Band Help
 

My friend and I recently began jamming together, and his brother and friend will be joining us. We're toying with the idea of starting a band, but we're not sure where we want to take it... any help?

If you want to take it anywhere, you have to consider every detail. You have to think this out, weigh the pros and cons, ask yourself if you want to work hard enough to even to take the first few steps on the road of musicians. Are you and your friends willing to accept the very slim chances of making it as musicians?

we don't really expect to get anywhere, this is just something we want to get into to play a few smaller venues locally and have fun, nothing serious. Keep in mind, I'm 14 and he's 15, his brother and friend are both 17.

Well, from expirence I can say keep your eyes open when it comes to venues and stuff. Even getting a gig at a cafe or old record store would be good. My advice for right now would to be just meet-up and keep jamming to work out any musical differences. Personally I'm still trying to get shit together with my band.

Good luck!

We don't know what genre we want to pursue, we've been looking at some punk sounds, but we always end up sounding more metal than we want to, so we might as well go down that path...

Just start playing and see what happens. Sometimes not totally agressing on everything makes a band great. Red Hot Chilli Peppers and mainly Flee and Anthony. Flee plays the slap bass, yet they are skate punk. It adds something to their sound.

Ah, why didn't you say so. Well, first comes practice, learn a few songs, perfect your act. Then, you host a show at a friends garage AFTER you perfect your act, inviting other bands to play at the show might be good as well. After a few shows, try to get a gig at a maybe a restraunt, or anywhere you can get one. After a while, you'll probably want to throw in some original tunes to spice things up.

So... cover songs at first?

Yes, cover songs, then when you're all nice and set write your own tunes.

Sounds good! We've already made Nirvana sound GOOD! We got the tabs for in Bloom, tuned them down, added more distortion and ripped it up, I added angry punk vocals and VOILA! Insta-kick ass!

Uh... no they're not?

And it's not like slap bass is genre specific.

They're Funk Rock, far as I know.

Slap Bass can be used in any genre from Blues to Jazz, Rock to Country.

Hey everyone!
Catch fails at music too!

Funk rock.
Psychedelic punk if it's their early stuff.

But Skate Punk?
Fuck off.

To the OP: Play a kind of music that doesn't suck.

Problem solved.

Damn.
I wouldn't even attempt to pigeon-hole or classify the Chilli Peppers at this point in their game.

Don't cover songs... at least not all the time. It is a good way to warm up, there are already too many cover bands in the world.

Ignore Catch.

ALWAYS ignore Catch.

This is true, it is far easier to get gigs if people are going to know the songs that you are playing. As things progress enter battle of the bands type things and play your own stuff and when you do get gigs add an original song or two, if people like your stuff then think about putting together an original set list.

Another bit of advice is to take advantage of non-paying gigs like open mike nights to get your name out there.

I don't know who CATCH is, but I would agree on not doing cover songs. Depending on the venue it could be a help or a hindrance, a lot of venues won't even allow you to play cover songs and for what you and your friends are trying to do it's probably not necessary.

The best route is to just play together for awhile a come up with a set of originals, let the stuff happen naturally. Bands that try too hard to fit into a specific genre always end up sounding contrived and totally unoriginal. Just have fun with it. If you want to make it into a "job" down the road you always can, but early on I'd just start out having fun.

Listen to this guy. He's Legit. Unlike catch.

Thats cause he was in Theatre of Ice. Which rules.

It does indeed!