One Sure Way to NOT Get band Gigs

Or,

"How one band member can sabotage your gig-getting efforts".

I was talking with a bass guitarist in an Indie band this week about his progress over the last couple of months getting gigs for his new band line-up.

He told me he had quite a lot of interest from various venues he'd contacted with several asking for a demo or web address to check the band out. Nothing confirmed though.

It turned out this bassist's band hadn't had a demo ready at the time he was calling on these prospective new venues (oops).

When I quizzed him a bit more on this, he said that his band had "started" to record 5 numbers for a demo after he made these initial contacts. They were all recording their parts separately into digital recorders which was then to be mixed on PC via Cubase.

There was a problem though. Although the bassist himself, drummer and guitarist had all recorded their parts, they were still waiting on the singer to do his bit. The rest of the band had been waiting almost 2 months for the singer to get round to it. And it wasn't the first time this band member had failed had held projects up (songwriting, rehearsing etc).

The band had been "limping along" playing the odd gig, but my bassist friend knew that lots of regular work (and then management & a deal hopefully) could only come once they got their demo out.

So what does he need to do? Certainly the rest of the band need to talk to the vocalist, find out what the bottle-neck is. Give him an ultimatum, a non-negotiable deadline.

If he doesn't hit that deadline they need a new singer. In fact, they should probably start looking for someone else before that deadline is up.

In my book, any band member who's an obstacle to getting gigs is a band member you need to replace.

Gig-Getter site