Joining a professional band help please!

[sprocketflup]

Reading this, I think I may be in a 'professional' band. Hadn't really thought about it before.

And just for the record, I have a day job, but I'm self employed so can (almost) pick and choose when I work. We also schlepp miles around the country but its 90% done at weekends.

And a 2hour drive? But a mere hop

I think, even though I agree with all the sensible replies on here, if you don't give this a go, you will always be thinking 'what if....' Life is for living, and sometimes you have to give it a chance.

All the very best with whatever you choose

[blue]

[quote name='sprocketflup' timestamp='1480460642' post='3184671']
Reading this, I think I may be in a 'professional' band. Hadn't really thought about it before.[/quote]

The band has been together for 12 years and we gig a lot, make decent money, however we are not a professional band IMO.

Blue

[lowregisterhead]

Lots of great advice, but one thing that hasn't been mentioned is what kind of characters the rest of the band are. The music can be great, the management can have all their ducks in a row, but if you don't get on with even one member of the band, living in each others pockets for long periods can be hell on earth. If you are already aware there are people in or directly involved with the band who exhibit 'the creative temperament' be prepared to factor that in. That said, if it all looks fairly decent in the main, do it. If you don't, you may regret it for the rest of your life.

[jazzyvee]

Yes well put, the band temperament and dynamics and personality clashes are another consideration. From my own experience, In the early part of the 2000's I did about 4 years of touring with a well known UK artiste using a local band as his backing band and I was called in to play guitar.

At the start it was fine but as time went on things soon started to go astray when the artiste started asking the band for creative input to his music like different styles, different endings solos and stuff like that. Now my taste in music was much more open and varied than the other members of the band and so I had many idea's that could work but the rest of the band resisted virtually everytime and a number of times the artiste overruled them and went with my ideas and as it happened those were the ones that audiences really responded to more positively than their ideas.

Anyway the end result was that there developed a barrier between me and mostly two members of the band to the point where things started to happen like removal of my stage monitors from the stage plans that went to venues, sabotaging of my gear and giving me wrong times for load in and leaving times for hotels & travelling when we were touring abroad, complaining to the manager to get me sacked. They even had band only rehearsals with another guitarist behind my back etc. But thankfully the manager and the artiste, liked me, saw through it and refused their requests. It did take the shine off but im not easily ruffled and wasn't gonna let that spoil my fun.

Eventually the artiste realised he really didn't like touring and now does PA's for his live work.
The point I'm making in a round about way is that when you are a hired hand doing a job, sometimes you will not get on with the whole team you are working with but you have to find a way to do the job you are hired to do regardless of that and try not to be drawn into an heated arguments.

Edited November 30, 2016 by jazzyvee

[JTUK]

[quote name='blue' timestamp='1480454874' post='3184612']
Depends on the pay, we have one gig that's a 2 hour drive, but we charge 1.5k

Playing to 12 or 1,200 people makes little different to me. It use to.

I think I've played to a 1200 people once in my life.

Blue
[/quote]

I like the $1.5k bit but not to 12 people... I can't imagine the two scenarios ever cross paths, tbh.

The gig would have been long long ago cancelled if tickets were that slow/poor