regarding musicians and bands

[sr800bkBassist]

this is not bass-specific, but i like this forum better than guitar and such so i'm posting this here. and i see most of this mentality here and that's also why.

alot of the time i see threads abou MXers' bands, and everyone is like this:
"yeah my band works perfect. we all have different influences. for example, i play bass and i'm really influenced by funk. one of our guitarists likes metal, like metallica and iron maiden. our drummer listens to lots of nirvana. our other guitarist likes jam bands. and our singer is really influenced by queen and led zeppelin. so really we end up with a really diverse and unique sound."
BLAH BLAH BLAH
eugh

what it most always ends up sounding like is generic power-chord riffs, slap bass that is completely uncalled for or just overplayed octaves and pseudo-funky stuff, typical guitar solos that don't sound bad, but are simply unneccessary, typical drums whatever they fit the music i don't care, and some asshole singer trying to sound powerful and awesome but really he's just a dork in a crappy band.

in thought, the whole "we all have different influences" thing sounds like it'd work great, but really it's just a mess and gets you nowhere.


here's what i've seen work good though.
in my last band that was doing pretty well-off for itself (personality conflicts of course brought us to a halt) we could work extremely well. lots of people liked us and i still get recognized by people who had come to our shows (although most eyes were on our singer and i'm sure twice as many people remembered her for obvious reasons, being that she was a good looking girl fronting a band and it wasn't just a girly-gimmick) and i have to say the one thing that brought us far was not that we all had different tastes, but rather:

we all had a similar interest in the same bands, such as Flaming Lips, Replacements, Sonic Youth, Ted Leo, Fugazi, etc, and that brought all of our minds together, but we were also DEFINITELY not one-sided (like many would think of a band where everyone likes the same stuff) because not only could we all bond on most of our favorite bands, but ALL of our tastes were diverse as hell.

and now my current band. we're drawing most of our influences from less accessible sources and stuff that's more raw and experimental and rough around the edges and a lot more obscure odd bands, but we ALL know where we're all coming from.

it wasn't like "oh, one of us likes this, the other likes this..." it was that we ALL could draw influence from all sorts of areas. be it folk, pop, blues, noise-rock, shoegaze, post-rock, post-punk, punk, hardcore (black flag hardcore), electronica, psychedelic, we all draw/drew all of our infuences from all over the place.

the result is that everything is twice as solid, everyone enjoys making it more than they would if their "influence" rested upon one genre separate from the other members, and the music is much more in-depth, because everyone works collectively as one creative body, rather than a bunch of pieces trying to fit together.

i mainly posted this because i think it's a much better method of band-forming than what most people usually try for. so maybe you already know this, or maybe this advice can help you, but really, when forming a band, try not to just create a band that has a bunch of members trying to be different things, but rather have a band where ALL the members are a bunch of different things collectively and individually, but can still all meet on one common ground for one outcome, rather than a guitarist playing metal and a bassist playing RHCP.

i know there's gonna be some responses that quickly jump to say "we're like that," and it'll seem like hardly anyone is that way i just belittled, but i've spent enough time in threads around this forum to see that there are a whole bunch of people here that are in bands like that. sure this is my opinion, but from what i've seen in my own bands, and my friends' bands that are all doing well, this way has seemed, to me, to be much better.
prove me wrong though, if you wish. i do want to see a counter-argument because i'm pretty set on this idea, and i don't see many benefits to the other so if i could be informed, i can change my opinion.

[One Groovin Clown]

what it most always ends up sounding like is generic power-chord riffs, slap bass that is completely uncalled for or just overplayed octaves and pseudo-funky stuff, typical guitar solos that don't sound bad, but are simply unneccessary, typical drums whatever they fit the music i don't care, and some asshole singer trying to sound powerful and awesome but really he's just a dork in a crappy band.


I think this is a result of too many wide varied influences. I"ve been in a band that was like that. We had so many conflicting ideas of how we wanted to write our songs that they came out as simple generic songs.

[Akira]

I completely see what you mean. I mean I think having a lot of influences is great, but a band is a collective. Everything needs to work.

[sr800bkBassist]

exactly. when the influences aretoo separate, the band members forget about meeting on a common ground, and instead they all play the genre theyknow, and the result is either that it's overly generic and fit-for-radio, or just unbearable.

that was how my first band was. just a mess of people playing different genres.

[Rawb]

This is actually the first time I've heard musicians with such diverse influences getting together.

I think its a given that bands must have similiar influences.

[sr800bkBassist]

looking in many threads on this forum, you'd figure it'd be obvious, but the reality is that most people have trouble finding another 3-4 likeminded individuals so they settl on bands where they try to each be like 90-100% individually different from eachother and it just ends up bad. and i can honestly say, through my experience here, that it's common.

