Beware the Micromanager Singer!

My band has two things going on. First, our band with our singer, and second, as a backing band to a singer who is really good but is a real prick to get along with. We played a show with him this weekend, and our band also opened for him. Practices with him have been super tense. For example on one song, he told our keyboardist at practice not to play. Then this weekend, during the middle of the song, he came and jumped onto her for not playing on that song. During one of our band's songs, he basically made our drummer quit playing and took over the drums (good, but that's not the point). He is arrogant, but has a fragile ego: we were supposed to open with ten songs. Five songs in (we were playing great), he stopped us and said we'd played enough, cutting our time and set in half. Our singer was naturally pissed off.

Anyway, we have a 4th of July gig with him, but after that, I just don't want to back the guy. He's got the ego of Hitler, the stage presence of a glam Vegas singer, and insecurities which he covers over by name dropping artists he claims to have worked with--I googled him and found that his claims have been discounted, sometimes by the artists themselves.

We're all just looking forward to playing our last gig with him.

So your desperate to work as a band? If not, I don't care how good he is tell him to hit the road. Find a singer that will join the band and be a band. Day one, no lead singer disease. If you have a lead guitarist who has LGD, confront them now and say it stops today. If not fire their ass find another and lay down the law. It's either one for all and all for one or it's a miserable pile of shit. If have one person in the band to says it's my band and we're going to do it this way. Fire there ass too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mikesr1963

So your desperate to work as a band? If not, I don't care how good he is tell him to hit the road. Find a singer that will join the band and be a band. Day one, no lead singer disease. If you have a lead guitarist who has LGD, confront them now and say it stops today. If not fire their ass find another and lay down the law. It's either one for all and all for one or it's a miserable pile of shit. If have one person in the band to says it's my band and we're going to do it this way. Fire there ass too.

---

You see, we have our own singer. We're just backing this guy. The others have said the 4th is our last gig with this jerk, so I'm hoping they'll stick to that.

Willie, LSD (Lead Singer Disease) is a problem in every band.

My advice: Shut up and play your guitar.

Take the money and smile. Pros don't care. We get paid to do a job.

As long as the guy has paying gigs and pays me I really don't give a rat's ass about his personality.

And that's why the I get lots of gigs. Don't take any of it personally. Show up ready to go and do what's asked of you. Once you make a name for yourself you can be more choosey about who you play with, but for now just ask yourself "what would a professional do?"

Trust me - elevate yourself above the groupthink and let the others piss and moan.

The internet is awash with "players" telling their story of how they left the band because everyone else was a douche.

Just play. It's just a job. Your life doesn't depend on it. Smile and take the cash.

Chuck

The thing is, we’ve got our own band and singer, and we have a great time. I’m not in it to play loads of gigs with other people. If it’s not fun, I don’t enjoy playing. I enjoy our band and our singer and had rather put all my energy into our band.

We're lucky to have a singer who is sweet and humble. There must be something wrong with him :hmm