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PumpkinPieces wrote:Like David Bowie!

On a side note, I'm convinced Mick Ronson co-wrote alot of the best early Bowie stuff and went uncredited...

On the main point, there's tensions in every band but I don't necessarily agree with the "every band needs its Nazi" theory, it just depends on you and the people you're playing with - how you play together, how you relate, level of committment, etc..

good topic.....many different levels and ways to look at it. and i feel nothing could be set in stone

IMO, the general analogy is true, but there are always exceptions. especially in garagey/rocky/punky bands..it's quite often a duo, one musical leader and a vocalist/lyricist. the old words and music thing.

i suppose i fall into the general category as i nearly always write all the material. but when i play with others i expect them to be as into their instrument as i am mine. therefore i want to hear their eyebrows and attitude applied what i brought in. that quite often will lead somewhere else enjoyable and the band takes on it's own life.
i love the collaboration process when you're playing with peers. if they are not your peer, then it can still work if ability and desire is there but then you'll have to spend the extra energy showing people how to play things your way. i find that to be real drag and something i'm not willing to do.
i don't go for the drummer coming into rehearsal with a guitar riff he wrote. i want him to come in with a crazy drum beat that makes everyone jump up and down. granted, i've done it that way many times and it's worked but i'd rather everyone be into their part of creating the "band's" sound as a whole. but that's what i want in a band...it's not what other may want. once the band has a sound then no matter what material is brought in, it's going sound like "the band".

i think it's all in finding the right people to play music with. if you're all on the same page it's fun and easy. if not, it can suck all your energy out in a negative way.

i always write in 2 main categories. songs that will worked up by the band i'm in and songs that are just me. i don't cross the two up.
i find that works for me. on my own music i can write in any style and it sound like me, however i feel the band should have it's own personality.

but...ya know?....it is, what it is. many different ways to look at it and what works for me may not work for you.
it's interesting to see what other think and how they deal with this subject.


elwd

masked elwood wrote:
i always write in 2 main categories. songs that will worked up by the band i'm in and songs that are just me. i don't cross the two up.
i find that works for me. on my own music i can write in any style and it sound like me, however i feel the band should have it's own personality.

these are wise words.

Its really difficult to find multiple people with the same musical vision, expectations and drive, and unless you operate on a collective level and write together with compromise as a fundamental groundrule, it causes BIG problems. Has done for years with me. Maybe I'm too egotistical.

And real life gets in the way.

Consequently, I record stuff on my own, but really enjoy playing live with other people. Main reason for this is that I cannot, CANNOT, sing (or do the S-thing as I describe it).

So, I limit myself to doing covers live (mostly) and my own stuff on my own (NOT covers!). People just don't want to listen to live instrumental shit where I live, otherwise I'd be doing that.

From my brief experience of being in a band for a few years, I think the hardest thing for us was simply finding time in the schedules of five different busy people to practice and play gigs and stuff. We didn't have a lot of conflicts regarding the direction of our music because we always viewed the band as the project of our singer/songwriter. We wrote our own parts to the songs he wrote, sure, and if one of us wrote a song of our own that worked with the band's style, we were cool with doing it, but for the most part we just left the songwriting to that one guy. Most of us weren't really into the style of music that we were playing (syd barrett-style psychadelic pop), but that worked nicely, because we all brought approached the music from a different angle, coming from different musical backgrounds. In the end, though, we broke up because he wanted to get more "serious" than we did, and because the struggle of trying to get our schedules to match up led him to decide he'd rather do solo stuff. That and the fact that he didn't want to share recognition with anyone else (ego maniac). He is now in a lou reed/david bowie style project where a band backs him up and he takes all of the credit for the music.