Life in Music & Bands

 So the big question I always ask myself after all this time has passed is “where do I go from here?” I’ve played live since 1992, wrote and recorded music, had highs and lows, played too many genres to even count… so now what? Well I always go back in forth in my mind whether or not I want to play live again, or start a band again. There’s times I think “well it could be fun”, but then on the other hand I think “ugh, do I really wanna deal with the stress of booking gigs, dealing with bookers, the venues, hustling to get people there to see us, and actually finding the right guys to play with? Sounds stressful right? Well, it is! A couple months ago I was thinking about it all, and was all for it until the thought of walking into a venue. I’ve done it hundreds of times, but the thought of it now was so unappealing. You walk in, you see that there’s not a lot of people there if any, the smell of alcohol, you see the stage, you walk on to it, then speak to the sound guy who acts as ...

 So let’s pick up where I left off in Pt 1.  All bands rehearse. If you’re lucky enough to score musicians who want to rehearse, then you’re only gonna get tighter, form a bond, and grow as musicians. For me I’ve had bands that rehearse… but that that doesn’t mean they rehearse in general. I can list all the guys I’ve played with that have under performed but that would take up way too much time. There’s at least 1 guy in each band I’ve been in who just lacks and drags the whole thing down. I’ve had a guitarist who showed up every week and literally just solo over everything. Never took the time to actually learn the songs. Plus he was in at least 2 other bands, so how would he have time to learn 3 bands worth of material? I’ve had 2 different drummers who couldn’t remember endings of songs each week, yet rehearsed them multiple times a day. Also never learned the actual songs. So each time we played them, they’d sound different at every show. Same thing with the guitarist. I ...

 I wasn’t sure how I wanted to start this, but I have dozens of thoughts that roam aimlessly in my head around 4am every night. I’ve had trouble sleeping for a few months now, mainly because I can’t get my creative side out. It’s been 18 months since I’ve written a song, and almost just as long since I’ve recorded and played live. Since the pandemic started, I have vowed to no longer play live. It doesn’t interest me anymore. Since I’ve had all this time in the middle of the nights to reflect and think, I decided to put my thoughts, views, and experiences down into this. This is all about being in bands, writing, and the life of music in general. This will be a 3 part series in writing. At some point I’m planning on taking this to YouTube as an interview series with other musicians. Until then, here’s this… Part 1. Bands are hard. I’ve been in bands since I was 14. I started playing guitar when I was 12. Picked up numerous other instruments along the way, but my passion was guitar ...