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This blog post is part of a series of three posts on the subject of Chaotic Divas. In the previous two posts we looked at three examples of Chaotic Divas: Colin Europe, Fabiola Tantrums and Foxy California. We witnessed the destructive mayhem a Chaotic Diva can cause. In this final post on the subject, we’ll examine two last examples: Hugh Jazz and Hairy Styles. We’ll also delve into how to defend your band against the destructive tendencies of a Chaotic Diva and discuss when to say enough is enough and mercilessly throw them out of the band. Chaotic diva #4: Hugh Jazz Sometimes a talented instrumentalist can be as troublesome and tiresome as a singing diva. For example, consider two jazz greats, Charlie ‘Bird” Parker and Django Reinhardt. There are many stories about these two not showing up for concerts. People would be sent out to find them and bring them to the gig. The other musicians would be waiting. The audience would be waiting. Eventually Bird might be found high as a kite with a needle in his arm at his dealer’s apartment in New York. Django might be found fishing on a riverbank on the outskirts of Paris. They would then need to be persuaded to come to the gig where they were the main attraction. Hugh Jazz was a well-renowned violinist who had played with some European jazz greats. On the advice of my friend, Gary, a bassist, I hired Hugh for a swanky corporate gig. We were to play some sophisticated jazzy background music as a trio to about 200 diners in a large events hall in Brussels, Belgium. The diners would be dressed up in formal wear: suits and ties and cocktail dresses. Hugh committed to one short rehearsal before the gig. But, don’t worry, Gary assured me, Hugh is a professional and a great improviser. He knows what he is doing. You’ll see, it’ll be alright on the night. As band leader, I had been told by the event organizer that we musicians must wear suits and ties. I relayed this info to Gary, who in turn passed on the message to Hugh Jazz. The day of the gig I was standing next to the event organizer when Hugh turned up at the gig. We both turned to look at him as he walked across the large dance floor toward us. The organizer’s mouth was hanging open slightly. She looked a little shocked. Hugh had chosen, for this glitzy occasion, the following ensemble: an over-sized and moth-eaten brown corduroy jacket, a large and colourful silk tie with Homer Simpson’s face on it (the kind of thing an eight-year old might buy his grandfather for Christmas circa 2003) and a pair of scruffy desert boots. His blond hair was unkempt and all over the place. His shirt and trousers were extremely creased. Imagine taking a sheet of tin foil, scrunching it up into a ball and then trying to flatten it out again. That’s the level of creasing I’m talking about here. He had obviously dug his shirt and trousers out from the bottom of the laundry basket one hour ago and directly put them on. I had to laugh when Hugh opened his case and brought out a highly unusual fluorescent pink electric violin! (He had played a lovely old acoustic violin at the rehearsal.) Hugh’s overall appearance was one of a naked man who had been covered in glue and thrown through a charity shop window. After a brief sound check, Hugh headed directly to the free bar, whereupon, in a short space of time, he managed to get totally s**t-faced. He then started flirting with the event organiser, who blushed and all-of-a-sudden hurried away to attend to an urgent matter elsewhere. When it came time for us to play, Hugh slowly staggered up to the stage. He then proceeded to play a great two hours of largely improvised music, just as Gary had promised he would. At the end of the evening, Hugh Jazz interrupted the gentle hum of 200 people involved in after-dinner chat to announce to them that we, the band, were leaving. He did this by shouting, there being no vocal microphone. This totally killed the cool, sophisticated atmosphere of the event that we were hired to embellish. The conversation in the hall stopped dead and the guests looked around in all directions to see where the commotion was coming from. Hugh then introduced Gary, me and himself to the diners. We each received a somewhat reluctant but polite round of applause. The event organiser had hired me to put together bands for events a few times before. These gigs were always very well paid. This was the last time she hired me. Chaotic Diva #5: Hairy Styles I used to play in a band called The Tingly Sensations with singer Hairy Styles. Hairy was a handsome guy and very popular with the ladies. He wore skin-tight leather trousers. And he didn’t just wear them on stage: he also