Problems with band member

[bostjan]

What are the odds on no one showing up for rehearsal?

Ha ha, happened to me before.

A band I was in years ago had a problem with the bass player, who wasn't learning songs or showing up to rehearsals. Everyone talked to each other on the side and decided to fire him at the next rehearsal, but no one wanted to actually be the one to fire him. No one showed up for practice except the bass player, who was so mad that he made the effort to show and no one else did, that he quit. Problem solved, I guess?

 

[Xaios]

I demand a livestream.

 

[DiezelMonster]

Wow we are on the 6th page of this?

Good luck guys, Get her outta there!

 

[LostTheTone]

Ha ha, happened to me before.

A band I was in years ago had a problem with the bass player, who wasn't learning songs or showing up to rehearsals. Everyone talked to each other on the side and decided to fire him at the next rehearsal, but no one wanted to actually be the one to fire him. No one showed up for practice except the bass player, who was so mad that he made the effort to show and no one else did, that he quit. Problem solved, I guess?

I can see it now...

Rehearsal studio owner: "Hey are you Dave?"
Bassist: "Yeah"
Rehearsal studio owner: "Someone left a message for you..." *pats pockets, and pulls out a post it* "You're fired."
Bassist: "What?"
Rehearsal studio owner: "Sorry dude. Anyway... Have a good practise, just drop me the cash when you leave..."

 

[Riffer]

Well.......

Had to cancel rehearsal last night because our drummer got Covid

Once he is good to go and clear of Covid the conversation will happen. We thought about doing a Zoom meeting but we really think it needs to be in person and not a virtual thing.

 

[ArtDecade]

Well.......

Had to cancel rehearsal last night because our drummer got Covid

Once he is good to go and clear of Covid the conversation will happen. We thought about doing a Zoom meeting but we really think it needs to be in person and not a virtual thing.

This thread will never end.

 

[Xaios]

Had to cancel rehearsal last night because our drummer got Covid

Regardless of present band situation, that sucks. Wishing him a speedy recovery.

 

[bostjan]

Well.......

Had to cancel rehearsal last night because our drummer got Covid

Once he is good to go and clear of Covid the conversation will happen. We thought about doing a Zoom meeting but we really think it needs to be in person and not a virtual thing.

I hope your drummer has a speedy recovery.

 

[fantom]

Thanks for all the responses. I know it seems very cut and dry, and to me it is, but a few members of the band want to give her an ultimatum before we make a decision. Basically see how she reacts when confronted and base our decision on that. I just don't think she will see what our problems are and will probably deflect and not take any responsibility

As someone else pointed out, this is a far bigger problem than your singer. It sounds to me like your band never had a serious conversation about values, responsibilities, decision making, and goals. This is pretty common stuff for teamwork to be effective. The number of times I hear "alignment" in work conversations is surprisingly high for a reason. People are hard. Working with people who aren't on the same page is a recipe for disaster. If you can't even agree on the criteria you use for decision making, you are going to be in an endless loop of "what if".

We are planning to have the talk/meeting before a gig (wedding) we have on Sunday up in New York. Not ideal, but if we keep pushing it off it'll just get harder to do. I'm actually going to take some of the replies I've seen here and bring them to the other members of the band for consideration. There are some that I think are good advice and come from a different perspective which is always good to have. At the end of the day though, this is a business and should be treated as such. Thanks again for any/all advice, opinions, thoughts, and jabs/jokes lol. I appreciate the responses.

At the rate you are going, you better be ready to be an instrumental band so you don't ruin your reputation. I saw later that you realized this was a bad idea... But wow.

Well.......

Had to cancel rehearsal last night because our drummer got Covid

Once he is good to go and clear of Covid the conversation will happen. We thought about doing a Zoom meeting but we really think it needs to be in person and not a virtual thing.

Well now you have a really good talking point for why the band requires every member to get vaccinated.

 

[metallicity]

Wishing your drummer a 100% recovery.