[Killer Fridge]

I agree with you sr800, as I can see both sides of your argument in a fairly short time span.

One of my bands have really similar influences, and we jam really well togther, and some of our jams could be passed of as rehearsed songs! We all just know/feel where the song is going.

The other band that Im in, has absolutly no direction. Whilst myself, the drummer and the guitarists have similar influences, we all have seriously different ideas about the music. The drummer is great, and I can jam well with him (when hes not stopping to work out fills!), but I have real
trouble with the guitarist. Mainly because he loves Satch, and cannot function in a band without soloing. So basically me and the drummer just try and make a backing track to his solos, and even thn that fails, because we both have different ideas on how we are doing it!

Basically, the moral to my story is, one band works, as every player knows his place, and we communicate, and the other band is completly useless!

[Pluperfect_Arson]

I have been in bands where everyone wants to do something completely different. It never works out, and everyone is always arguing.

Now, I am in two bands. One that is like the above that is not on my priority list, and the other with two members and we do everything. We like the same music and everything. Basically, him and I contain the same personality, so it works, haha.

[User Name]

I remember either the first or second band I joined was with my best friend in 8th grade. It was called Telephone at first (which might be because I had just gotten in to Television) We both played guitar, and I remember writing our first song in my living room (which I really wished we finished, it was about rain and thunderbabies!). Good times. By far the most driven I've ever been to share ideas.

Blah blah blah, few weeks later we're working things out with a drummer and bassist a few days a week. I started realizing my ideas were being ignored. I got pissed off and quit. I think that's in part because we never really listened to the same stuff, and thusly were never going for the same sound. They all liked Led Zep and Tool and I liked, well, Television, among other stuff.

It couldn't have worked for long anyway, but it was good to get experience.

/end nostalgia post

[sr800bkBassist]

television > tool and zep

[SlincoJ]

Yeah I always thought that it only maked sense for a band to have a shared idea of the kind of music they want to create.Just makes sense to me.

And I can see better then zeppelin,but tool,I'm not convinced.

[sr800bkBassist]

Television kills tool. i don't know why more bass forumers don't listen to them. their bassist had phat groovz.

[SlincoJ]

I think I'll check them out then,phat groovz=win.

[User Name]

Not just the bassist either. I was blown away by the whole band, especially the drummer.

Well, sorry about taking this one off topic!

[sr800bkBassist]

Marquee Moon is the album and song to check out.

[SlincoJ]

I'll take a poke around for it.

[SlincoJ]

I can dig these guys.

[Afrokid]

well its only natural for people to have different musical taste, and it would be pretty crazy to find muscians for a band solely based on "hey, do u like RHCP?" , "Yeah, i love RHCP", "U know what, lets Start a Band", "Ok". A performers personal music taste in my opinion is only one factor in the total outcome of when that individual is placed in a band setting. Sure the genre you are most familiar with will shine through when you play, but isn't that just your signature style of playing? Forgive me for saying this, but the band "linkin park" seemed to get quite a bit of sucess by combining Rock / Hip Hop / and Scratch all together....and they are pretty much opposite ends of the music spectrum, but its when the band members worked together to combine their individual styles that the bands true talent and uniqueness was able to come out... U can also look at the mars volta, combining Latin / Prog / and Jazz together to form a unique style of playing...but take those example as u wish.

[sr800bkBassist]

well yeah, i know diversity is important. but The Mars Volta didn't just have their salsa member, their rock member, their prog member, etc. they all had these styles in mind. and Omar wrote everything anyway, so the other members didn't really effect much except their ability to play it all.
and TMV is pretty much just Drive Like Jehu mixed with Can.

[pitchfork]

Not my band, we don't sit down and think "who are our influences lets copy them" we just jam and eventually some music comes together.

[Thunder Fingers]

thats why i realy liked my old band(one i had to quit for 1.5 years ago) we all had diverse music taste, but we always had a few bands that we "agreed" about, and as far as i remember, mosst of us got into the music the others came with, so we usually liked what we the others was listening to.

as for my latest band, i hated the style of metal, imo it was boring and one tracked, so i didnt enjoy it, i simply couldnt stay for that. so having band members with a wide music taste didnt work for us, or me.

[hellonearth07]

this is how my "band" is right now. I listen to everything and anything that everyone in the band listens to... Be it folk, Skynyrd, Tool, RHCP or Country music. We have a guitarist who's really good, but lives in the '70s. He thinks bands like tool and most of the stuff Chili Peppers put out is absolute crap. He always gets on everyone's case about having to have "good influences" which he is to blind to see himself.