wore them to take the bus to Tesco’s on Tuesday mornings to do his weekly shop. Hairy was a good frontman but he had a couple of quirks. One was drinking to excess and the other was impish mischievousness. Hairy could get away with a fair degree of cheeky behaviour due to his good looks. Inappropriate announcements Hairy Styles’ chief amusement in life was to make inappropriate announcements over the microphone to the audience. For example, he would announce that a famous and much-loved musician, such as Paul McCartney or Eric Clapton, had sadly passed away earlier that day. These two musicians were still very much alive at this time, a fact that the audience would only discover over the following days, weeks or perhaps months. In an age before smartphones, Hairy’s sad news could not immediately be verified by audience members and they automatically assumed he was telling the truth. Surely no one would joke about such a thing? Well, yes someone would as it turned out. And that someone was Hairy Styles and his perverse sense of humour. After Hairy’s solemn announcement, an air of melancholy would hang over the audience as the band started to play a cover of either Yesterday or Tears in Heaven. Another way that Hairy would amuse himself onstage was by shouting out odd and sometimes deeply offensive slogans. One of his favourites was “Free Nelson Mandela!”. Nelson Mandela WAS free at this time. In fact, he had been the president of South Africa and had since retired from being the president of South Africa. He had been free a long time. “Respect the c**k!”, was another Hairy Styles favourite: a phrase Tom Cruise’s character shouts in the 1999 film Magnolia. Surprisingly, these slogans would very often get a round of applause from a portion of the audience. I have a photograph of Hairy taken after one gig. He is lighting up a bong under a sign saying “Strictly no drugs allowed on the premises”. We most probably didn’t get asked back to some venues due to Hairy Styles’ high jinks. Conclusions about Chaotic Divas. The five cautionary tales you have read over the course of these last three blog posts... Colin Europe, Foxy California, Fabiola Tantrums, Hugh Jazz and Hairy Styles show the detrimental effect a Chaotic Diva can have on a band. They can annoy band mates, erode team spirit and morale, waste time and lose the band gigs. However, you may still need a Chaotic Diva for the energy, creativity and star quality they bring to the band. They do tend to be great performers. They tend to have stage presence. Shoe-gazing guitarists and drummers hiding behind their cymbals need an outrageous frontman or frontwoman to compliment their talents. Audiences love an over-confident narcissist for some reason.
So, how should you deal with a Chaotic Diva in your band? My advice is to, frankly, treat them like you would a small child. The big mistake band members often make is in failing to identify a Chaotic Diva as such in the first place, and then continuing to treat them like a grown adult. When a Chaotic Diva starts being disruptive and annoying, call out their behaviour. When they start requesting new songs at a rate the band will struggle with, keep telling them why these songs cannot all be attempted right now. Maybe we can play them later. If they turn up late for rehearsals regularly or are not doing their share of the logistical side of things, let them know that this will soon start to piss off their fellow band members. Obviously, take them to one side to tell them this. No need to spank their bottoms in public. And, when a Chaotic Diva behaves well, reward them with a visit to MacDonald’s and a Happy Meal. Seriously though, my experience is that Chaotic Divas don’t respond badly to being kept in check occasionally, if done with a little tact. They’ve been a pain in the ass before. This is not new behaviour for them. Somebody has undoubtedly told them that they were being a pain in the ass before. Everyone lived and it was fine. So, you can do the same. Telling them straight is how you quell their destructive tenancies before they become a problem. Accept the small risk that they leave the band in a huff. Of course, you’ll also want to perform a cost/benefit analysis from time to time, to check whether the magic a Chaotic Diva brings to the band is worth all the hassle they cause. If the Chaotic Diva becomes too much to handle, kick them out without remorse and look for a less troublesome replacement. Lastly, it’s important to remember that a Chaotic Diva should not really have a superiority complex in an amateur band playing gigs at The Dog and Duck on Thursday evenings for £50 and two free beers each. This concludes this series of three blog posts on the topic of Chaotic Divas. Hopefully, after reading these posts, you’ll be better able to spot one in the wild and also better able to assess whether their talent outweighs the amount of havoc they cause. (Some musician and band names have been changed in this article to protect identities.) Mark Baxter (c) 2024
