Rock and Roll Band – Easier the second time around
If you want to start a band, relive your first days of life without worries. A time when you had an unlimited amount of free time, you didn’t particularly care where your next meal would come from or how much money you had in your pocket. You had a lover named music. It was something you dreamed of that would bring you fame, fortune, and popularity. All you had to do was everything your friends told you to do, and most of all, have a little luck. Oh yeah, the late nights, the parties, the notoriety of being in a band, your next gig, chasing the elusive dream, an actual record deal.
Now, after a few years, you may have played in a band to help raise money for college or skipped college to continue your musical journey. In any case, you are fast approaching a point in your life, oh no, not 25? That’s when I sat down and analyzed life with what little knowledge I had of the world at the time and thought there must be a way to make more money doing something I could tolerate along with my music. Well, it happened; I started a job, enjoyed it, enjoyed the people, and started getting raises and a promotion for what I felt was fun to do. Looking back, he was really good at it.
Well, the next logical step in a young man’s life is to have a steady girlfriend with whom he can go places and do things because now he has money, real vacations. Obviously this is great, but it leads to love that leads to marriage, which leads to children, which means you put your music aside. You’ll probably take it out of the closet, tune it up, and play it for as long as you can remember the chords or your fingers start to hurt. You promise that one day you will return.
Fast forward maybe 15 years. Your kids have reached the age where they don’t need you for their transportation or daily entertainment, the wife has returned to her career or just likes to fix the house and you have plenty of time. Your run was successful and you are on cruise control. So you go to the music store to see what has changed over the years… a lot! The only thing left is the passion you have for playing music; there are still the same guitars and amps, albeit much more expensive than you might think, and effects that will produce just about any sound you want. So you pick up some new strings, a new tuner, and an amp. Must have tubes. What you will soon realize is that how you got your Marshall Super Lead 100 with 2 4X12 cabinets up to 8 will forever remain a mystery. Actually, a simple 50 watt or 2 X 12 amp will give you all the power you need, and most importantly, it’s much easier to transport.
Now you need friends: a drummer, a bassist, another guitar or keyboard, a singer, or instruments that provide the sound of the style you want to evolve into. After trying lots of different guys (it gets boring) and finding the ones who like the same music as you, are at your level of talent, want the same things you do in music, are committed to playing, and you can get along the magic returns! You have a band, nothing better! I’ve been playing with the same guys for 3 years and I can still tell you that we all look forward to practicing every week, we have a democratic way of choosing songs so we can all play some of the ones we like (some are really weird), and since there’s no egos, no attitudes because we live them, we just play, laugh and really enjoy making music with our friends. We play about 5 or 6 times a year and our friends and family come to enjoy and most of them can’t believe we can still play really well. It’s very special now and much easier the second time around because we know Nashville isn’t looking for us, but…would they be impressed!