Worst Band Mates Ever!

[PaulWarning]

16 hours ago, gjones said:

Mad drummer who was convinced I was too loud. Every gig he would moan about how I was too loud, until one day I turned my volume down completely to zero (as an experiment) and he still complained I was overpowering everything.

At that stage I realised he was mad as a f**king hatter and decided he had to go. Luckily he got sacked at our next gig for stopping in the middle of a song because (you guessed it) I was too loud????

He' was a good drummer but obviously delusional. 

He joined another band and persuaded them to get rid of the bass player. Eventually, the penny dropped, and they got rid of him.

our drummer sometimes says I'm too loud, how he can tell what it sounds like FOH from behind his kit lord alone knows, anyway I just say,  "I've got to be when we've got an animal on drums", he's always complaining his cymbals have cracks in them, "err, have you tried not hitting them as hard?", to be fair most of the time he's no trouble at all, he just turns into a demented demon when you put him behind a drum kit.

[mattbass6]

The original keyboard player (Gareth Jones) in my band The Reasoning. He was shagging my wife, who was the singer, for 8 years and then ran off with her. An utter cnut! He thought he was God's gift as well. Average at best, seriously and that's not bitterness talking. He was just an average pub player / singer. The ego and arrogance was flabbergasting. Looks like the wife fell for it. Ever since I have an inherent hatred and distrust for keyboard players. True story 😲 😉

Edited February 13, 2019 by mattbass6

[Huge Hands]

A tale of two polar opposite drummers for me. 

The first, I met and then played with for about 11 years through various bands and lineups.  I classed him as a brother, and my best mate, but he was massively unreliable.  He was a hopeless driver/navigator and always underestimated how long it would take him to get to a gig, so would turn up after soundcheck (and sometimes after the start time of the gig) and we'd have to move everything around to get him in.  He was left handed, so could never just sit on/borrow other drummer's kits without causing a load of hassle that takes time, especially if he's late.  Initially, we started telling him to get there half an hour before everyone else, then we gave that up and I would pick him up/drop him off with his drums just to ensure he got there, even though it was well out of my way.  When our latest lineup started to gain traction and was getting offered lots of gigs, he would be too scared to ask his wife for the night away from looking after the kids, so would mess us around for weeks until it was too late.  The music had a lot of start/stops, and he would forget them from rehearsal to rehearsal. The guitarist, who wanted rid, talked the band into realising he was letting the side down and that if we wanted to move on we should let him go.  After the guitarist let him go with a two line text, I was left to deal with his emotional wrath.  After a drunken text in the middle of the night telling me the band with the new drummer was rubbish, I sleepily let him know what I thought of him around why he only had himself to blame.  I should have held my thoughts til the next day as he has refused to speak to me ever since.  I do regret this as he was a really good friend (and could groove like a bad man when he wanted to).

His replacement was much more in tune with the type of music and ultra reliable (was always first there by hours, not minutes) but I just couldn't get on with him.  He had a weird jabbering kind of way of speaking, as though silence was something to be feared but then often joined in conversations and killed them stone dead with his odd replies.  He also had a way of totally switching off and ignoring you if you tried to suggest something he didn't like, and then siding with the guitarist on any band discussion to keep the balance of power or whatever.. I always felt he didn't think bass was relevant to the music, and they could have done really well without it. 

In the end, I had to leave due to ill health, The guitarist is the only one left from the original 11-year group and I miss playing with him, even though he can be ruthless with long term colleagues when he want to be!.

P.S.  The second drummer once recommended a keyboard player who was equally as odd.  He seemed incapable of playing chords, and then if given a solo just seemed to wiggle his fingers as fast as he could regardless of what keys he pressed, which meant all solos were at the same speed, regardless of the song.. He also got massively nasty when fired after only 2 rehearsals and one gig.  He had a decent keyboard though, and apparently played with loads of bands in the area....

[Monkey Steve]

Contestant #2.  have to say, this one's probably the winner, being somebody that I not only wouldn't be in a band with again, but don't want to hang out with either.