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In part one of this series of blog posts on Chaotic Divas, we defined what a Chaotic Diva is. We also met Colin Europe of The Shiny Exciters and witnessed the destructive forces he unleashed when left to his own devices. In this post, part two of three, I will introduce you to two more Chaotic Divas I have personally encountered over the years. More mayhem will ensue... Chaotic diva #2: Foxy California I only ever met Foxy California on one occasion, for about eight minutes. And during this time, I didn’t speak a single word to her. Nor did my friend Dave London. Despite the briefness of this encounter, Foxy California really made Dave and me sweat! It all happened at an open mic event held in a large bar one Sunday evening years ago. Dave and I were sitting on chairs on stage: he was singing and we were both playing our acoustic guitars. We had just finished our first song and were about to launch into our second song when suddenly, out of nowhere, some lady appeared onstage and snatched the mic away from Dave. She was a tall, mature black woman wearing high heels, shoulder pads and a side-slit dress, which seductively revealed a sliver of her left leg from ankle to hip. On her head was a wide-brimmed hat cocked at a jaunty angle. She had the impressive stage presence of Grace Jones (a 1980s pop icon). Foxy California spoke to the crowd who immediately woke up and got excited. Especially the older gentlemen in the audience. This was going to be way more entertaining than two blokes in jeans playing guitars. She turned to us and said, “Summertime. Key of A minor”, and then swiftly launched into the opening lyrics of Gershwin's classic by herself, beckoning us to join her. After figuring out she was actually singing in F minor, Dave, who somewhat knew the song, was able to back her up. I did not know this song at that time, and so I sat there doing nothing, not wanting to make myself more conspicuous by standing up and tip-toeing off the stage. Dave made several mistakes during the song, including some bad ones, which didn’t seem to knock Foxy California off her stride at all. It was a powerful performance by her and she got a huge round of applause afterwards. Before the applause died down, Foxy California suddenly turned to Dave and me and said “Fever in A minor” before proceeding to sing it in Bb minor. She got lucky with this song choice. I had just learnt this Peggy Lee song for a project with another singer and so I was able to follow along. It was Dave’s turn to sit there like a numpty this time. This song also finished to great applause. Foxy California took an extravagant bow, walked off stage, vanished into the audience, and we never saw her ever again. Singers who don’t play a musical instrument generally have little appreciation of musicians’ capabilities. Hence strolling up to two scruffy dudes playing 1990’s Britpop at an amateur night and expecting them to know and instantly play old songs from the 1930s and 1950s! Chaotic diva #3: Fabiola Tantrums Fabiola Tantrums was the lead singer of the band Jet Blonde. Two of the musicians in Jet Blonde were students of mine and they would sometimes complain to me about her chaotic and diva-like behaviour. This behaviour would ultimately result in the band falling apart, something I’m sure Fabiola never intended to happen. In fact, I’m pretty sure Fabiola would be shocked to hear me laying any of the blame for the downfall of Jet Blonde at her feet. According to my students, Fabiola’s behaviour included:
Fabiola’s insistence on the band being polished before she would start coming to rehearsals was not a good idea. The Jet Blonde guys found it difficult to play through songs without a guide vocal. They were not good enough at that stage to keep the vocal melody in their minds while playing. They would lose their place in the music when rehearsing without Fabiola. Gradually, the musicians began to lose interest. Their rehearsals became fewer and fewer. The upshot of all this was a disastrously unprepared for gig at Scaramanga’s Bar. Just like the Colin and Valerie Europe debacle at Montgomery’s years before (mentioned in the first part of this blog on Chaotic Divas), Jet Blonde struggled through their set with uncertain playing, many mistakes and muted applause from the audience. And, approximately halfway through their second set, the