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Starting a Band - The Music Directory
Starting a band
Don’t even think about starting a band unless you don’t mind hard work. No band has had it easy. Even U2 had to put in the hours at some point. Depending on how serious you want to be about your music and how far you realistically think you can go depends on the amount of time and effort you need to invest. Without commitment, you might as well just go and get a job somewhere and be content with pushing a pen and some paper around a desk all day.
Please please please do not try and sound like your favourite band from five years ago. While it might seem like an easy option, and people will always have something to compare you with, you will never amount to much more than just a second-rate tribute band, or even worse. You will not be the new Oasis. They have been, and gone, and come back a bit, then gone again, then are kind of back again. But it’s been done. Five years ago too; the world, let alone the music industry, doesn’t stand still for anyone. Sure, your influences should form an important part of your creative output, and its great if you can fit that into your music, just be aware where to draw the line. Just try and get to number one with a single called “don’t look back in angst” and see how far you get.
Listen to as much music as you can, so you can understand what is current (and maybe the future) and what is not. Putting in the listening hours now will save you hours if not days later on down the line. If you have even a vague idea of what you want to achieve before you get anywhere near a rehearsal room or a studio then it will make it much easier for everyone. It might take a few weeks before you finally achieve the sound you wanted, but it will have been worth it, and without having had that to aim for, you could still be there months down the line.
The name of the band is not all that important either. Spend less time thinking about that and more time thinking about the songs. You could be called something terrible like “the tablespoons” (“the pigeon detectives” (sic)) but if you have killer songs then no one will care that you have arguably the worst name ever, they will be too busy gyrating wildly to your music. There is always time to change a name too, really anytime before you release anything the name can still be changed with no drastic effect.
Also, when starting a band, have a singer who can actually sing.
Don’t even think about starting a band unless you don’t mind hard work. No band has had it easy. Even U2 had to put in the hours at some point. Depending on how serious you want to be about your music and how far you realistically think you can go depends on the amount of time and effort you need to invest. Without commitment, you might as well just go and get a job somewhere and be content with pushing a pen and some paper around a desk all day.
Please please please do not try and sound like your favourite band from five years ago. While it might seem like an easy option, and people will always have something to compare you with, you will never amount to much more than just a second-rate tribute band, or even worse. You will not be the new Oasis. They have been, and gone, and come back a bit, then gone again, then are kind of back again. But it’s been done. Five years ago too; the world, let alone the music industry, doesn’t stand still for anyone. Sure, your influences should form an important part of your creative output, and its great if you can fit that into your music, just be aware where to draw the line. Just try and get to number one with a single called “don’t look back in angst” and see how far you get.
Listen to as much music as you can, so you can understand what is current (and maybe the future) and what is not. Putting in the listening hours now will save you hours if not days later on down the line. If you have even a vague idea of what you want to achieve before you get anywhere near a rehearsal room or a studio then it will make it much easier for everyone. It might take a few weeks before you finally achieve the sound you wanted, but it will have been worth it, and without having had that to aim for, you could still be there months down the line.
The name of the band is not all that important either. Spend less time thinking about that and more time thinking about the songs. You could be called something terrible like “the tablespoons” (“the pigeon detectives” (sic)) but if you have killer songs then no one will care that you have arguably the worst name ever, they will be too busy gyrating wildly to your music. There is always time to change a name too, really anytime before you release anything the name can still be changed with no drastic effect.
Also, when starting a band, have a singer who can actually sing.