 

[LostTheTone]

As someone else pointed out, this is a far bigger problem than your singer. It sounds to me like your band never had a serious conversation about values, responsibilities, decision making, and goals. This is pretty common stuff for teamwork to be effective. The number of times I hear "alignment" in work conversations is surprisingly high for a reason. People are hard. Working with people who aren't on the same page is a recipe for disaster. If you can't even agree on the criteria you use for decision making, you are going to be in an endless loop of "what if".

There's no need to dress it up in such high minded terms, IMHO.

You don't need to have agreed upon values to play some gigs, make a few bucks and have a good time. And if someone is preventing the playing of gigs, making of bucks or having of good times, then can fuck right off.

Much like you, I hear this shit at work every damn day. And this results in endless conversations about making plans, or developing a strategy for the making of plans, or the implementation of principles for the development of strategies for the making of plans. And it's pointless, and it leads to meetings about other meetings.

The problem the OP and the band are having is not that they are insufficiently corporate; it's that they are (understandably) not inclined to having awkward and painful confrontations with someone who might well scream, claw, cry or start slapping people upside the dick. This is normal.

You don't need values or decision making criteria. You just need to bite the bullet and do something unpleasant.

 

[fantom]

There's no need to dress it up in such high minded terms, IMHO.

You don't need to have agreed upon values to play some gigs, make a few bucks and have a good time. And if someone is preventing the playing of gigs, making of bucks or having of good times, then can fuck right off.

Much like you, I hear this shit at work every damn day. And this results in endless conversations about making plans, or developing a strategy for the making of plans, or the implementation of principles for the development of strategies for the making of plans. And it's pointless, and it leads to meetings about other meetings.

The problem the OP and the band are having is not that they are insufficiently corporate; it's that they are (understandably) not inclined to having awkward and painful confrontations with someone who might well scream, claw, cry or start slapping people upside the dick. This is normal.

You don't need values or decision making criteria. You just need to bite the bullet and do something unpleasant.

I agree to a point. Ignoring the corporate parts of things, there is value in discussing why people don't agree on whether or not a singer should be fired independent of the singer. If someone thinks the band needs her stage presence, social network, business relationships, etc., The band can have a serious discussion about what they want out of her or a new band member. If they want to be just a party band, they probably wouldn't be taking paying gigs and annoyed that the singer isn't vaccinated when they can't make it. So ya, I agree that bands should be fun, but eventually you either become more professional or break up.

The problem right now is you have someone complaining that a band member is going to the beach on weekends, or doing karaoke with friends. He clearly doesn't understand which qualities of a band member are worth focusing on. But perhaps a conversation with band members will show that her taking care of her voice or fixing her car are values that they can't let go. If having a psuedo corpspeak conversation helps them figure out exactly why each other don't agree on what to do about it, it will end better than her staying or getting fired and people resenting the situation.

 

[Emperoff]

Well.......

Had to cancel rehearsal last night because our drummer got Covid

Once he is good to go and clear of Covid the conversation will happen. We thought about doing a Zoom meeting but we really think it needs to be in person and not a virtual thing.

Wish your drummer a 100% recovery as well. I went through that shit too.

 

[mmr007]

I honestly put less time and thought into divorcing my wife and we had three kids, a house and 4 cars together and she was super hot and swallowed my balls every night so I'm not sure I understand what kinda hold this singer has on your bandmates that you guys can't just dump this chick.

Sorry about your drummer....at least he'll have some natural immunity now. I had to get the synthetic vaccine with government tracker. It's not so bad. The black Tahoes with tinted windows don't follow me as much as I thought and if the Jewish space lasers malfunction allowing aliens to get past our defense forces and I get abducted, al least the feds will be the first to know and save me before I get anally probed. I gotta go....Q just posted

 

[LostTheTone]

I agree to a point. Ignoring the corporate parts of things, there is value in discussing why people don't agree on whether or not a singer should be fired independent of the singer. If someone thinks the band needs her stage presence, social network, business relationships, etc., The band can have a serious discussion about what they want out of her or a new band member. If they want to be just a party band, they probably wouldn't be taking paying gigs and annoyed that the singer isn't vaccinated when they can't make it. So ya, I agree that bands should be fun, but eventually you either become more professional or break up.