Our drummer is quite diverse, along with our lead and our third guitarist. We have blues and ska jams that sound nice until the above mentioned guitarist comes in.

I hate it because he ruins everything, he thinks he's the greatest and has "The Best" influences, were as he completely disregards music if its not classic rock.

That's why i started making my own music and saying screw the band. i can pull the influences that i want and know while being able to lay tracks that sound good combined together.

TS, you hit it right on when you get "diverse" musical backgrounds thrown together. It either sounds like **** or is made for the radio, which in my opinion is mostly watered down soul less musicians trying to make the riches without caring about the art.


My rant's over

[funkyhoney]

this is how my "band" is right now. I listen to everything and anything that everyone in the band listens to... Be it folk, Skynyrd, Tool, RHCP or Country music. We have a guitarist who's really good, but lives in the '70s. He thinks bands like tool and most of the stuff Chili Peppers put out is absolute crap. He always gets on everyone's case about having to have "good influences" which he is to blind to see himself.

Our drummer is quite diverse, along with our lead and our third guitarist. We have blues and ska jams that sound nice until the above mentioned guitarist comes in.

I hate it because he ruins everything, he thinks he's the greatest and has "The Best" influences, were as he completely disregards music if its not classic rock.

That's why i started making my own music and saying screw the band. i can pull the influences that i want and know while being able to lay tracks that sound good combined together.

TS, you hit it right on when you get "diverse" musical backgrounds thrown together. It either sounds like **** or is made for the radio, which in my opinion is mostly watered down soul less musicians trying to make the riches without caring about the art.


My rant's over

that's exactly the reason i won't band up with drummer and guitarist friends, they both hate punk and funk... and i love punk and funk!

so i don't see it working, it's not just that they don't like it, they don't respect it either; like i don't like their music that much, but if we banded together i would at least respect their opinions and how they feel about the music.

[BassVirtuoso]

this is how my "band" is right now. I listen to everything and anything that everyone in the band listens to... Be it folk, Skynyrd, Tool, RHCP or Country music. We have a guitarist who's really good, but lives in the '70s. He thinks bands like tool and most of the stuff Chili Peppers put out is absolute crap. He always gets on everyone's case about having to have "good influences" which he is to blind to see himself.

Our drummer is quite diverse, along with our lead and our third guitarist. We have blues and ska jams that sound nice until the above mentioned guitarist comes in.

I hate it because he ruins everything, he thinks he's the greatest and has "The Best" influences, were as he completely disregards music if its not classic rock.

That's why i started making my own music and saying screw the band. i can pull the influences that i want and know while being able to lay tracks that sound good combined together.

TS, you hit it right on when you get "diverse" musical backgrounds thrown together. It either sounds like **** or is made for the radio, which in my opinion is mostly watered down soul less musicians trying to make the riches without caring about the art.


My rant's over

Are we in the same band?

[sr800bkBassist]

ditch your bands. it's not worth the frustration.

[Spaceman Spiff]

You have 3 guitarists, ditch the one that's lame. He gets pwned for being custy and the rest of you get a band you like.

[hellonearth07]

Are we in the same band?

Na, but pretty well the same situation... sucks doesn't it.

ditch your bands. it's not worth the frustration.

Exactly why I'm not putting effort into the one mentioned above and writing my own music:thumb:

You have 3 guitarists, ditch the one that's lame. He gets pwned for being custy and the rest of you get a band you like.

Unfortunately everyone likes him and we never ditch people, sucks cause we have 3 guitarists, me, 2 drummers (one on a full set and another playing Latin type drums) a "DJ" who doesn't do anything or know how to contribute and 2 vocalists.

[peeted]

Theres nothing wrong with having a wide range of influences as long as you know how to compromise. Thats usualy the diffrence between an origional band and a mess.

[hellonearth07]

^my band being more the mess, but some of the stuff original and good^

[FoStringFlo]

I guess I just don't put as much faith in influences as you do. I really love a wide variety of music, but when I sit down to write for my band, I try to convey nothing but myself. While in a heavy Beatles or Floyd phase, I have tried to use that as a springboard to write, but whatever has come out of those periods has been altered to the point that once again, it is just myself or my band being expressed.

Another point is that a lot of great musical innovations come not from combining influences, but being completely original. For example, though there were precursors to Sabbath establishing metal as a genre, they were really just trying to write "doomy music" to quote ozzy. I think that music comes as much from self-expression as it does from history.

[hellonearth07]

Self expression is the key to any art, that is true... But you said that whenever you try to write something while in "a heavy Beatles or Floyd phase." Even though what came out was completely original it still started with influences of those bands.