worst thing that can happen to a band on stage apart from death by electrocution occurred: a train wreck (i.e., stopping abruptly and prematurely mid song). Unlike the landlord at Montgomery’s, the promoter at Scaramanga’s told the band immediately after they came off stage that he would not be hiring them to play again. The band quickly fell apart after the loss of this prestigious and regular gig. While the blame for Jet Blonde’s downfall does not lie solely at Fabiola’s feet, she did play a significant part in eroding the band’s team spirit and morale. She introduced a kind of infection which quickly spread to the rest of the band and eventually killed off its host. This was part two in a series of three articles on the topic of Chaotic Divas. In the final instalment, we’ll cover the following…
(Some musician and band names were changes in this article to protect identities.) Mark Baxter (c) 2024 Over the course of this blog post and the two following posts… What is a Chaotic Diva? Colin Europe, Fabiola Tantrums and Hugh Jazz each torpedo a gig. Venues and event promoters refuse to hire them and their bands ever again. A Grace Jones look-a-like storms the stage at an open mic night. Hairy Styles’ inappropriate onstage behaviour. Advice on how to deal with Chaotic Divas. What is a Chaotic Diva? A Chaotic Diva is a talented but tiresome musician. Usually, he or she is a singer, but the occasional instrumentalist can also qualify as a Chaotic Diva from time-to-time. The “chaotic” part of their name refers to the fact that these individuals always create a certain amount of havoc around them. If left unchecked, their behaviour can lead to disgruntled band members, wasted rehearsal time, lost gigs and even the total dissolution of the band... as we will see in this post and the following two posts. The “diva” part of the name refers to the fact that Chaotic Divas consider themselves to be the main event... the star attraction… the most-important person in the band! Annoyingly, they are often correct in this assumption. Over the course of these three blog posts, I will offer five examples of Chaotic Divas I have personally come across, with the aim of helping you to identify them in the wild. These examples will show the harmful mayhem Chaotic Divas can cause. While reading, keep in mind that despite this mayhem you may still want to keep a Chaotic Diva around, due to their talent. So, in the third blog post in this series, I will share with you my ideas of how to work with Chaotic Divas and how to defend the band against their destructive tendencies. I’ll also suggest when to say enough is enough and remorselessly kick them out of the band. Chaotic diva #1: Colin Europe In 2014, I formed a band with some of my music students. We called ourselves The Shiny Exciters. The Shiny Exciters were an unusual band in that we had anywhere between 12 and 18 band members playing at gigs. We would not all play at the same time though. Players rotated on and off stage. A maximum of six players would be on stage at any one time during a gig. At an average Shiny Exciters gig, the band would consist of two bassists, six guitarists, a saxophonist, a harmonica player, two drummers and four singers. I was the band leader and also one of the drummers. Colin Europe was one of the singers. Colin was much loved by the landlord of a local pub called Montgomery’s, which hosted bands every Saturday evening. The Shiny Exciters had played at Montgomery’s regularly over the previous two years.”What an entertainer!”, the landlord once exclaimed to me, referring to Colin. Colin’s act featured the following:
Like the band on the deck of the Titanic, The Shiny Exciters played on regardless of all the chaos going on around them. Colin was surprisingly energetic and athletic for a portly fellow of 50. The Colin portion of a Shiny Exciters gig had a polarising effect on the public. Some, like the landlord of Montgomery’s, loved Colin. Others disliked his corny antics. A sound guy once referred to his act as “cheap tricks”. I personally thought it was all good harmless fun and made for an entertaining evening. However, I always feared Colin getting a punch in the face due to his habit of accosting people to dance with and refusing them the option of saying no. I must say though, I never once saw anyone get upset with him or threaten him, which I put down to Colin being a non-intimidating, cuddly-looking chap. As band leader and music teacher to many of the players in The Shiny Exciters, I always insisted on plenty of rehearsals and preparation for every gig. Also, I restricted new songs to a rate the band could easily assimilate. I didn’t want any disasters on stage. Sometime in 2017 