Getting back into it after a ten year hiatus

DrJazzTap

One of my resolutions is to get back into gigging. I stopped at the ripe old age of 29 thinking "sod this for a game of soliders".

I've long come out of a toxic relationship and have a job which is now literally a ten minute drive away. I have become the cliche of the ex gigging musician (giant pedal board, flamey prs etc)
So no more excuses, I do miss playing but not the looking after man baby bit.

I can't be the only one whose gone back into it after such an absence. I'm not sure what i want to play. For some reason I've been playing a lot of the stuff of my youth (grunge) I'm thinking a quirky covers band. 

Roland

There’s a lot of us have come back to playing live. My experience is that you have to work hard at finding the right musicians. You have to sort through a lot of no-hopers. It took me a couple of years, with false starts and disappointments along the way. If you’re clear about your expectations, music styles, how many gigs, who controls the band etc, then you’ll get there.

There are places to look for musicians. Ads in music shops have been taken over by websites. Musicradar did an article that list a few https://www.musicradar.com/how-to/the-best-sites-for-finding-musicians-and-band-members.  

DrJazzTap

Thanks, if I'm being honest it's the slog with time wasters and all that.
I'm not expecting to be the next big thing. But finding like minded individuals takes time. I'll check that link out cheers 

midlifecrisis

i stopped playing at about 20, taking it up again nearly 30 years later. most enjoyable playing time of my life. Im in a dodgy coversband, gigging nearly every week. go for it, enjoy meeting the weirdos and timewasters and hopefully youl meet the right people and have fun.

p90fool

Find a singer, don't even think about wasting your time with anyone else until you have one. 
When you do, the other musicians will find you. 

Go to open mics, charity gigs, local free festivals and talk to anyone who sounds half decent. 

horse

I had a break from around age 24-38, and I've just turned 45.

My advice is keep an open mind on what you might enjoy - I've preferred to be involved in good quality stuff even if it hasn't been my preferred genre, or in one case much more commercial than my own tastes. I've also enjoyed being in a couple of tributes, which I hadnt expected, but adds variety alongside originals.

horse

Thinking about it, I switched instruments to find my way into better quality opportunities. In my late teens / early 20s I was always on guitar, but all my gigs in recent years have been keyboards or accordion (and a little filling in on bass).

sw67

I got back into playing live at 48 after a 24 year gap. The band I joined was a complete car crash with no gigs , a shite singer and a controlling guitarist but after they left we ended up with a good solid 4 piece band with the bass player being the only one left when I joined. It was hard work but we are now fully booked every year just doing local gigs. We are not the best musicians but are greater than the sum of our parts and good mates that get on 

jeztone2

I quit at 24. Got back into it at 32. It took time. I think if your looking at being in a covers band it might be an easier thing than an originals band in your 40’s. Just numbers I suppose. But I was bandless between 2011 & 2015. I had a 4 year period of just meeting idiots. Either controlling types or just insecure idiots. But I think you find that with any creative interest. The last two bands I’ve been in I’ve made lifelong friends. So it’s not all bad. 

octatonic

p90fool said:

Find a singer, don't even think about wasting your time with anyone else until you have one. 
When you do, the other musicians will find you. 

Go to open mics, charity gigs, local free festivals and talk to anyone who sounds half decent. 

Agree 100%.
Without a vocalist who can sing in key and have a degree of stage presence it is a frustrating experience from beginning to end.
Also, a drummer who is reliable and not in a billion other bands.

Musicwolf

octatonic said:

p90fool said:

Find a singer, don't even think about wasting your time with anyone else until you have one. 
When you do, the other musicians will find you. 

Go to open mics, charity gigs, local free festivals and talk to anyone who sounds half decent. 

Agree 100%.
Without a vocalist who can sing in key and have a degree of stage presence it is a frustrating experience from beginning to end.
Also, a drummer who is reliable and not in a billion other bands.

Without the vocalist in place you will be treading water as the vocalist has the greatest say in selecting the set list / picking the key.

 Common goals when it comes to how often you want to gig are vital.  If you are looking for once per month for fun but the bass player requires 3 nights per week min to pay his mortgage then it won't work.

Similarly availability.  I've wasted the best part of a year trying to get a band going where people have too many outside commitments for us ever to get together.  The same goes for yourself.  If you haven't been playing in a band for a while then you'll have filled your life up with other stuff.  It may be that Thursday nights are free for you except for once a month when you go out with the guys from work - well that's probably not going to work.  You're looking to take up a new, team, activity so something else is will have to be dropped or de-prioritised,  Same goes for all band.

Lestratcaster

Musicwolf said:

octatonic said:

p90fool said:

Find a singer, don't even think about wasting your time with anyone else until you have one. 
When you do, the other musicians will find you. 

Go to open mics, charity gigs, local free festivals and talk to anyone who sounds half decent. 

Agree 100%.
Without a vocalist who can sing in key and have a degree of stage presence it is a frustrating experience from beginning to end.
Also, a drummer who is reliable and not in a billion other bands.

Without the vocalist in place you will be treading water as the vocalist has the greatest say in selecting the set list / picking the key.

 Common goals when it comes to how often you want to gig are vital.  If you are looking for once per month for fun but the bass player requires 3 nights per week min to pay his mortgage then it won't work.

Similarly availability.  I've wasted the best part of a year trying to get a band going where people have too many outside commitments for us ever to get together.  The same goes for yourself.  If you haven't been playing in a band for a while then you'll have filled your life up with other stuff.  It may be that Thursday nights are free for you except for once a month when you go out with the guys from work - well that's probably not going to work.  You're looking to take up a new, team, activity so something else is will have to be dropped or de-prioritised,  Same goes for all band.