The problem right now is you have someone complaining that a band member is going to the beach on weekends, or doing karaoke with friends. He clearly doesn't understand which qualities of a band member are worth focusing on. But perhaps a conversation with band members will show that her taking care of her voice or fixing her car are values that they can't let go. If having a psuedo corpspeak conversation helps them figure out exactly why each other don't agree on what to do about it, it will end better than her staying or getting fired and people resenting the situation.

Thing is... If the singer is getting you gigs then you have to take the rough with the smooth. She's annoying but she's making you money, so whatever. But that's not been the context of this discussion at all.

She's a pain in the arse. Sure, if she's the reason you make money then that's worth a pain in the arse, but as far as we know she's not. QED.

 

[Calibix]

I know this is kind of a necro, but I really need to know what went down with this chick for my sanity.

 

[Riffer]

I know this is kind of a necro, but I really need to know what went down with this chick for my sanity.

I was wondering if someone would post and ask what happened lol....



So we had the meeting at rehearsal a week and a half ago. A few things happened between my last post about it here and the actual meeting. First thing is that my drummer got through his COVID sickness and is feeling all better now. Thanks for the well wishes about that from everyone. Next thing was that her attitude was still shitty and she was putting in very little effort during gigs. We played a wedding and AGAIN she did not use her in ear monitors and instead would lean out a little past the front of the playing area and try to use the sound coming from the mains for her reference for her key or what have you. She couldn’t hear the guitar in one song and was taking forever to come in with her vocal parts. I turned to her and point to my in ears, then to her ears, and said “where are your in ear monitors?” She just gave me a death stare like how dare I even say that to her. Also she again didn’t want to stick to our setlist that we designed during the wedding and it completely killed the dance floor 3 different times.


So we schedule rehearsal and run through a few songs for upcoming gigs. Then we discuss some band business and then I just start the convo about her in ear monitors because I need answers. I was very calm and just asked again why she isn’t using them. She goes “they don’t work”. So I ask for her to explain if she means they don’t work because they are actually broken or if “they don’t work” means she can’t get them to sound good. She says they keep cutting signal in and out. I tell her either way she needs to go buy another pair because we are not going back to stage wedges for monitors and she can not try and use the main speakers as reference. She just had no response to that.


Our bass player chimes in and is basically echoing what I’m saying. All in a very business like way. Not being attacking or passive aggressive or anything. We ask her if she has anything she wants to talk about and she says she had a list of stuff written down but forgot the list at home. She says she didn’t feel like we “supported” her this past summer because we didn’t give her rides to gigs when her car was busted. But the reason we didn’t give her rides is because she’s the only person in the band to not be vaccinated and she was going out like there wasn’t a pandemic happening the whole time. We told her numerous times that if she got the vaccine we would be more open to helping her with rides. So her saying we didn’t support her was a bullshit call.


That’s pretty much when our keyboardist was just flat out tired of her attitude and basically told her that he wants to talk about specifics. So he brought up how she’s killed shows by deviating for our set list, she doesn’t want to put in the work to progress with the rest of us with learning new songs, phones it in at gigs, has no concept of sound equipment but then wants to critique the sound, is nowhere to be found when we need to sound check, and basically all the stuff I’ve mentioned in this thread.


She didn’t say too much and just stood there and looked at her phone a bit and every once in a while would react to something we said with a “well, that’s not how I see it” but refused to elaborate or explain why she felt that way. At the end of the night we basically said this is the way the band is headed so if you want to do this and put in the work then lets fucking go, if not, then we need to figure out a way to part ways that is good for both parties. They keyboardist was a little more blunt and said “if you don’t want to do this then leave” hahaha.