though, my schedule became very full in the run up to a next gig at Montgomery’s. I had to reduce my involvement in the band’s preparation. I was only rehearsing and playing drums with a small group of musicians within the larger Shiny Exciters family. The rest of The Shiny Exciters would have to take care of their end of things on their own. Once I was out of the picture and the guard rails were removed, Colin immediately introduced three new songs: his own compositions. He also drafted in The Shiny Exciters’ first ever keyboard player to play on these three songs. It was his teenage daughter, Valerie. Sadly, as it would turn out, Valerie could not even really play the keyboards, at least not in a band setting. So, the combination of the following ingredients created a recipe for disaster:
The gig When the Montgomery’s gig finally rolled around, I asked Colin if everything was in hand and whether his faction of The Shiny Exciters were fully rehearsed. He confidently assured me yes, they were ready. The first two songs Colin and Co. played were plain bad. They were far below the band’s usual standard. Perhaps Colin’s compositions were fine, but it was impossible to tell due to the terrible execution by the band. Valerie was playing block chords AND bass notes as if she was the only instrument playing, an approach which meant she was stepping on the toes of both the guitarist and the bassist at the same time. The sound was a horrible muddy mess. On top of this, there were a lot of errors in timing and in note choice. However, the worst was yet to come... Colin introduced their third and final song. It was a three-chord wonder. An easy song. The best I can say about Valerie’s playing on this song is that she used the correct three chords. No mistakes in that regard. However, she was pretty much 100% successful in playing the wrong chord at the wrong time for the entire song, which was an impressive feat! For example, when the band were playing the chord E major, Valerie would be confidently standing there bashing out an A major chord with a big smile on her face. She was seemingly oblivious to the dissonance. As soon as the band moved to A major, she would then perversely choose to play E major. This resulted in an amorphous sound, somewhat resembling a song. The guitarist and bassist were thrown into a state of panic and acute embarrassment. Colin could not sing in tune due to the cacophony behind him. It was close to impossible for him to pitch his voice correctly. The Shiny Exciters’ ship was now listing severely towards starboard and was in danger of capsizing. The sound guy and I exchanged a glance. His face said it all. The audience were now audibly groaning. At a moment, I couldn’t stand it any longer and I made for the door. Once outside, with the band still audible, I heard them completely fall off the beat, collapse and come to a stuttering premature stop… The ship had capsized and sunk. I was devastated that The Shiny Exciters had sunk so low. And yet, at the same time, I must admit to feeling a certain amount of smugness. It was now clear to some in the band that my role had been an important one in hindsight. I had previously tempered Colin’s destructive tenancies. Epilogue An epilogue to this sad story: The band subsequently struggled to get a response from the landlord of Montgomery’s about a date for a next gig. Several emails had been sent and no reply had been received. I decided, one afternoon, to visit the landlord in person, but when I got to Montgomery’s, it was closed. I put my face to the window and peered into the darkness within. I could make out the stage where I had played many times before and where the Colin/Valerie debacle had occurred. Suddenly, a ghostly face appeared three inches away from my own face on the other side of the glass! I jumped back, startled. The owner of the face, a young guy with a mop in his hand, unlocked the front door and asked, “What do you want?” I told him I wanted to speak to the landlord about a next booking for my band, The Shiny Exciters. He misunderstood me and thought I was asking when the band would play next. Maybe he thought I was a fan. Believing I was not a band member, he didn’t hold his punches. He told me the landlord had decided not to hire The Shiny Exciters any more. Apparently, the landlord’s reasoning was “They’re a mixed bag: sometimes great; sometimes f**king terrible.” And so, it had only taken Colin and his daughter three songs to torpedo a regular gig. The landlord had gone from being Colin’s biggest fan to sacking him (and us all) in a short amount of time. Probably the decision was made within 12 minutes: the time it took to play Colin’s three new songs. In the next two instalments…
