that. The trick is to KEEP THAT VISION INTACT while you go about the long and laborious process of figuring out how to make it (or let it) happen.

The vision may change as you learn more about how to make it real. That's cool too because its YOUR choice to interact with it and let it live the way it wants to live. Am I making sense? As you bump into the realities of making a vision real your perception of the vision will SHARPEN- its pretty damned important to let it get sharper and clearer instead of clinging to your original (somewhat inexperienced) perception of what your vision was.

I hope that makes a little sense. :) More specifically- get that band together and play those songs anyway that you need to in order to PLAY them. See how the audience responds. Listen to the other musicians and allow the songs to shift as needed in order to PLAY them. Remember your vision. Retain creative ownership and control of the songs- but let them live and breath. Don't let them die in your womb, eh? Don't let your desire to control every step of your vision keep you from taking those first steps needed for the vision to actually happen.

Starting at the bottom of the mountain sucks! There's sticker bushes and poison ivy and bugs and lots of people in your way- and it doesn't feel at all like you'd imagine standing on that peak looking out at the world. But you have to go through that to get there so don't let it get you down. One step at a time.

Besides, YOU don't control how you climb a mountain- the mountain does.

Take care,
Chris
 
I know how you feel about creative control. The stuff I write is mine and for this material there is no compromise. I am a total control freak.

This is also why everything is done by myself. You have to come to some compromises when dealing with other musicians (unless you are their musical guru or you are willing to shell out major cash), because that other musician is not going to play the part exactly how you envisioned regardless of who they are.

That being said, you may want to consider keeping your material temporarily at bay until you can establish a collaboration with at least another musician. If you can get in the groove with someone and co-write some new material, then you will be in a position to say "hey, I'll make you a deal. You help me record this song exactly how I want it to be, and I'll help you with one of your songs". This could work equally well when performing the songs too.

That has always been my approach: to keep fully developed material separate from new collaborations. It's not for everyone, but it is a positive step for those of us who do not deal much with other musicians but seek ultimate musical control.

Cy
 
It will be very hard to find quality musicians who would be willing to perform all your music only as you see fit.

Good musicians like to have some creative input. You may find people who would be willing to record some parts, but to actually go out and perform (including all the rehearsal time) - unless you pay well, or there is a chance for label support, or maybe if your material is just so good that musicians want to play it your way - you will have a hard time putting a band together.

I've never understood the whole I'll play all the parts mentality. I understand that we all have to do this on occasion when we can't find a bass player or whatever - but why do you think top producers and artists hire the best studio/touring musicians they can get? Because, they know that those musicians will add to the music.

Everytime I work with a "I do all the parts myself" guy, after the first couple of songs it all starts to sound "the same".

I play drums, keyboards and guitar and I've worked really hard to develop chops, but I only have so many chops - and if I don't use other players, the material is limited by my limitations.

So I suggest welcome whatever input you can get - it may improve your songs.
 
Thanks again for this input guys, I truly appreciate all of it.

Mikeh, I understand what you are saying. I'm certainly not so blinded by by my own ego that I actually think I can stand on the same ground as a dedicated guitarist or key player, not by a long shot. The bass is my instrument and it's the only instrument I feel completely proficent at, to the degree that I've developed my own voice on it.

Basically, the material written for the other instruments that I said would be played by myself just really isn't all that technically demanding. It's all very doable within my limited abilities. I still think you've made a good point by bringing that up though. Allowing other musicians voices to shine through within the music could indeed bring results greater than originally expected.

I should say that not every single note and articulation of what I've written is expected to be reproduced exactly. There are parts of songs that I do want to be played note for note and there are parts where I'd be more than willing to welcome embellishments, so long as they are not changing the overall harmony or form too much. But even if that ended up being the case it might turn out to be not so bad of a thing, guess it's just a matter of rolling the dice.

Great stuff everyone, you're all giving me alot of things to think about, thanks a ton.
 
Hi
I had a very enjoyable experience being in a band where I had little to no creative control. I was in one band where I wrote about 1/3 of the songs, made up my guitar parts, etc., etc. already, but there was a friend of mine who I knew was a very talented songwriter. I told him that if he started a band I would play bass or guitar for him, just to encourage him to get something started. He ended up finding a guitarist and drummer, so I played bass, basically just playing what he told me to. It was lots of fun, I think for two reasons: 1. I had another band that was my creative outlet and 2. Related to this, I think that I have discovered that what I enjoy is the performance (live) rather than the songwriting so much, so I liked this band because I got the fun of performance without the struggle. As previously mentioned, I had another band that was my creative outlet , but was frustrating in that it's hard to be creative sometimes. It was fun to just be in a band and relax and just be able to play, not have to write. So I would look around for people like me, who just enjoy playing and performing, rather than writing.
 
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