A drummer mate of mine was playing in a rock covers band, and doing OK with it - plenty of pub level gigs, and while not earning a living from it, all his expenses were paid for and he had a few quid to take home with him whenever they played.  His background was in heavier music (he's the drummer that asked me to join the thrash band in the story above) and he'd been chatting to this band's lead guitarist, who also liked the heavier stuff.  Me and the drummer had been kicking our heels a little after the guitarist left an originals band that we were in, and he came up with the idea that we could start a new covers band to run parallel to the rock one, doing heavier stuff with this lead guitarist.

I knew the guitarist a little at this point, having been to a few of their shows.  A bit on the quiet side, but quite funny and seemed like a good bloke, and while not a stunning guitarist, a decent enough player for the pub covers band level (and a mastery of picking songs with long, bluesy solos that made him look good).  He was keen to bring the other band's rhythm guitarist with him, which was fine by me (I knew him much better, a great bloke, if not the greatest guitarist, but a good guy to have in your band and seemed able to cope with most of the rhythm playing).

It all went well for the first few months, and picked up after we found a singer with a fantastic voice.  But after a while me and the drummer noticed that the set list was getting a bit skewed.  The idea was to play songs that a metal fan from the '80's or '90's would recognise, but wouldn't often get to hear in pubs - the No Paranoid Rule.  Me and the drummer drew up a list of metal club floor fillers that we remembered from our teenage years and early twenties.  The guitarist only really liked Maiden, the Cult and Guns n Roses.  Whenever anybody suggested a song by anybody else, he would argue that the completely fictitious crowd wouldn't know it, so why don't we do another Maiden/Cult/GnR song instead? 

I once had to tell him that I fundamentally disagreed with his argument that the (non existent) crowd would not recognise Bomber or Overkill or anything else by Motorhead and that we should learn Rime Of The Ancient Mariner instead because everybody loves that one and the punters will all know it.  My argument being that we already had five Maiden songs in our repertoire which was at least three too many for any gig and I wouldn't be learning any more until we actually had some more variety.  If he wanted to play in a Maiden tribute band that was fine, but it wasn't this band as I wasn't interested.  His answer was to suggest that we did a fourth Cult song, and when that got knocked back, he bullied the rhythm guitarist, who's turn it was to suggest the next song that we would be working on (which never really got followed when it wasn't the lead guitarist's turn), into agreeing that we should have a third GnR song.

It was becoming a problem and stopping us playing because we couldn't get a set list together to be able to start playing live.  Whenever the band picked a song that he didn't like, he just didn't bother learning it, so was never ready to run through it at practice, and why don't we play this other song that he does know instead?  There were several songs that only made it into the set because after months of waiting for him to learn them we told him that regardless of whether he'd done his homework, we were playing them in the studio and he could either join in or go home and come back when he had learned them. 

He then found all sorts of difficulties in the arrangements and some of the trickier lead parts for those songs that meant we had to keep working on them, and maybe it was dragging on for so long that it wasn't worth it, eh?  In fact all this did was highlight some of his other playing limitations, mainly his appalling sense of timing.  For instance, he could not play the lead licks at the start of Back In Black, because he could not pick up the timing of when to play.  If you're going to deliberately play some songs badly, the risk is that people will think that the fault is you, not the song.

As ever, when there are problems with the music, it highlights all of the other petty stuff that you can put up with when things are going well.  He was no stranger to the hissy fit when things weren't going his way, and was a master of blaming others for his mistakes - if a gig didn't go well then it was usually my fault for being too loud so that he couldn't hear himself...despite him being able to hear himself just fine at the soundcheck.  Or somebody not playing the cue he was expecting, and how can he be expected to play something right if we're putting him off. 

But the main problem was his perpetual lateness. He was never on time for anything - gigs, rehearsals, a night in the pub.  Which, again, was never his fault - he always left for gigs in plenty of time but his satnav apparently always sent him the wrong way, or there were roadworks, or the turn off wasn't properly signposted.  It was more of a feature with the other band as they played a lot more gigs than us, but he was showing the same issues about song choices, etc with them, and it was wearing a bit thin with everybody.