(Some musician and band names were changes in this article to protect identities.) Mark Baxter (c) 2024 Most rock musicians start off playing in cover bands. A cover band is one which performs versions of famous artists’ songs. Some of you reading this blog post may alternatively wish to form an ‘originals’ band and play your own compositions from the get-go. However, I will concentrate on how to go about choosing cover songs for a band here. Choose easier songs Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes always goes down great with audiences in bars. So does Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Audiences sing along to both these songs. On a scale of difficulty from 1 to 100, Seven Nation is a 4 and Bohemian Rhapsody is a 96 (in my estimation at least). An amateur band could perfect a version of Seven Nation within 20 minutes at a rehearsal. Bohemian Rhapsody would take many, many more hours to perfect. So, choose to play Seven Nation Army. Unless, that is, you happen to be in a band with great technical musicians who love a challenge, have a lot of spare time on their hands and who can also sing four-part harmonies in tune. The same thing goes for Wild Thing by The Troggs and Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. Wild Thing is a 2 and Stairway is a 70. So, choose Wild Thing. Your audience will love a polished, grooving version of Wild Thing over a sloppy, hesitant and mistake-ridden version of Stairway any day. They won’t appreciate the daring involved in attempting a difficult song. Most of them won’t even understand that Stairway is a difficult song. They will only know that your version was somehow a bit naff and that all of a sudden they felt an urge to finish their drink, say good night to their friends and go home to bed. Of course, I am not suggesting here that ALL amateur rock bands on Planet Earth should play Seven Nation Army and Wild Thing. My point is that beginner bands would be wise to choose songs which are easier to accomplish given that audiences don’t care about song complexity. They love simple and difficult songs equally. They may even tilt in favour of preferring simple-to-play songs come to think of it. Every time a band stomps out a good rhythm and plays a recognizable melody or memorable riff, regardless of the difficulty level of the song, an audience in a bar will be very appreciative. It’s as simple as that. By choosing easier-to-play songs, you’ll dramatically reduce the amount of rehearsal time it will take to prepare your band to gig. You’ll also improve the band’s performance at the gig. The band will be less stressed about playing easier songs. They’ll be unburdened by the fear of a potential cock up and this will free them up to spray some confident rock and roll attitude in the direction of the audience. The audience will soak this up. Furthermore, your band won’t use up all their processing capacity recalling complicated structures and constantly thinking... “What comes next? What comes next? What comes next?” The band will have attention spare to concentrate on other things such as keeping time, grooving, locking in with fellow band mates and incorporating subtlety and dynamics in their playing. If you are just starting out playing in bands, beware of shooting too high, too soon, and falling on your bum. Not all rock songs were created equal. Some are massively more difficult than others. To help you to judge song difficulty, something which is not so easy when you are starting out, I’ve come up with a list of classic songs that rock cover bands play organised according to difficulty. As with the examples above, I have given them each an approximate difficulty level out of 100. A song with a difficulty level of 20, for example, would take a band around four times the amount of preparation (individual practice time at home and rehearsal time with the band) as a song with a difficulty level of five. I have taken into account the complexity of the song structure AND the level of technical skill required by the players. For example, some songs may have a relatively simple structure, but a tricky guitar solo that most guitarists covering the song would feel compelled to attempt. These songs are rated higher than similar songs without a tricky guitar solo. ALL of the songs in the following list are great songs in my opinion, no matter the difficulty level. Song difficulty list Difficulty level out of 100. Song (Band) 1. Gloria (Them with Van Morrison); Free Falling (Tom Petty); Horse with No Name (America) 2. Wild Thing (The Troggs); Louie Louie (The Kingsmen); Hit the Road Jack (Ray Charles); What’s Up (Four Non-Blondes). 