Been nearly 2 years since I left my last originals band. I don't miss it, the drama, politics and the whole "not having time to get together" thing. We never rehearsed more than twice a month and never got any consistency with it. We played like 3 shows in a year or something and I grew sick of it. Songwriting was a chore as well. The way we wrote never worked.

Thursday nights were the band rehearsal night but many ended up being cancelled due to one member not being able to make it. Whenever we did practice it was 90mins/2 hours of driving through rush hour traffic on M25 (none of us lived within an hour of each other) to get to the practice room only to "practice" for an hour (it was booked for 3 hours from 6 til 9). But we never ever started on time and people would start leaving around 8pm cos of work the next day. A large proportion of it was one guy talking about his weekend plans and overall just talking too much, which slowed down and broke up momentum so much people couldn't be bothered to do anything.

Everyone else had careers which is fair enough, we all gotta earn a living and weekends were gone, 3 had gf's and pretty much spent it with them.

Since I've been guitar tech'ing for a mate's metalcore band, and occasionally filling in for shows. Its been great fun, I feel part of the band even though I'm not an official member and the whole group dynamics is totally different. We live pretty close together, the main band HQ is 15 minutes away so its easy to meet up. Songwriting is different too, not all crammed in one room with the pressure of writing something from thin air in an hour. Its usually 2-3 of us, with guitars and a laptop, recording any ideas we have.

Cos of the good time I've been having I'm beginning to think if its even worth me joining another band or forming a new one again. It takes years to build up your profile again and being in my mid-30's I don't think I have the time or money to keep investing in something that may not see much return. Earning money is my priority now so I may have to do the band as a weekend thing. But I will always enjoy the gigs. The atmosphere and the environment is something I do miss, aside from all the other shit. 

I've been asked back by my old band but I straight away said no cos I don't want to go back there. I do fear the whole bad experience will make me never want to join another band ever again.

DLM

I managed this back in 2004, and blogged about it a bit here:

http://www.racerxband.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=21344&p=466825

The pictures from all those broken links are here:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/cyrencerocks/photos/?tab=album&album_id=314718758576847

As you can see from the Facebook page, our adventures continued for almost 30 gigs over several years.

Sadly, that band came to an end last year. I've been really busy with other areas of life, but I'm keeping an ear to the ground for new opportunities and had a fun jam with a chap not too far from me the other week.

Joining/completing a band (what I did above) is very different from founding a band (what you are describing, I think).

Mark1960

I used to play in a band befoe I had kids then packed up for 20 years or so, bbut kept in touch with the sax player. We got back together about 5 or 6 years ago, formed a band (6 piece) have changed 3 members, but are still evolving. I think it's most important to enjoy the journey, the ups and downs and the w*nkers! You have to "kiss a few frogs" but hey nothing in life that's worthwhile comes easy. Stronly suggest you get a good mate musically early doors that you can trust and then - Go for it!

theflyisback

I had a break from 26 to 37.

Was in bands from 18-26 and put my heart and soul into it and made and lost mates along the way due to the politics and brutality of trying to make a living from it. Turned my back on a fairly decent record deal because i couldn’t trust the other lads to behave themselves in a way to ensure it was worth jacking in my day job for. Had great vintage gear which most of it ended up in cash converters for barely sweets money and it would take me about 10 grand to buy back.

Bought a boss br800 and wrote about 30 songs in a mad creative month a couple of years ago and put ads out for a band and now gigging fairly regularly and enjoying it immensely.

I set some ground rules, I.e. praccy once a week. I have a 9-5 job and a wife and they take precedence but if we book a praccy we turn up for and ready and leave all the other shit at the door and enjoy the music.  If we invest anything, time or money, we all put in the same and we respect each other’s sacrifices too.

It’s much more pleasurable than when I was younger. I know how to appreciate it more and savvy enough to know when to switch into band mode and home mode. It’s easier to be efficient and know my limit and I play to my my strengths and avoid my weaknesses.

I also am writing playing and singing about stuff I’m old to enough to have actually done and experienced so it’s more real.

It’s perfectly manageable and it’s keeping me fresh and young and disciplined. I’ve found good people to do it with though that helps. Nowhere near the best musicians I’ve ever played with but we are great and doing it in a way that suits our best abilities and it works.  The gigs I’ve done in the last 12 months are the best I’ve ever done and I know how to enjoy them too.  Probably because I’ve done it for myself and with no expectations and the pressure that comes with it. It’s purely for fun and it that freeness and comfort makes it easier for the audience to enjoy too.

Downsides... as a gigging older originals band.

I begrudge having to use promoters to get gigs in good places as venues don’t want to take the risk doing the bookings themselves any more.  You still have to do the promotion yourself and are expected to bring high numbers of people to pay £7-£10 which is a bit steep.  Never mind, If you bring more than 20 they’ll give you a quid back for each ticket. Ahh bless.

Also, there is a big need to have to use social media which can be a pain in the arse but a useful tool if you’re willing to put the effort in. I wouldn’t use it were I not in a band.

The age thing isn’t an issue to me, we can mix it with the young cool kids, but if your on a bill with entirely younger bands and their following they can be a tough nut to crack.

DrJazzTap

Thanks guys, I will make a start on it soon.

uberscott

I did my first gig in 11 years last night - still buzzing now I was lucky and relatively quickly found a great band who were looking for a second guitarist - they're all very down to earth, no egos to deal with. I think it was only after the first set that I fully realised just how much I'd missed playing live.

Fez

So much good advice and wisdom in this thread, I hope you find some good people and enjoy playing live again.