He insisted from early on that he couldn't guarantee when he could get to the weekly rehearsal because he never knew where he'd be working or when he would finish.  Practice was in Surrey and the studio booking ran from 6.00 to 10.00 but all of us came straight from work (three of us in London) so we'd generally roll in by 6.45, ready to set up and kick off at 7.00.  the guitarist was rarely there by 8.00, and frequently didn't arrive until 9.00.  And a few times he'd ring to say that he wouldn't get there until gone 9.00 and we'd pack up and go home, not having played anything of note.  Until we started a new rule that if somebody cancelled on the day they'd have to pay the full cost of the studio...then he managed to show up, albeit often only for an hour's actual rehearsing  It later emerged that his version of coming "straight from work" was to drive home, pick up his girlfriend to do the weekly food shop, put his gear in the car while she cooked him his tea, and once he'd sat down and eaten his meal, then set off for practice.  He thought it was unreasonable to expect him not to have his tea before setting off...while the rest of us survived on crisps that we got at the studio, or maybe a sarnie that we'd picked up from a corner shop on the way there.  This particularly grated with the drummer who had got married and moved to the Kent coast, so was giving up a night at home with his lovely new wife to pay to sit in a practice studio not playing the drums for more than an hour most weeks, and then kip on my sofa.

There are many, many similar stories across both his bands - one that springs to mind was him dropping out of a long standing Christmas booking with a regular venue that the other band had because he'd now bought tickets for him and his girlfriend to go to the panto that night and it was unreasonable of the band to expect him to miss out on that when he'd already spent his money (they did it with a dep, and it was the start of the end for him with them)

So, always late, always blaming others for his mistakes, unwilling to understand the concept of compromising or doing what the band agreed on, and not as good a musician as he thought he was...

Basically the good bloke we thought we'd got in the band turned out to be a bit of a c#nt.  Which seems to be a feature of most lead guitarists, but the best one's I've played with embrace it and limit it to their guitar playing rather than being a c#nt at all times

It all came to a head when we recorded a demo, so that we could send it to pubs and finally get out and start gigging properly rather than picking up the odd show from venues we knew.  We spent a day at a studio doing three tracks, and paid extra for the engineer to do the mixing after we'd finished.  A few exchanges of e-mails and we get a mix the rest of the band are happy with - after all, it's only purpose is to send to pubs to get gigs so it's not worth spending any more time on it.

The guitarist had paid the studio for a memory stick with the data on it so that he could plug it into the Pro Tools he had at home, purely to mess about with it himself (so he said) and see how what he does compares to a professional.  It then emerges that both he and the rhythm guitarist have been re-recording some of their parts (possibly justified for the rhythm guitarist) and there is radio silence from the lead guitarist for a couple of weeks, broken when he sends round his own mix, what did we all think?

The drummer, who now wants to strangle him, sends a much politer response than his true feelings on the matter, that while it's nice that the guitarist has bothered, he's happy with the studio mix so why don't we just send that out on the demo?  The singer has been on to me saying FFS!!! let's just send the demo out, how much longer do we have to wait?

The guitarist replies to the drummer - he hasn't finished with his mix of the other two tracks and we should wait for him to do that before we press up any demos.

I check with the drummer - he's happy for me to go ballistic.  I warn the singer that the band might well be looking for a new member before too long...

I send a fairly polite, but direct response, last thing on Friday night from my work e-mail, saying that we've paid somebody to mix the demo and that the rest of the band are happy with it, nobody agreed that the guitarist was going to mix it, we could have been sending the demo out a couple of weeks before now, we're not going to wait God knows how much longer for him to have another crack at it, we need to start looking for gigs.

The guitarist replies when he gets in from work on the Friday night, but I don't see it until Monday morning.  However, before i get to work on the Monday the rhythm guitarist has sent me a text saying that it was nice while it lasted, and the singer is texting that surely we can make it up...

I get in to find an e-mail of abuse - how rude we're being to him (despite his effing and jeffing at me in his response - it wouldn't get through my company's swear filter if he'd sent it to my current work address, but no, it's me being rude to him), he's put all of this effort in and we don't appreciate him, we agreed that he would take the Pro Tools tracks (er, no we didn't) and we should have the decency to let him finish, and what about the artwork he did that we didn't like (he's right, we didn't, it was awful, the sort of thing that would actively stop pubs give us gigs) why should he bother making all this effort when we're all horrible to him.  Like we're lucky to have him in our band and should be bowing down to his genius, not complaining that he's taking too long to sprinkle his magic dust on our pitiful offerings, and if he decides that he's going to do something without checking with us first then we should be pleased, not unhappy.

