Determining Songwriting Credits

[rangefinder]

So after a couple of auditions with a local rock/metal band that wants to do originals and needs a singer/songwriter front man, they gave me a bunch of songs to work on.

They consist of the drummer basically shouting lyrics over backing tracks - no discernable melody. The lyrics are rough, to put it nicely. So rough that I've basically tossed them all, which may or may not be a great idea, but that's a different topic.

So, if I move forward with this project at all, we're going to end up with at least some of the songs which will have lyrics and melody 100% written by me, with instrumentation by the rest of the band, loosely tied to the original subject of the song - pretty much just the title - since the subject fit well with the actual music.

My question is, if everything works out between myself and the band, what should my position be as far as songwriting credit? This isn't completely theoretical because 1.) they want to do a CD sooner rather than later, and 2.) songwriting royalties are often the only money anyone ever sees out of these sorts of projects.

There seem to be different valid approaches here, which include:

A) I should take sole credit. I wrote the lyrics and melody, and legally, that's the "song". 

B) The drummer should get half-credit. He got the damn things started, and that counts for something.

C) Everyone in the band should get joint credit, because that's what bands do.

It might seem like I'm jumping the gun here, but I want to get my head around this issue now, because songwriting credits seem to be a huge point of contention in original bands.

Any thoughts or experiences?

[TIMKEYS]

To be honest, I think your best bet is to just go equal as a band, since the odds of it ever going anywhere are slim to none.  It keeps it simple.  What it sounds like you are really doing is starting from scratch anyway.  Thats my take on it.  I play for a songwriter and I fully understand how hard the deck is stacked against hitting the home run.  

[Vito Corleone]

Lyrics and melody alone aren't the song. The chord changes are the song also. And since they came first in this case they almost certainly are part of the song also

 

I would just let the band assign songwriting credits however they planned to before your additions and make sure you get credit also.

 

It's certainly not something that's worth rustling any feathers over. After your first platinum record, THEN maybe you can start arguing over who gets how much of a cut. .

[tim_7string]

Songwriting as I understand it has been defined as lyrics, melodies and chord structure. If you can present it somehow using an acoustic guitar/vocal or piano/vocal, it's a song. If the drummer wrote the chord structure for each song, wrote the lyrics (but you refined them, adding your own lyrical input), then added vocal melodies to tie it all together, I would say you would get 50/50 credit. Of course, everyone in the band should agree with the terms before starting or it could cause problems down the road.

[wesg]

It's sometimes more complicated than that. Matthew Fisher had to go to court to get songwriting credit for the organ part of "A Whiter Shade of Pale". And they only awarded him royalties going forward from 2005 or so..So he's missed out on a coupla bucks. I think Gary Brooker was kind of a dick on that one.

[Lee Knight]

Wow. It's a collaboration or it isn't. If you wanna write some songs, then do so. If you're stepping off someone's ideas.... It's a collab. It's simple. Be real.

 

So why are are you stepping off if it's so crap?