Guitarology #15

Guitarology # 15

The Leader of the Pack

There are fundamentally three kinds of band situations. · 1 The, "All for one and one for all," real band. Practically an extinct species. · 2 The "Star" band, i.e. a bunch of guys hired by "the name", usually a singer. · 3 The “Benevolent Dictatorship”. The “Real Band” is my favorite, the way I'd like it to be. It is quite rare to find this situation past garage band level. It takes a unique combination of individuals and their willingness to be grown up and play the game properly. It's usually the frailties of human nature, insecurity, jealousy, greed, that causes it not to be fun and somebody or everybody quits. When it works however, it's brilliant. The most progress I ever made with a band was when four guys all actually went looking for what they could individually do to further the cause. The result was a natural division of labor with each finding some task that they were comfortable doing. With no reluctance to do the work the work gets done. I handled local and regional booking. Paul, the drummer, handled national and international booking. Bob, the bass player, handled accounts and got us the best deals when we assembled the PA. V Zed, the guitarist, came late to the game so was told he’d have to buy a share in the business if he wanted to join. He had to match what we had already invested. It was the best band he was ever likely to play with (or ever has played with for that matter) and he knew it. V Zed is a great guitar player, but useless at anything other than cars. Sort of the South Wales answer to Jeff Beck. V brought the readies and we made sure he did a lot of van driving and gear humping

I'd been doing everything myself for years, with nothing more than a lot of pub gigs to show for it. When this bit of chemistry happened, we made a really good record, went all across the UK and Europe, and became a serious band to be reckoned with. We became men making music not boys making noise. That was the secret. We at least made the attempt of behaving like men in what is a world predominantly mad up of people who play so they can stay adolescents.

The "Star" band is a trip. On the one hand it's playing for good pay and conditions. The pay and/or conditions may not seem fair relative to the money in the pot, but then it's not you the people are paying to see. In any event it will certainly always be a whole lot better than local bar gigs. These are very competitive places to get, so anybody who has the job doesn’t want to lose it. Unfortunately, there is a vast catalog of major artists who know this and choose to massage their fragile artistic egos by treating the band as peasants. They rule by fear and intimidation. The band ends up going through the motions, their hearts not into it. A grin and bear it mentality sets in which can be kind of soul destroying. Professional sidemen can be a little funny in the studio, as well. I like people to suggest and contribute. Sometimes these guys are so used to keeping their mouths shut it's like pulling teeth to get them to come out of themselves. The good news is, once the penny drops that they can get into the game, boy are they happy campers. You'll notice the truly great artists have great bands and they have the same guys for ages. BB King's band I think average 15 years each. Bryan Adams has had the same band for twenty some odd. I believe most of Elton John’s band has been with him for ages.

Finally the “benevolent dictatorship” which is basically, "Look somebody's got to lead this bunch. I'm the songwriter, the guy who asked people to join and got us all into this mess, and I'm probably doing more work than anybody else so ultimately I'm stuck with making final decisions. Problem is I can't do it on my own, so I need everyone to want to, and feel free to, contribute.” This is not the ideal solution, but I think now days the most practical in most cases.

The benevolent dictator takes on a disproportionate amount of expense and effort. They deserve to be compensated accordingly. Since this is not an artist's corporation hiring staff, but more a profit sharing co-operative, it should be a clear fundamental ground rule that the leader is wearing a second hat which demands extra time and money. They should be compensated as if they were doing two jobs. It is vital that it be made clear from the start. Otherwise the person doing the most work will get the least amount of reward or if he simply compensates himself unilaterally the others will be resentful and eventually revolt. The key is balance. Also balance in artistic matters. It is equally important that band members feel able to contribute musically, but are happy that they are contributors to another artist's vision. If they are connecting with that vision and feel part of it, the whole becomes greater than the sum if it's parts, and so magic is created. And ain't that why we came to the party?

C 2006 Steve Power

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