3. Stand By Me (Ben E King); Twelve-bar blues such as Sweet Home Chicago (The Blues Brothers); House of the Rising Sun (The Animals); Creep (Radiohead); Can’t Always Get What You Want and Sympathy for the Devil (both The Rolling Stones); Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash); Mustang Sally (The Commitments). Anything by the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. 4. Seven Nation Army (The White Stripes); Come Together (The Beatles); You Really Got Me (The Kinks); Zombie (The Cranberries) 5. I Follow Rivers (Triggerfinger); Let It Be (The Beatles); Where is My Mind (The Pixies) 6. Hey Joe (Jimi Hendrix); Sweet Home Alabama (Lynard Skynard); Rocking in the Free World (Neil Young); Brown Sugar and Honky Tonk Woman (both The Rolling Stones); People are Strange (The Doors) 7. Suzie Q and Proud Mary (both CCR); Get Back (The Beatles); Paint it Black (The Rolling Stones); Should I Stay or Should I Go? (The Clash); My Babe (Little Walter); Gimme Some Loving (The Spencer Davis Group) 9. Wonderwall (Oasis) 10. Brown-eyed Girl (Van Morrison); I Shot the Sheriff (Bob Marley/Eric Clapton); Wild Horses (The Rolling Stones) 12. Don’t Look Back in Anger (Oasis); Cissy Strut (The Meters) 15. Sharp-dressed Man (ZZ Top); Thrill is Gone (B.B. King); Roadhouse Blues (The Doors) 20s. Black Magic Woman (Fleetwood Mac/Santana); Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen); Superstition (Stevie Wonder) 30s. Sunshine of Your Love (Cream with Eric Clapton); Shot in the Dark and Highway to Hell (both AC/DC); Wild World (Cat Stevens); Johnny B Goode (Chuck Berry); American Pie (Don McLean); Ruby (The Kaiser Chiefs); Smells like Teen Spirit and Heart-Shaped Box (Nirvana); Seek and Destroy and Nothing Else Matters (Metallica) 40s. Crossroads (Cream with Eric Clapton); Mary had a Little Lamb (SRV); Killing in the Name of (Rage against the machine); Under the Bridge and Californication (The Red Hot Chili Peppers) 50s. Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple); While my Guitar Gently Weeps (The Beatles with Eric Clapton); Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix) 60s. Back in Black (AC/DC); Red House (Jimi Hendrix) 70s. Sweet Child o’ Mine (Guns and Roses); Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin); Hotel California (The Eagles); All Along the Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix); Voodoo Chile (Jimi Hendrix/SRV) 80s. Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits); 90s. Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen); Anything by the band Yes. Consider the singer’s style and range Another major consideration when choosing songs for your band will be your singer’s vocal style. It’s no good forcing a female singer with a delicate voice, like Bossa Nova legend Astrud Gilberto for example, to sing Smack My Bitch Up by The Prodigy. Likewise, it’s no good pressuring the lead singer of the death metal band Cannibal Corpse to growl Tip Toe Through the Tulips or The Teddy Bear’s Picnic, as amusing as this may turn out to be. Your singer’s vocal range should also be a consideration. Vocal range is the distance between the lowest note and the highest note a singer can comfortably sing. I told a story in a previous blog post about Mr X of the band O’Beast. Mr X desperately wanted O’Beast to cover Michael Jackson’s Beat it. He never stopped going on about it. He wanted to perform the flashy guitar solo on this song, as originally played by the great Eddie Van Halen. He wanted to play it so much that he completely overlooked the fact that O’Beast’s singer, Ted, had a voice pitched a solid one octave below that of Michael Jackson. Ted was a big man with a low baritone voice. Perhaps it was even a bass voice. Jacko was tiny man and with high tenor voice. Beat it was an impossibility for Ted without the aid of helium gas. Alternatively, Ted could have sang Beat it one octave lower than the original, which would have been pretty funny to be honest. If your singer’s vocal range is somewhat similar to a particular artist’s, then you can consider covering one of their songs. You can change the key of the song (transpose) to better suit your singer’s range if necessary. I will cover transposing songs in a subsequent blog post on the topic of arranging songs. Introducing new songs 20 to 24 songs will be sufficient to play two 45-minute sets. This is the usual amount of time a bar or venue would expect a band to play at a gig. It takes a lot of work and dedication to build up your repertoire to 90 minutes, but nevertheless, as soon as you have done so, one member of your band will immediately start suggesting next songs. It makes no sense to carry on learning more songs at this stage. Instead, make the existing set list