Forming a band.

Finally, you are ready to form your own band and start playing shows, but there is a lot you must do before you start playing shows and hopefully making money. Here's the dilemma, do you play with your friend because they are your friends, or go find people who love the same music as you? It might seem like an idiotic question, but you'll be lucky to have close friends who are musicians with the same musical outlook as you with the same goals and motivation as you to play for living. If you have friends who have all that in common with you, then start your band with them and find others to fill out the band to your liking.

Let me take you through my first band experience and what I have learned from it. It was high school and my first band was surprisingly enough was a band consisting of 3 friends and myself. The lead singer/songwriter/rhythm guitarist was my friend Mike who starting taking lessons with me during junior high. The drummer was my oldest friend Ryan. The bass guitarist was my friend Brian who joined us because we needed a bass guitarist and he said yes. I played lead guitar. At first I did not contribute to the writing or arranging, all I did was come up with a lead riff and take the guitar solo. Ryan played whatever he wanted on the drums and Brian basically followed Mike with the bassline. The major thing that would be the root of all of our problems as a band was the fact that we all had different influences musically. Mike was in love with the Goo Goo Doll, Ryan loved grunge, Brian liked punk, and I pretended like I was Eric Clapton. That being so, we were still fairly successful. We played some big name places, such as the North Star Bar and the Trocadero in Philly and the Crocodile Rock in Allentown, PA. We all had some talent, but Brian lacked the drive to go for it all. Later down the road Ryan would reveal to me that he didn't like any of the music Mike wrote, but he played it anyway. We had our ups and downs. I find it sad that I really only remember the bad times than the good times we had as a band, but after 3 years of constant struggling and little direction I called the band to an end because I felt as if I was doing all the outside work without any help.

What I learned is that you have to find people that have the same goals, influences and motivation as you.  If you want to just play in a bar band with your friends for fun, than that's fine because playing music is supposed to be fun. However, if music is not a hobby, but your LIFE, than make sure you find the right people to play with and don't be afraid to leave a band of your friends if you think it is not working as it should. I did that and I am still friends with everyone in the band. Not only that, I still play lead guitar in Mike's new band sometimes and Ryan and I are working on forming our own band. In addition to those bands, I've started playing with several other people in search of direction for my own band.

Figure out what you are in it for, then find people who will be in for it with you.