Since that meeting we’ve played 3 gigs. We didn’t allow her to deviate from the set at a wedding we did and the dance floor was packed all night because we know how to structure the set. She is still phoning it in at gigs though, was sitting in her car when we were trying to sound check, cancelled a rehearsal because she wanted to see her nephew when she knows we have songs to learn for a wedding coming up and the rehearsal has been on the calendar for a month already, didn’t plug her mic in during a wedding so when we are sound checking she’s all confused as to why her voice isn’t coming through the speakers and get’s pissed that nobody did it for her. We had a rehearsal last Thursday and she was even phoning it in there. She was not really singing it the way she would sing it at a gig. She was just using falsetto the whole time and just mumbling through the words. We’ve always said that you practice at home and rehearsal sound be where you get it tight with the band. You shouldn’t be learning the words AT rehearsal. Between songs at rehearsal we would be discussing maybe arrangement ideas or saying hey lets run the 2nd chorus into the bridge to get down the transitions and she wouldn’t even chime in with anything.


So basically we told her our problems at that initial meeting and she really didn’t change all that much when given the ultimatum of putting in the work or parting ways. We are already talking to a few other singers to help us out if we have to quickly can her or if she just says “I’m done”. We are prepared. The only good thing that happened was that she actually got her 1st shot of the vaccine. But I wonder how much of that was us telling her she should, or if she just did it because she wants to go to some concerts and they are requiring proof of vaccination at some places. She definitely cares about having fun over doing it for the safety of others I would say.


It’s going about how I thought it would go. She felt attacked and that she didn’t do anything bad/wrong and we are ganging up on her and had no real explanation for anything. We are waiting for her to show us this list of stuff she wants to talk about but I think it’s 1 of 2 things. There is no list because who doesn’t write a list on their god damn phone or 2 there is a list but it’s all emotional things like the “You guys don’t support me when I need a ride” stuff instead of what we are bringing up which is more of “You aren’t following the plan we have for this band and it’s making our gigs difficult and you don’t understand logistics and how to lead a band”.


Anyway, if you read all that incoherent gibberish, I hope it made some sort of sense. Obviously there are some nuances that can’t be understood over text and in the moment it’s a different vibe and I’m sure I’m forgetting some details but the majority of it is there.

 

[chipchappy]

update

FIrst off, your keyboardist sounds like a real-ass dude. Props to him.

Second, if you've had the 'talk' and shes not willing to improve, I'd just fire her. I know you have gigs and you guys are busy, but I wouldn't even give her much longer to provide some list or something. People like that don't change. Find another singer, make sure they're on the same page as you, move on.

 

[Riffer]

FIrst off, your keyboardist sounds like a real-ass dude. Props to him.

Second, if you've had the 'talk' and shes not willing to improve, I'd just fire her. I know you have gigs and you guys are busy, but I wouldn't even give her much longer to provide some list or something. People like that don't change. Find another singer, make sure they're on the same page as you, move on.

Oh for sure. He's a no nonsense type of guy when it comes to this stuff. He sees a problem and then tries to figure out how to fix it logically. Problem is we just let it go for too long before addressing it so now he lets it out all at once. I back him 100% though.

We are already making steps to cover our ass if we need to get rid of her quickly. I think the only reason we haven't done it yet is because the other guitar player and bass player were nervous/anxious about just getting rid of her before the meeting and wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and maybe she would step up to the plate and we could hash it all out. But now that she's not even participating in the conversation and has not changed their behavior, they are at their wits end and are getting fed up like me and the keyboardist. We have 2 weddings this weekend so we shall see how it goes but it looks like the writing is on the wall.

 

[MFB]

[...] wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and maybe she would step up to the plate and we could hash it all out.

*re-reads rest of the thread*

...Did they forget who they were dealing with this whole time?