I was in two other bands at that time - one with the drummer that was pure fun doing punk covers, and one playing originals with significantly better guitarists than this one.  So I wasn't going to miss it at all.  rather than take apart his e-mail and answer him point by point, or and tell him exactly what I thought of him, I took the high road and sent a very simple reply saying that I'd had enough, I wasn't putting up with him any more as it hadn't been any fun for quite a while and he could look for another bass player (knowing that as a minimum he'd also need to find a new drummer, and probably a singer too).  So officially I quit.  I was secretly hoping that he's send a reply so that I could tell him exactly what I thought of him, but as it turns out, there was no need.

The drummer then e-mails me to explain that the other band had played a gig on the Saturday which ended with the drummer screaming "I am never playing in the same stage as that c#nt ever again!!" so technically the guitarist had been sacked from both his bands before I quit.  Hence the rhythm guitarist's text.

I saw the guitarist a few weeks later - in the first of several ironies to follow, we were going to a Cult gig, and I'd bought tickets for him and his girlfriend some months before.  To nobody's surprise they were late, meaning that I missed the Mission who were support.  they then didn't have the money to pay me for the tickets.  It was cordial if distinctly cool, I suspect mostly because his girlfriend was there, and having popped into the pub to pick up the tickets he manufactured a reason for them to then disappear rather than going straight into the gig with the rest of us.  I haven't seen him since, and that was, what, five or six years ago now, maybe more.

The next irony was that the rest of the band excluding me and him formed an Iron Maiden tribute band!  He wasn't invited, and actually the rhythm guitarist knew that he wouldn't be up to it and dropped out quite early on.  If only he'd played nicer he could have been in his ideal covers band.  

And lastly, I listed to the demo for the first time in years a few months ago.  You know what, it's really good, that's the shame of it all.  Except for the one Maiden song on it, which is terrible because he let the (not very good) rhythm guitarist play one of the solos.  great bloke, below average guitarist.  Maybe the audience wouldn't have been so keen on our Maiden songs after all.  He spent a lot of time complaining about how bad the rhythm guitarist was (and on a demo for the other band that he was allowed to mix, he took him completely out and re-recorded the rhythm parts without telling him), so we could never work out why he was so keen to have him in bands...we suspect it's a bit like a young girl I used to work with who made a point of only ever having fat friends: she was very slim and pretty,and wanted to make sure that she was always the prettiest one in the group.  So it seems to the rest of us that he prefers playing with a below par rhythm guitarist, who always makes him look good, and is slightly in awe of his bog standard playing skills.

He did start a new band, and as expected took the rhythm guitarist with him, and they were almost a carbon copy of what we were doing.  the band is still going, but without him.  he quit to spend more time with his family, telling them that he was done and wouldn't be playing the two gigs they had in the diary for the following month.  Basically still a c#nt

 

 

[paul_5]

People eh?!? "Humanity is just a virus with shoes"

[uk_lefty]

I've never had the truly appalling, I guess mine are a but tame. But I don't lend money out and I get my opinion on lateness etc across really quick, plus I'm keen to walk if things aren't going well or if band practice is really just sinking twelve cans of cider and making noise in a room with me as the taxi driver....

When I went to uni I found a guitarist on a website and he drove well over an hour for rehearsal. I thought that was a bit weird but ok .. he knew a girl who had never sang in a band but had a great voice. That should have been the alarm bell... Lovely girl but wouldn't sing in to the mic with other people around, barely remember he properly attempting a song. Since then I've never wanted a singer who hasn't done it before, it's ok singing along to CDs but when faced with a live band and a mic it's a whole different game remembering queues etc... Anyhow. We got a drummer. He turned up once. He never answered his phone, or texts or emails. His flat was near mine but the guy just plain disappeared and never had the decency to say "sorry I don't think I can commit". After a while and a few very unproductive rehearsals I decided to knock it on the head. The guitarist who seemed an ok bloke was convinced his band from his uni days were the nuts. I listened to their cd and they weren't even an ok pub band. When he got my message saying I don't think it's working and also I have just started uni, I've got my course ramping up etc. He sent me an email saying "thanks for nothing, I've driven all this way, spent all this on fuel, all this time learning songs, I've put so much in to this and you are just messing me about..." Weird. I didn't force him to drive 90mins each way, I even said early on "that's quite a long way, are you sure you want to do that?" Also he knew the problems I was having getting in touch with the drummer, he could see with his own eyes that his "singer" was too shy to sing and was, well, not a singer.... I remember being quite taken aback by how badly he took it.... All after meeting for one pint, three or four rehearsals that didn't do much, and lots of email chatter about song choices and originals... It's not like we had a European tour booked or anything. We didn't even have one song!

It seems a lot of muso's are far too sensitive, and while a lot are committed to what they do some go to extremes and expect everyone else to follow. Also, a lot just think they're way better than they really are. I like to think I know my level and I'm at it, my wife keeps on at me about my band charging too little for some of the bigger gigs but I keep telling her we aren't worth much more! 

Edited February 13, 2019 by uk_lefty

[kevvo66]

One my previous bands the gaytarist was a  prick but least he was funny   ,oh no  ive got a bigger one ,the other one was a stoner with long hair who thought he was gonna conquer the world with his self penned protest songs which were stinky poo ,mate your fifty I said it hasn't happened and it not going to if it was you'd done yours ago ,I'm straight to the point and won't nurse your delusion of grandeur ,yes vicious I know but sometimes you have to tell people the truth,ps if there is any hippies /new age tramplers reading this I'd apologize but I won't bother it ain't the 60s man and it's not groovy c u next Tuesday 

[uk_lefty]

I think some on this site know him... I did one rehearsal with a drummer named Dave. He was ok as a drummer. Spent ages faffing about with kit and telling the studio staff how shoddy their kit was etc. to kind of make a weird point. Anyhow we get playing. He's ok, nothing special. Then we have a break and he's telling us about bands he's been kicked out of because of differences of opinion "but you just need to talk about it and see what you can agree on" he says, seems fine but small alarm bell ringing as he just doesn't shut up, doesn't let anyone else speak. He goes on about how "crazy horses" by the Osmond's goes down well. We are sure it does, we say, but it's not aligned to what we are trying to do which is New Wave and early 90's melodic indie stuff. He keeps going on and on. We play some more but now he's talking so much between songs it takes too long. He then tells us for gigs he wants his kit at the front of the stage. He tells us he has a headset microphone for backing vocals. As we all have packed up and we are ready to go he leaps from the kitty, slams the door shut, turns out the lights then starts playing with glow in the dark drum sticks. I'm driving the other band mates home and we say we will give him a try, drummers are hard to find and he's ok. Then we get an email of twenty odd songs we should play, it reads like the playlist of a karaoke night in a seaside town. It's dreadful. I can't remember it in detail except "crazy horses" and the nail in the coffin, "let me entertain you" Robbie Williams. He also seemed very creepy, but had a loneliness about him that made you feel sad. If only he had some self awareness he may have been able to reign it in.

We never contact him again. 

A few years on and with a different band I'm getting ready for rehearsal. The guy working in the studio is a drummer and he's flustered. Dave is one of the rooms complaining about every nut and bolt in the drum kit. Their kits aren't great but you can handle them. There's a bassist and guitarist in there bored, half heartedly jamming away (bassist sounded really good) while they wait for this rocket to sort himself out. He saw me in the foyer and made eye contact. I don't know if he recognised me or whatever but I made double sure the lock on my front door was secure that night.

[Guest oZZma]

4 minutes ago, uk_lefty said:

I think some on this site know him...

 

small alarm bell ringing as he just doesn't shut up, doesn't let anyone else speak.

 

We play some more but now he's talking so much between songs it takes too long.

 

He then tells us for gigs he wants his kit at the front of the stage. 

I do know him!! He's my ex-drummer 

[ubit]

20 hours ago, gjones said:

Mad drummer who was convinced I was too loud. Every gig he would moan about how I was too loud, until one day I turned my volume down completely to zero (as an experiment) and he still complained I was overpowering everything.

At that stage I realised he was mad as a f**king hatter and decided he had to go. Luckily he got sacked at our next gig for stopping in the middle of a song because (you guessed it) I was too loud????