Influences from bands don't even have to be the music itself. IMO influence is everything. And in terms of bands being an influence i pull influences from not only their songs, but their personalities, the feelings you get when you listen to some of the songs, and even the art work on labels.

There are more to bands then just the music. Dive deeper into some of the bands, such as The Beatles of Pink Floyd. And then look at your music, i'm sure you'll find some common ground, even if it's a needle in the haystack

[naut]

i guess that's why it's a good thing i'm not in a band. i only have to worry about my influences and desires and i'm still all over the place.

oh well.

[sr800bkBassist]

I guess I just don't put as much faith in influences as you do. I really love a wide variety of music, but when I sit down to write for my band, I try to convey nothing but myself. While in a heavy Beatles or Floyd phase, I have tried to use that as a springboard to write, but whatever has come out of those periods has been altered to the point that once again, it is just myself or my band being expressed.

Another point is that a lot of great musical innovations come not from combining influences, but being completely original. For example, though there were precursors to Sabbath establishing metal as a genre, they were really just trying to write "doomy music" to quote ozzy. I think that music comes as much from self-expression as it does from history.

i never really draw inspiration from my influences in the sense of directly having my writing swayed towards their methods.

however, bands such as Can obviously had a big Jazz influence, even though they didn't play jazz, you can see the influence. they're one of the most original bands of their era (and many "eras", really) but you can see where they drew influences from and ho their sound would have changed, had they not been affected by much of what they heard.

[Akira]

i never really draw inspiration from my influences in the sense of directly having my writing swayed towards their methods.

however, bands such as Can obviously had a big Jazz influence, even though they didn't play jazz, you can see the influence. they're one of the most original bands of their era (and many "eras", really) but you can see where they drew influences from and ho their sound would have changed, had they not been affected by much of what they heard.

I agree. And honestly, the only way it is possible that other bands haven't influenced you is if you have never listened to music before, and never studied music. You can say "I just write what is me, and it is completely original", but I call bullshit. Everyone has influences, it's just a matter of how you use them.

[:amaze:]

i think it's alright to have diverse (and not even really similar) musical backgrounds, as long as you can all agree on what genre you are going to produce as a whole. my band right now is extremely poppy, which is something i dont listen to really at all. however, i can incorporate the styles i do listen to into the songs in a way that keeps the feeling of the song the same but with just a little something added to it, if that makes sense.





:amaze:

[edgebass5]

I honestly think that musical influences is not the root of the problem you're conveying. What I think the REAL problem is, is that some musicians just don't go together.

I've never played in a band that had anyone who shared my musical influences to a high enough degree that we would typically agree on music the majority of the time. My tastes are eclectic and change very rapidly. That being said, out of all the bands I have had, all of which had eclectic musical influences, there has only been 1 that did not have a noteable level of success. For those of you who are about to ask, I'm defining success as an active gigging/touring schedule, finished product studio albums, merchandise, and name recognition in areas outside of our local scene.

As an example, my new metal project has a guitar player that doesn't really listen to anything if its not the heaviest of heavy metal, and another guitarist who listens to nothing but 80's rock and jazz. The two work really well together. Their styles are both VERY different, and even when approaching the same riff/line/melody they sound VERY different despite the fact that they're playing the same pieces. They know how to work together. Some people don't, and I honestly think that their musical background is only one small piece of the puzzle as to why they don't work together.

[:amaze:]

I honestly think that musical influences is not the root of the problem you're conveying. What I think the REAL problem is, is that some musicians just don't go together.

I've never played in a band that had anyone who shared my musical influences to a high enough degree that we would typically agree on music the majority of the time. My tastes are eclectic and change very rapidly. That being said, out of all the bands I have had, all of which had eclectic musical influences, there has only been 1 that did not have a noteable level of success. For those of you who are about to ask, I'm defining success as an active gigging/touring schedule, finished product studio albums, merchandise, and name recognition in areas outside of our local scene.

As an example, my new metal project has a guitar player that doesn't really listen to anything if its not the heaviest of heavy metal, and another guitarist who listens to nothing but 80's rock and jazz. The two work really well together. Their styles are both VERY different, and even when approaching the same riff/line/melody they sound VERY different despite the fact that they're playing the same pieces. They know how to work together. Some people don't, and I honestly think that their musical background is only one small piece of the puzzle as to why they don't work together.

that's kinda what i was getting at. as long as you know how to work together, and can accept what the other members of the band are bringing to the sound and work to make it sound good together, differing influences shouldn't be a problem, even if there is no common ground.




:amaze:

[edgebass5]

^^^Glad we agree on that one :thumb: