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Say at this moment you don’t have a band together, but you really want to pull this band thing off. What do you do? Take a moment to envision what kind of band you want to have. Think of the different parts you want to have in a song. Do you want two guitars or just one? Do you want keyboards, a DJ, percussion, trombone? These days, the easiest thing to find is guitar players. Take a look at a Guitar Center, or a Sam Ash and you will see how the breakdown goes. Pretty much you can break it down by square foot in these stores. Tons of guitars, then basses, then drums, then keyboards. The DJ section is a little harder to gauge, but the DJ that want to join a rock band are a little slim. No trumpets, no sax, no school band gear in general. So if you are in the ska genera, make sure you hit up the smaller music stores in your area that carry the brass and woodwinds.


So we have the breakdown. Hopefully, you are in one of the hard to find categories of musicians. It will make finding the whole band easier. If not, start with a few basic steps: Post on bulletin boards in music stores. Ask your friends. Hop on Craigslist.org and put a bulletin up at least once a week till the spot is filled. This is the hard part…you have to have tryouts for these spots. As part of the tryout you have to hang out with them. If you have friends that play instruments, start with them. You know you like them already. Having a band is like marrying five people. You can’t do it yourself, so check your ego at the door. Be careful about other people and their egos as well. There is a balance in a band, you have to have leadership, but everyone has to have some say in decisions. Everyone has an ego and to some degree its a good thing. Imagine a front man that is super shy on stage…Shitty show! So you want someone with enough ego to put on a killer show, but not so much that they kill the band.


Cut your losses! If you have a rehearsal with a new member for instance, and he has no mojo. I’ve been there a million times. You jam with someone and it seem like they are playing a different song than you are. In my mind I always think WTF is this guy thinking…is he really playing this and thinking its good? Keep them as friends, or not, but don’t have them in your band just to have someone there. It will never work plus its harder to get rid of someone after a few months than a few days. Hell, I’ve had my family giving me shit about letting a band member go because “He’s nice”. I don’t give a shit about that. If there is no mojo, there is no mojo. Pay attention to the all technique guy as well. Its great to be a great player, but if you have no heart for music, you’ll never write a great song. In fact, usually the songs end up sounding like whatever they just heard on the radio, or worse, it could sound like one of your songs you are working on. Ok, as much as I won’t be in a cover band, I still have to go into it. Especially at this point. If you are getting a cover band together…get the all technique guy. Get the guy with not an original musical thought in his mind. These guys will nail the songs exactly like the original artists. They will be happy about learning new songs that everyone knows and enjoy it much more than the guy who hate tab and only sort of learns cover songs. If you guys can hone in on an artist, you can really make a ton of money in a tribute band.


Back to original bands. So you get the basics of your band and now you can get at least basic parts together on some songs. Nice! It gets easier to do tryouts the more complete you are as a band. Try to get at least a few songs down with the members you have. If you take this step it will easier to compare the different musicians you are trying out. Remember the guy who learns the parts the fastest isn’t always the guy with the most mojo. Get the guy with the most mojo. Even if you write all of the chords of a song, a drummer or bass player can still make the song. Think of it like building a nice house. You are letting someone else decorate it and do the landscaping. Ugly wall paper can kill a beautiful house. Don’t let your house be too plain either, style is mojo.


Ok, you have everyone you need to play the parts. Great! But you still have one last piece to the band puzzle. How do they look on stage? A great player may do a horrible job on stage. If it looks like you are practicing on stage you won’t be doing a very good job performing. Record a rehearsal or two if you have a camera and play the rehearsal like you are playing a show. If after practicing like you are performing and you still have guys who can’t put on a good live show…cut your losses or get them on the ball and really really work with them. At the end of the day, if they can’t do it, they’ll never get it. Most of the time the performer is in you or not.




Good luck and happy hunting!


As always, questions, comments, concerns…hit me up!


Jeremy Gift


Free musician