Frustrations with unprofessional bandmates

[Daniel_uk]

Hi professional drummer here. I’ve played in a ton of bands and I have to say, I am so sick and tired of busting my ass to learn songs, notate, rush to rehearsal to be there on time, just to find the band that I’m filling in for is unbearably unprofessional.

They always show up late, stoned, and have to set up all of their equipment. They are always missing a vital piece of equipment and just shrug their shoulders and say “eh we’ll be fine”. They are completely unbothered by this and see no rush. They are never prepared with their parts and use rehearsal time as practice time.

I grew up with a conductor who instilled in me the idea that there is nothing worse than wasting someone else’s time. It’s like nobody else was ever in concert band in school.

I work a full 9/5 job and I bust my ass to make rehearsals work in my schedule. to watch a 3.5 hour rehearsal go by only to work on 2 songs is MADDENING. This could have been 45 mins of focus work done with prepared songs but instead it’s 3 hours of bullshit. I always look like the asshole but I don’t even care anymore. I’m right and they need to stop thinking mediocrity is acceptable and act like adults.

[GearNerd]

You’re in the small fish pond with a mentality / drive of someone in a big fish pond. It’s kind of a corny statement but it’s true. When you’re not successful yet but have what it takes to be, you’ll be frustrated trying to work with your peers who are around your success level but don’t have their shit together, especially when they’ve been around for years. There’s a reason they haven’t found success yet.

[BluesGuy]

Story of my life.

[MetalPlayer]

I was surprised by how high the incompetency goes. For an industry that can transport and set up a rig from one city to another in 24 hours, people seem to drop organizational skills completely when it's a matter of courtesy.

[StudioPro]

There's always serious musicians out there. But they're taken.

[MetalPlayer]

It's amazing how many people lack the simple ability to show up on time, care about what they’re doing, or practice.

[sam54]

There are always serious musicians out there, but they're often taken.

[Solarflares]

You should ditch this ‘band’.
Put the feelers out, and select people you can work with on all levels.

I played in a hippy band in Wales in the early 80’s. We had a set of our own songs and some covers. I lived with the husband/wife drums/keyboards. We’d jammed some Rush as a 3-piece, and it looked good. So I moved in with them.
Rehearsals were Weds night and Sunday afternoon.
The female singer would get drunk in the pub before arriving. The bass-playing husband left his bass at the house all the time. The keyboard player never practiced. The drummer just worked on the house. I was the only one who played for hours every day.
So we would basically run through the set twice a week. Mistakes weren’t fixed, just laughed at. There was no songwriting going on. I had just written and adapted parts for their previously guitar-less songs and that was it. They couldn’t adapt at all.
I certainly got wasted most of the time, but would always approach rehearsals with a clear head. It was utterly fruitless.
The only good thing was a huge bowl of vegetable soup and home-baked bread.
The whole thing became a complete embarrassment.

But what was evident is that the sneaky drummer was putting his fiddly ideas in on the quiet, and undermining any rock sensibility we had. Now that I could not stand. He even re-wrote the rhythm section of a piece I’d written, and I found out during a gig!

After 6 months of this we played a support gig in Cardiff, and I simply played out of my skin that night.
6 months of hard work, and I let it out.
The next week I auditioned for The Nina Hagen Band in London.
They decided to sack me!

Nina Hagen decided on the average guy with the leather and pony-tail, and not the kid that had blown everybody away at the auditions. They’d even told me the job was mine, but they never phoned again. I was gutted, and now broke and in debt. Bastards.
Lived in the house for 4 more torturous months, but never played with the hippies again.

[Olly]

Sounds like you were better off without them.

I guess it’s very lucky to find multiple people all on the same wavelength with aligning goals all at the same time.

I’ve never been in a band but can only imagine it must be so frustrating to realise you have been wasting time.

[Solarflares]

Sounds like you were better off without them.

Well Olly.
It began well, and the drummer was incredibly good. An ex-name like me.
But any potential was certainly wasted, and the whole thing gradually began to implode.
The keyboard wife had an affair with a journalist of a local hippy rag! Drummer had a breakdown.
Singer was still always slovenly pissed, and the bass was a muffled mess.
Very stifling, and I grew to actually dislike all of them.
Difficult when you live with two of the band-mates though.
I eventually slept on someone else’s floor just to get away from it.
They stopped my dole money in Wales in a fraud investigation, and I had to go to London homeless on a one-way travel-warrant.
Soon got lodgings and fetched my stuff, but that was a hard lesson learned.

[Olly]

Hopefully you managed to go onto bigger and better things after this. And channeled some of the trauma into an epic song (or even album) maybe?

[Solarflares]

Hopefully you managed to go onto bigger and better things after this. And channeled some of the trauma into an epic song (or even album) maybe?

The Nina Hagen job had gone.
I was in the band, but then they moved from their hotel, and never called again. Really horrible treatment. I hadn’t even begun rehearsals yet. Final kick in the teeth - they played Rock in Rio on my 27th birthday!
I became the youngest ever caretaker of a London dancing school. Bonnie Langford and Kate Bush were regulars to evening classes. I hooked up with the Swedish au-pair at the principle’s house, and we moved to Stockholm, where I eventually cut singles with Yngwie’s old Rising Force band. Swedish top-ten crowd were heavily into synths/sampling, and many nights getting wasted with them in studios all over Stockholm, including ABBA’s. Got really into computer games, and FM synth programming.
I was dating Miss Sweden 1987 for a while, and flew to New York in ‘87 to play with Eddie Jobson’s Zinc. He wanted me on bass, but I wasn’t that keen, so came home.
A year reconditioning prestige sports cars, and left for England with a whole year’s tax refund of 40% of my total pay. 2 months wages and holiday money. Plus I sold all my synths and old gear. So I had enough to build a great home studio, and a guitar rack.
England was very dead musically, and was quite depressing.
But looking back 5 years - I’d had quite a roller-coaster ride since those wet days in Wales!

I’ll be honest and declare that a lot of sideways career moves presented themselves throughout. But I generally stuck to my guns as a hotshot rock player, so denied myself many opportunities. It’s a long list.