When did you realise….. you weren’t going to “make it”?

[Rayman]

As a professional musician I mean?

 

A generalised question I guess, as some of you are professionals, but I’ll wager most of us aren’t.

 

Did you think you’d be famous? Did you thing you could be a session pro? Did you wait for the call that never came?

 

When did you realise that it was never going to be any of those things? It’s…… just…… a……………. hobby 😳

[ossyrocks]

1987. I’d worked for two years “doing the clubs”, then my second child came along, and I just couldn’t keep going. Jacked it in, went to Uni, got a job……played for fun ever since.

[Beedster]

You mean I'm not going to make it  

[Dad3353]

It was never a 'thing', for me, at any time. My ambitions were, and still are, far more modest (and in keeping with my abilities...). I was playing professionally in variety bands in France for some years, but took other employment once family matters became the priority; I've kept on playing ever since, but as a sideline. Fame and fortune have never been an objective. It may be called complaisance, but I don't think I've missed out on much. I spent several years doing sound and lights for a professional touring band, as a 'hobby', and wouldn't want that lifestyle at all. Happy bunny, really. 

[Lozz196]

1991,  since 1987 I’d been in two bands in no succession with guys who were desperate to make it, all that showed me was music was my hobby, what I did for fun and that I had no intention of making it my day job.

[AndyTravis]

A gig in soho. Raymond Review. 

 

”singer, keys and bass player stay, get rid of the drummer, guitarist and one of the violinists - they don’t look right”

 

with a representative of Universal music.

 

and Eric Hall. Knob.

 

closest I ever got.

 

2007/8. 

 

 

 

 

[Beedster]

5 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

1991,  since 1987 I’d been in two bands in no succession with guys who were desperate to make it, all that showed me was music was my hobby, what I did for fun and that I had no intention of making it my day job.

 

Same, late 80's playing in a band several of who went on to success made me realise that the type of success in question was to be avoided like the plague, can think of few careers I'd less have than being in a successful band (I should caveat that with my 100% certainty that I do not have the temperament for it, had I done I might have chosen differently).  

[Beedster]

5 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

A gig in soho. Raymond Review. 

 

”singer, keys and bass player stay, get rid of the drummer, guitarist and one of the violinists - they don’t look right”

 

with a representative of Universal music.

 

and Eric Hall. Knob.

 

closest I ever got.

 

2007/8. 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you mean he/they tried to split your band? We had exactly the same "We love you all except your singer", who was sadly the only person with any semblance of talent in or anywhere near the band

[AndyTravis]

11 minutes ago, Beedster said:

 

Do you mean he/they tried to split your band? We had exactly the same "We love you all except your singer", who was sadly the only person with any semblance of talent in or anywhere near the band

They wanted 3 of us, draft in session folk for a “look”…

 

Eric Hall was our “representative” - he was a repugnant individual.

 

I looked upon it as a learning curve.

 

Then Sunday Best offered us a deal and decided to spunk their budget on the rights to David Lynch’s back catalogue and future recordings so we were dropped.

 

So.

 

I left that band and started to be a dad, got married and started living.

[diskwave]

Well as a naive sprog, twas 1980 in a real good Prog Rock outfit....but we just could not find a good enough singer so I quit. Then a completely different situation in 1984. Prolonged summer season on the Isle of Wight. 5 nights per week. Start at 5pm for the tiny tots, 4 sets per night. Three months of that and I was done with the entire thing. Went off to college and studied photography which I did for the next 30 odd years, retired last year and having a blast now studying cello.

 

I still have a bass in the house plugged in and I'll fill in if needed tho its very rare nowdays. But that moment in that holiday camp all those yrs ago playing that fun, old school disco stuff but at the same time gazing outta the window wishing I was somewhere else cause I've remembered the chart?... That's the moment when I realised my dream of a life being a successful working musician was dead.

Edited September 13, 2023 by greavesbass

[PaulWarning]

when I was young enough I couldn't play, when I could I was too old, a 25 year hiatus didn't help 😂, rule of thumb, if you haven't made it by the time you're 30 you won't

[thodrik]

Probably when I said I would do a Masters degree while my band were recording an album. ‘Well we are technically signed, but I have enough free time to get an extra qualification while we write and record an album’.

 

After a year the Masters degree was done, but the album wasn’t. By then the label had rightly lost interest. In frustration I jokingly bet the drummer that I could probably qualify as a solicitor before the album was actually finished. 
 

I have now been a qualified solicitor for over 8 years.

[Damnthatlazlo]

Our drummer did sound at a club night that was hot as hell. They were on a streak of signing bands up a few months before they broke and gained local and national recognition. 
 

Our guitarist sent them a demo, the drummer thought it was funny. I knew right there. I thought he should have been pushing for us to play the night and I was kicked out not long after. 

Weirdly, I ended up mates with the guy who ran the club through other friends. He’d have booked us no problem. 

[Newfoundfreedom]

Never had any interest in being in a professional touring band. There are very few worse ways I can imagine making a living than constantly being on the road and in a different place every other day. 