tighter. Continue to fine tune. And then play some gigs with this initial set list. After a few gigs, perhaps you can consider learning new replacement songs. I would suggest that you do so slowly. Drip-feed new songs into your set list. Perhaps you could introduce one new song every two months. One of your jobs as band leader will be to fight off attempts to introduce more songs than the band can comfortably incorporate in a given period of time. Inevitably, one of your fellow band members will flood the band’s Whatsapp group chat with song suggestions, which you and the rest of the band will then have to spend time dutifully listening to and reacting to. If you do not defend against these attacks on band time and resources, bad things may happen. In an upcoming blog post, I will write about Colin Europe and Fabiola Tantrums and the effect that their constant pushing for new songs had on their respective bands (i.e., disgruntled band members, disastrous gigs and lost bookings). Band member resistance to songs Invariably, one or two band members will not be happy with some songs chosen for the band’s set list. They may even deploy the underhanded tactic of not practising the songs they don’t want to play. Excuses will be along the lines of… “Oh, I didn’t know we were still going to play this song” or “I only had time to practice the other songs last week”. Their overall aim will be to push back the rehearsal of their disliked songs until these songs are either forgotten or the advocates of the songs admit defeat and voluntarily withdraw them from the set list. Fussy, rhythmically-challenged musicians I’ve noticed that band members with poor rhythm are always the most fussy when it comes to song choice. If a song ticks all the right boxes (i.e., good for the singer, not too complex, suits the style of the band, most of band members like it), the fussy player may still object to the song. My theory is that this type of player was initially attracted to music because of the cool ethos of certain performers and the depth of meaning in their lyrics, not the rhythm or groove. In their teens, they probably preferred sitting on a beanbag in their bedroom with headphones and contemplating the deep poetic meaning held within the words of a song, rather than turning their speakers up full blast and pogo-ing up and down on their bed playing air guitar like a mad man. Their initial love of music was intellectual rather than visceral. They were not touched by the raw, shamanistic rhythms of the great rock songs. They never really ‘got’ this aspect of music. I’ve noticed that David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Richard Thompson are particularly admired by these non-rhythmical musicians. The simple messages yet great grooves of Rock Around the Clock or Louie Louie are not going to get their juices flowing. On the other hand, lovers of rhythm can find enjoyment playing most songs. Their is a magic and depth to rhythm in good rock music which the poets remain unaware of. Jazz allergy Another subset of musicians may be averse to playing anything sounding even remotely jazzy. They are deathly allergic to jazz. Even a relatively simple D9 chord may trigger a strong objection, a histamine rash or a threat to quit the band. They would much prefer that the D9 was a simpler D7 or, even better, a plain old unembroidered D. Many Jazzophobes are older gentlemen who came of age during the punk and new wave scenes in the 1970’s. This is when pop music was stripped down to its essentials. The punk aesthetic was a no-frills aesthetic. The excesses of jazz music are totally unnecessary in the eyes of the Jazzophobe. One Jazzophobe once told me, “I can’t see the point of trumpets”. So, you may need to keep in mind the preferences of certain players when choosing songs for the set list. You may have to drop some otherwise perfect song choices in order to maintain band harmony. Summary When choosing band songs: choose easier-to-play songs; consider the singer’s style and range; introduce new songs at a snail’s pace; make some allowances for fussy and rhythmically-deficient players’ likes and dislikes. (Some musician and band names in this article have been changed to protect identities.) Mark Baxter (c) 2024 |
Blog: How to form a rock band. Also, how NOT to form a rock band.About this blog
These blog posts contain info I would like to pass on to my music students when they form their first bands and start to play live gigs. I explain more here in my first blog post.
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Mark Baxter, musician, music teacher, guitarist, bassist, drummer. English expat living in Belgium.
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