Band Dilemma...Advice please!

[gmcelroy]

This is long but I can't seem to shorten it... I am in a cover band that consists of 6 members...bassist, drummer, 2 guitarists, and 2 lead vocalists (male and female); our female vocalist is married to our drummer. As a whole we all get along great and have the same goals and have a ball playing together but occasionally we have a bit of a problem that IMO is compounded due to the fact that the drummer and female vocalist are married. Our female vocalist is a great singer (trained) but is not a performer on stage, very timid, and is extremely self conscience about her looks whereas our male vocalist is also a great singer (self taught) and is an awesome performer with great stage presence! The problem is that our female vocalist has become I think somewhat jealous and intimidated of our male vocalist. At our last practice she attempted to sing a new song and struggled with it but sounded ok, then the male vocalist tried it and was ok too. The difference was that while he was singing it she did backup harmonies and IMO completed the song and she was great. I complimented her for doing such a great job with the harmnonies and her response was "You know if you think it sounds better with him singing it then just say that, I don't appreciate everyone going around it." Nice, great response to what was intended to be a compliment! :roll:

The next day our drummer (husband) calls and asks me what I thought of practice. He then says that his wife was mad because our other vocalist took her song and has done so on other occasions. He then proceeds to bash the other guy by saying that he did not sound as good as she did on it, which is not true at all, he actually did sound better. This is about the 4th or 5th time this **** has happened within the last 6 to 8 months....she blows up at practice and then her husband calls me the next day with the exact same comments about the other vocalist taking her songs. I have talked with the our other guitarist the other day and he and I totally see eye to eye on this situation. We both feel that this is happening because the our female vocalist is intimidated by our male vocalist but no one can call her out on this **** because her husband is the drummer and will always come to her defense even if she is in the wrong. So.....we all have to walk on eggshells form time to time and it's getting really old! Anybody have any experience with this type of situation or advice?

 

[hoobafrank]

Wow. Good luck with that.

You could let it keep going until it blows up and the band breaks up. Or you could gather everyone together and talk things out like adults. Its unfortunate that there is a marriage in the band, but there's not much you can do about that now without breaking up the band.

With our band, we do not hide or talk about any other members behind their back. If we have a problem, we address it as a whole band. This way we get things out in the open to discuss and there is less of a chance that someone is going to go postal.

To be honest, it sounds like you'll be looking for a new drummer soon.....


my 2c

-Chris

 

[TemporarilyStairs]

Well, there's two things here. One, it sucks that you have trouble talking about issues when they pop up. Two, four or five incidents in six to eight months is actually way ahead of the game, compared to an awful lot of other bands. Most bands seem to be much worse heh. To be fair, I'm guessing you're really just venting here more than anything, but you're getting advice regardless.

As said, just try to talk it out, and if it fails, well, it fails. You might be only 50/50, as musicians seem to be crazy, but I've found most people are pretty receptive if you just sit them down and try to talk about it as rationally and reasonably as you can, with the preface of "Listen, we've got a bit of issues here, but I really want to talk about it and find common ground so we can keep this band going." Tell her flat out that she's a great singer, but you want her to have more stage presence... though probably more tactfully than that. Maybe sit the whole band down and see if they want to re-orient the set-list to equally feature both singers, etc.

Then if they flip out, you should probably do drugs, smash a hotel room, drive a car into a pool, sleep with the singer, you know, classic rockstar stuff. It won't solve anything but it'd be a great story to tell us.

 

[Sixstringpsycho]

Wow thats a fun situation. My advice would be to attempt to talk out the situation as a band, all in the same room and get the issues out on the table. Another good idea mentioned above was to make sure the set list features each vocalist equally. My theory, after having the pleasure to be in a few drama drenched bands, is too get everyone together and just tell everyone what needs to change and get the lines of communication open. GL with all this because I know it sucks bad.

 

[user 7737]

stop cover songs, kick the singers out and go instrumental music... :mrgreen:

 

[SCOTTY]

You should really complicate things....


bang the female singer!!! :twisted:


LOL sorry j/k I had to do it.

Talk it out with everyone there thats the only way cause talking to people in small groups gets old and people start to say what the other person they are talking too whats to hear.

Good luck

Scotty

 

[Dusty Rhodes]

Have you thought about getting an unbiased non-band member POV?
Talking about it is great and you should. But you might also want another set of ears on it as well.

Good luck and keep us posted

 

[RJ2213]

Have you thought about getting an unbiased non-band member POV?
Talking about it is great and you should. But you might also want another set of ears on it as well.

Good luck and keep us posted

let me listen, then if i'm still unsure, i'll bang the singer and let you know what i think.

JK

i say you guys all need to sit down as an entire band and have everyone one by one bring up any issues they have in the band. no yelling, no finger pointing, just venting and discussing in an adult manner.

 

[guitarsawicki]

There are two lead vocalists in my band (not exactly my band). Me and our bass player. I know how it goes. We both want to sing certain songs. You must always ask the other guy: Hey do you want to sing it

But what about if we both want to sing it? I sing more songs than our bass player, so I let him sing.

We have about 25 original songs and only two cover songs but it doesn't make any difference.

We write songs in our rehearsing room. The guy who sings the song writes the lyrics. It's trio.

 

[njsurf]

The band I am in works as a democracy. When in doubt we take a vote. The majority wins. We have had plenty of drama too. Had to let go our old singer cause he wasn't trying very had and getting too drunk, unreliable I am sure you have all seen it. Reading some of the above postings has great ideas. You need to talk about it as a band, and not behind people's backs. If they get pissed and quit it was probably bound to happen anyway. Hopefully you can resolve this as adults and play many more fun shows.

 

[user 7737]

The band I am in works as a democracy. When in doubt we take a vote. The majority wins.

so this is some kind of "majority dictatorship"...

in my band, even if one member want to try something, the all band try... usually our "ears" decide with unanimity... in fact we try to respect each other feelings... if 3 members don't like playing a song and only one really like it, i mean REALLY, like it, we keep on playing the song... this is real democracy, direct democracy... we try to "think" as a band, not as "individual"... if someone **** up a gig, the all band assume that, nobody has the right to say : "you ****** up the gig"... but WE ****** up the gig...