He' was a good drummer but obviously delusional. 

He joined another band and persuaded them to get rid of the bass player. Eventually, the penny dropped, and they got rid of him.

My guitarist mate actually said to me that the bass should be felt rather than heard!

[AndyTravis]

Just now, ubit said:

My guitarist mate actually said to me that the bass should be felt rather than heard!

“Should just be in the background” I didn’t stay in that band long.

[Japhet]

Sax player. Jazz snob, abrasive, arrogant Scottish knob. Played in a band with him for 6 years and I don't think he ever bought a round (not that I'm stereotyping him).

[ubit]

1 minute ago, Japhet said:

Sax player. Jazz snob, abrasive, arrogant Scottish knob. Played in a band with him for 6 years and I don't think he ever bought a round (not that I'm stereotyping him).

What has him being Scottish got to do with it? Harumphh! 

[uk_lefty]

24 minutes ago, oZZma said:

I do know him!! He's my ex-drummer 

Ha! How many times did you play "crazy horses"???! 

[Guest oZZma]

8 minutes ago, uk_lefty said:

Ha! How many times did you play "crazy horses"???! 

Just joking, but they have a lot of things in common.

Edited February 13, 2019 by oZZma

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, uk_lefty said:

He goes on about how "crazy horses" by the Osmond's goes down well. We are sure it does, we say, but it's not aligned to what we are trying to do which is New Wave and early 90's melodic indie stuff.

He sounds like a lot of work. But it has to be said, Crazy horses goes down well!

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Kind of disappointed not to see myself listed 🤣

I did once get ejected for being 'too widdly and improvisational' - they wanted someone to play root notes so I was replaced by the rhythm, guitarist. That was the best compliment I ever got! I suppose it's true I was trying to be in Hawkwind ... but it was pretty civilised, I even got a songwriting credit on the demo they recorded after I went.

My first band was pub/clubs and standard covers, with no lead guitar(!) Our best musician was the drummer, he'd been a prizewinning jazz drummer (as in snare only) as a teenager. At the end of  C'mon Everybody me and him would just and go round a 12-bar  increasing the tempo with every bar to see who would screw up first.

But no 'gits' although a few egos. Probably we were never good enough to have too high an opinion of ourselves.

 

[tauzero]

I feel I've dodged a large number of bullets. One club band singer that I didn't get on with, one guitarist (very capable) who never helped with all the other gear, one singer who randomly rearranged songs (we used to accommodate him, but there were many daggers stared at him one night when he introduced us as "my band") - they're the ones that spring to mind and considering I've played with about 100 bandmates by now, it seems I've done quite well.

[BassTractor]

4 hours ago, tauzero said:

I feel I've dodged a large number of bullets.

Same here, and in my case there's a pattern I don't understand fully:

- No trouble ever with classical musicians, who are famous for being difficult people. I'm one and I hate us.
- No trouble ever with jazz musicians.
- No trouble ever with ad hoc ensembles for many types of projects.
- Only slight trouble in a multi-style "double band" (just some people not turning up for rehearsal)
- Trouble in a few rock covers bands, and it was always just one person who should've been kicked out but wasn't because people were being way too nice and including and tolerating.

 

Worst band mate ever: a three tone solo guitar player in a pop&rock covers band. Our soloist mainly because he could hardly play a chord.
This was in a five or six person band with democracy and veto rights for some songs. Planning on entering originals as we were developing as band, with the goal of playing 50% originals.

So far so good.

Guitar Star kept nagging about that we should exclusively play The Shadows covers, and that, as he was the guitar solo star, we others all had to indulge. After all, when five or six people get together, Guitar Star automatically is the owner leader of the band, right?
No reasoning with him had any effect, ever. People lost the will to live, but still were way too nice, and tried to keep him in the band when he threatened to leave.
My head exploded.

BTW, today, 35 years later, when I meet one of the band members, there is no chance they will not talk about Guitar Star's antics. When people on a bass forum ask about the worst band mate ever, there's no chance I can resist the urge to relay the story.
Made an impression, he did.

[borntohang]

Keyboardist in a big jazz group - up to 14 of us depending on lineup. Blinding soloist; sensitive piano accompanist; brilliant mind for theory and arrangement; total and utter asswipe.

