The Hard Questions You Must Ask

"Who Are You?" is more than just a Who song - it's a question you need to ask yourself as you pursue a life of music

By the Gig Kahuna

Before setting out to be a musician, whether as in a band or a solo artist, it’s a good idea to ask yourself why exactly you want to do so. Honesty is very important here. Of course, different people want to get in the music scene for different reasons. Maybe you want to be a weekend warrior. Maybe you’d be happy being a big fish in a small pond. Maybe you want to go all the way to “superstardom.” Maybe you’d like to work as a “hired gun,” or session musician.

You will also need to ask yourself what style of music do you want to play, what audience do you want to reach, etc. Do you want to go for commercial appeal, artistic integrity, or some combination of both? Then you have to ask yourself how seriously you want to go for your dream. Are you willing, ready and able to make a serious go at it?

All this can be a little trickier than you might think. There is nothing wrong with whatever reason you choose to play, but you need to give it some serious thought, if you haven’t already. Once you’ve established what direction you want to go and set some goals, you then need to find like-minded people to work with, which can be, and often is, very hard.

Ideally, a band should have each member doing something for the cause other than just showing up to play. But as we all know, the world is far from ideal. Seems like almost every band has at least one slack-ass who holds up the rest of the band. On the flip side, most bands have one or two members who do the majority of the planning, promoting, etc.

If your band has one or more members who make the rest of the band carry his or her weight, you basically have an engine that’s not firing on all cylinders. If you’re serious about your band, you need that engine firing on all cylinders.

There’s a saying in the music scene: Sooner or later, you have to kick your brother out of the band. In other words, it can be very hard to give a good friend, relative, or whoever, the boot when that person is simply not cutting it. But if you’re not in the loop, you might just have to tolerate any slack-asses, or other problem members in the band to get in the game, get in the loop and replace them later once you’re in.

Another question that requires total honesty is how strong is your material. Honestly. Do people scream and cheer when you play, or do they head to the bar to order drinks? Do they bop their head, or do they scratch their head? Is the majority of the crowd standing outside during your set, waiting for the band they came to see to go on?

If a considerable amount of time has gone by and your turnouts are still weak, or responses to your songs are less than stellar, you might want to take a long, hard look at your material. If you were in the restaurant business and served crappy food, you would fail. The same holds true in the music industry. Without good, strong material, you will not be successful.

Predictable response from “Brotha Integrity” in three… two… one… “Why does it always have to be that same old verse-chorus thing? I’m gonna break the rules! This is my art and nobody tells me how to do my art!”

While of course there's nothing wrong with wanting to do something off the beaten path, you’ll more than likely fail with that. To reach people in general, you have to give them something they can grasp onto, like good structuring, solid hooks, choruses they can sing, etc. While a whole book could be written on this topic alone, the debate over commercial appeal vs. artistic integrity will probably rage on forever. But many will agree on some combination of both.

The main point here is you might end up having to face the fact that your material just plain sucks, which isn’t going to be easy. Chances are you’ll listen to your current material sometime down the road (way down the road) and wonder “what was I thinking?” But by then it will be too late.

How is the morale of your band? It’s very important that each member feels good about the band and the direction it’s going. If this isn’t the case with your band, you have another serious problem.

Never forget you are a business as much as a musician, and management incompetence is by far the biggest reason businesses fail. As with any business, but especially the music business, too many people think being in a band is nothing but a party. Too many people only want to do what is fun and easy—but not what is hard and necessary. 

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David Himes is the author of the book Realities for Local Bands: Talent is not Enough. You can find it at Amazon. For a FREE sneak preview, click here. The book is also available in PDF format. Also, David published a local music scene paper for over 16 years and has held over 400 live shows, giving him a unique insight on the scene. Your feedback and comments are welcome.