 

I picked up a bass at 15 because my mates were in a band and needed a bass player. I just wanted to hang about with my mates. 

 

30 odd years later and my motivation is exactly the same. Put me in a room with people I know and get along with to create music and I'm happy as a pig in muck. Start talking about traveling here for this gig, and there for that gig and I have no interest. I can just about muster the energy for the occasional local gig. Other than that I'm not interested. 

[Steve Browning]

I'm not sure that I ever did want to 'make it'. I always thought that Rory Gallagher achieved the level of success that I would have liked. Successful but largely unknown.

 

I'm perfectly happy with the level of 'success' I've had, but the arrival of my first child made me aware that a regular income was my priority. Touring wasn't very lucrative and there was no royalty income for me either. That said, at 65, I'm still gigging regularly and also tour regularly with artists from the US, fitting it in with annual leave. I did a lot of work in Europe but haven't for a couple of years. Hopefully, there's a 3 week tour in Europe in January/February.

 

I seem to garner a nice level of respect from people I respect and that has always been more important to me, I think. In some ways, getting the endorsement deal with Mesa is a form of 'making it', if it's a reflection of that respect (and I'm happy to think so!!). I'm not famous but I'm fine with that. I'm way too shy to have been able to cope with that anyway.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Steve Browning

[Mykesbass]

6 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

 

Eric Hall was our “representative” - he was a repugnant individual.

 

He invited me to his office to 'learn about the business' when I was a 16 year old working in a record shop. Fortunately my boss at the time heard this and next day told me to steer well clear of him. I always expected something to hit the press after he died, especially as he was mates with Max Clifford.

[BlueMoon]

I thought I’d made it when I was 18 and was offered a contract with a shipping line to play as part of a dance band touring the mediterranean. Did that for 3 months. Got back and realised I should get a proper education. It was never on really!

[Fishfacefour]

Once they cancelled top of the pops. I mean, what's the point?! You can't 'make it' unless you've done totp... 

[T-Bay]

I think it depends on expectations. I never expected to be. Professional or make living out of it. I just wanted to be able to play in a band, so I guess I ‘made it’ at our first gig. As of last year my present bands’ lead guitarist has now gone pro and the band is somewhat in stagnation I guess I have now ‘unmade it’.

[police squad]

I auditioned for Bernie Torme. I knew the singer and had played with the drummer a lot.

I thought the songs weren't very good and didnt get the job.

I went to see the line up and the bass player wasn't very good. 'I wanted him because his brother was going to manage us' said Bernie.

 

I gave up there and then and have enjoyed being a weekend warrior ever since

[Doctor J]

When I was young I briefly joined a band who were trying to "make it". They had management and label interest and all that crap and I despised every second of it. That scene was not for me. I love music but loathe the business.

[Rayman]

For me, honestly, I thought I still had a shot well into my 40s (😆), when creativity was still going strong, songs were good, the band was great live….. 

 

I never had a moment of realisation, it just kind of slowly dawned on me that at at 50…… I think, the boat has sailed without you. 
 

I’ve turned my hopes of creative endeavour to creating a book of illustrations instead. 

[Lozz196]

I think my experiences were that I worked with Simon Cowell before Simon Cowell had been invented, for example people saying "you`ve got to wear this" "you`ve got to stand on stage like this" "you can`t say that through the mic" all that rubbish. I wouldn`t mind too much but one of the bands was a punk band, that all seemed far too much like conforming to me.

 

[neepheid]

I started too late to even think about "making it" - no-one beyond the Dog and Duck wants to see this fossil make a tit of himself with a bass guitar

[Jackroadkill]

When I had my first taste of what happens to a band when there's  sniff of label interest things went sour.  I'd formed a band in the early '00s with (someone who I thought was) a friend and we'd done local gigs etc.  He was an inveterate networker / social climber, and we had a rock/metal show on our local radio station, which he used as a vehicle to get to know people at record companies.  The band wasn't bad, but in retrospect it wasn't anything that special either and would have needed a lot of work to come up to the standard we already thought it was at.  My "friend" sent copies of our demo (remember that?!) to dozens of record companies and one of them showed some interest.  Not in a "sign here, boys, and we'll make you rock stars" way, more of a "let's see if we can pan any flakes of gold out of this crap" kind of way, and at that moment things went berserk inside the band.  My friend and the singer/bass player (I was foolishly on guitar at that point) decided that rather than continue to learn our craft and write songs that sounded like us, they'd rather churn out  awful nu-metal lite dross that aped what was selling well at that time.  There was talk of things like "albums containing 14 potential singles" and other hideous cringe-worthy nonsense.

 

The punk in me snapped at that point and I left by escaping out of the toilet window at rehearsal.  The band continued in various iterations and I watched them become more desperate as time went on until the "friend" made one too many feck-ups and had to run back to Canada with his tail between his legs.  At that point I was heartily sick of the whole idea of "making it" and didn't play again for two years.  I've never been interested in being a professional musician ever since, which is lucky, because I don't have the drive or the talent.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Jackroadkill