Virulently racist, sexist, and many of the the other available 'ists' or 'phobes' in the dictionary; Everyone he had ever been in a band with was an idiot (ignoring the common denominator as per); regularly belittled his long-suffering business partner because of her religion; unseemly penchant for girls a third his age; demeaning comments about the relative 'phwoar' factor of his teenage students; total lack of situational awareness after three pints; delusions of grandeur etc etc etc. The list was fairly endless and compounded by his constant inability to hit cues or not screw up simple parts - he was brilliant you see, so he didn't need to practice or engage brain for anything less than a Metheny tune. Regularly turned up for weddings and photo shoots in scrubby t-shirts and bright orange trainers but luckily was so hidden behind stacks of vintage keyboards that often entire shows could pass without anyone realising he was back there.

It ended fairly acrimoniously when three members approached me separately within a few days of each other to tell me that either he went or they did. One of them told me in no uncertain terms that, although he was a brilliant arranger and a massive asset to the group, if they had to bunk with him again on a tour he would be preparing a lively and engaging original composition arranged for his fists and the keyboardist's face. A day after that he turned up on another member's doorstep late at night panicking about band finances and how we would be dividing royalties when we got on Jools Holland, totally ignoring the fact that due to the huge running costs required to keep us on the road we weren't actually making any significant amount of money at any time in the near future and not to mention that Jools rarely books wedding bands regardless of the quality of their interstitial jazz-fusion widdlings. The whole thing collapsed pretty quickly after that and lo and behold he suddenly had another set of 'idiots' to complain about. Real shame because there were some great moments but can't say I miss it much.

Edited February 14, 2019 by borntohang

[ead]

On 13/02/2019 at 15:00, mattbass6 said:

The original keyboard player (Gareth Jones) in my band The Reasoning. He was shagging my wife, who was the singer, for 8 years and then ran off with her. An utter cnut! He thought he was God's gift as well. Average at best, seriously and that's not bitterness talking. He was just an average pub player / singer. The ego and arrogance was flabbergasting. Looks like the wife fell for it. Ever since I have an inherent hatred and distrust for keyboard players. True story 😲 😉

Goodness.  I must have been to numerous Resoning gigs over the years and have all the CDs too.

Pity the swansong gigs are all down south.

Edited February 14, 2019 by ead

[mattbass6]

49 minutes ago, ead said:

Goodness.  I must have been to numerous Resoning gigs over the years and have all the CDs too.

Pity the swansong gigs are all down south.

Thank you for the support. This situation closed the band down, obviously. I had no say in it, obviously again, but the farewell shows are my opportunity to say “thank you and good bye” on my terms. Sorry we couldn’t head up North but either way, thank you so much for getting behind us. It was a hell of a ride ⭐️

[ubit]

On 12/02/2019 at 21:32, T-Bay said:

Genuinely not mine, but a mate had a load of hassle with a bandmate who was married with two young kids but who would insist on copping off with any woman he could after a gig but expecting the other bandmates to cover for him. It all came to head when he decided to do it mid gig last year and they were late starting the second set as he was at it in the back of his van in the car park and they had to go and bang on the outside to get him. The shame is that he is a fantastic musician but a pretty terrible human being.

Ive got a mate who did this. One time we had been playing on the back of a lorry at a festival. We’d finished, we’re walking along. His wife came towards us. She was about twenty feet from us and he said, I stayed at yours last night. I was raging! 

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, ubit said:

Ive got a mate who did this. One time we had been playing on the back of a lorry at a festival. We’d finished, we’re walking along. His wife came towards us. She was about twenty feet from us and he said, I stayed at yours last night. I was raging! 

Yeh, I wouldn't do that. Your relationship, your problem, I am not getting involved!

[PaulWarning]

1 hour ago, ubit said:

Ive got a mate who did this. One time we had been playing on the back of a lorry at a festival. We’d finished, we’re walking along. His wife came towards us. She was about twenty feet from us and he said, I stayed at yours last night. I was raging! 

have these blokes that shag around got a self esteem problem? most of them can't wait to boast to all there 'mates' about it as well, like we're supposed to be impressed, well I might have been when I was 15