Searching for a singer... Sheer Hell.

Well, my "band" have been searching for a singer for a few months now (and when I say searching, that means me.) It is becoming sheer hell as we've had about 12 people wanting to audition, one auditioned and left without telling us and I found out via another person that he was in 6 bands at the same time and quit them all, which annoyed me.

Anyways, to the subject of "searching". I feel I'm the only one in my band trying to look for members or trying to do things with the band. They come up with guitar riffs then it doesn't progress and we're playing the same riff as a song and then I say "What's going on here?" and they're like "We've done all we can do" and I pick up a guitar and I have a Verse or a Chorus to the song in less than 10 minutes and they think it sounds great. And I've wrote about 4 songs on my own and they think they're great. So basically I'm doing all the work.
Producing sounds for the bands and stuff.

Tonight I basically said to the guitarist I can't do this anymore if I've wrote most of the songs and done most of the work and if we can't find a singer by the end of August then I say we call a break and do something else until we think it's right to come back.
It was my idea to start the band at first, and I've done alot with it. So my say is always relevant as I'm taking it as serious as I can. And I know it sounds selfish, but last week I said "We don't really have any restrictions at all" but now I'm thinking about it. Because I never planned to be like this, I wanted us all to be the boss.

Is this the right thing to do?
 
My 1st real band had this problem. We never found a singer. We ended up parting way over it. I'm still good friends with those guys, but it just wasn't meant to be.

Pretty much every rock band ends up revolving around the singer. I find it's best to find a singer, and then find the rest of the band, or else it could be a frustrating experience.
 
My 1st real band had this problem. We never found a singer. We ended up parting way over it. I'm still good friends with those guys, but it just wasn't meant to be.

Pretty much every rock band ends up revolving around the singer. I find it's best to find a singer, and then find the rest of the band, or else it could be a frustrating experience.

Seems a good idea. Websites don't work either, all these "fabulous websites".
All the bands looking for drummers here in the UK are Bring Me The Horizon sound-a-like wannabe bands and I hate it. I enjoy playing stuff like Coheed, Protest The Hero, Every Time I Die, Foo Fighters, Opeth, Led Zeppelin, The Police. That's the rock side, I love Latin music though.
 
It's tough, isn't it. My band's looking for a singer at the moment too, they do not grow on trees...especially not power metal singers, that's for sure!
 
My band's having almost exactly the same problem, except I'm not the one who does most of the work. Our bassist heard me singing once and thought it was good, but I really don't want to sing, so we still don't have one.
 
It all makes sense, Chris. That's how it goes for lots of players.

The first band becomes frustrating for whatever reason so you start looking to upgrade. Keep up the practice, keep on grooving and put out the feelers ...
 
I find myself in a similar situation right now. My brother (lead guitar) and I are the only two doing anything in our five-person band. So we're left wondering what to do ourselves. It's frustrating! I really don't want to have to write lyrics and melodies for the singer for every song in addition to writing my drum part.

Oh yeah, one more thing: we were supposed to have a gig last weekend when one of our band members suddenly found out he couldn't make it the week before (these were circumstances out of anybody's control), but he says he went and talked to the owner of the place and basically did everything he could but we were going to have to cancel the gig. Okay, fine. This week we come to find out that they were there that night still expecting us to come and play. We've since smoothed everything over with the place, as he thought he was still waiting on a call from us to confirm we couldn't get a sub or something, but that is a situation I don't want my band to find itself in ever again.
 
Not everyone needs to be the driving creative force or frontman in a band, that goes without saying, the key to any successful band is not the individual wow factor of all the members, but the chemistry between them.

You can have half a dozen of the greatest musicians in the county and you wont make an enduring band unless you can gel.

The point of all this is look for a singer you like, not just the guy with the most amazing voice and don't stress if you're writing more than your band mates providing they're as into it as you are and you making music together.
 
You are a credit to being a musician. I am also the drummer. But I also "produce" the overall sound of my band. I help choose bass parts, guitar riffs, and keyboard parts. I do not choose the singing parts. I leave that to the professional singer....I can sing BUT I am NOT a "singer".

Someone HAS to be the "leader" of the band, period. There will always be one person who does most of the work. Keep auditioning singers!!! Stay the course dude!

My bass player books all our gigs now. 20+ years ago I booked all the gigs plus what I said.

You are going to work hard at something no matter what you do...............it might as well be music!
 
You are a credit to being a musician. I am also the drummer. But I also "produce" the overall sound of my band. I help choose bass parts, guitar riffs, and keyboard parts. I do not choose the singing parts. I leave that to the professional singer....I can sing BUT I am NOT a "singer".

Someone HAS to be the "leader" of the band, period. There will always be one person who does most of the work. Keep auditioning singers!!! Stay the course dude!

My bass player books all our gigs now. 20+ years ago I booked all the gigs plus what I said.

You are going to work hard at something no matter what you do...............it might as well be music!

+1, I'm in two bands. My other band the guitarist tries to tell me how to play my drum parts and I say "It won't work" and then I play something and he's impressed, then a part of the song which may be meh I'll bring it up and we might change a few notes around. But he writes most of the songs on his own. My other band though, I might come up with an idea and then we'll all work around it. But sometimes I do more work than what the guitarists can do. Which I guess is a credit to have and it's something good for years to come. I listen to loads of different types of music too which probably helps my ear and when I can say "Maybe add a F# in there rather than a C" or whatever and it works!

Not everyone needs to be the driving creative force or frontman in a band, that goes without saying, the key to any successful band is not the individual wow factor of all the members, but the chemistry between them.

You can have half a dozen of the greatest musicians in the county and you wont make an enduring band unless you can gel.

The point of all this is look for a singer you like, not just the guy with the most amazing voice and don't stress if you're writing more than your band mates providing they're as into it as you are and you making music together.

I have to say, my other band is kinda like that. The frontman wants everything his way and me and the bass player are like "we could get another guitarist?" "No, that's not 'punk'" and I'm like "Another guitarist will help the sound" but he doesn't listen and writes everything on his own and doesn't take others ideas. This band I'm talking about however, we all get along and work great together. If one of us is playing something one of us will say "Did you come up with that? Keep playing it!" and we've got a song by the end of the day. Infact, last practice we had 3 songs in the space of the 5 hours we practiced.

I find myself in a similar situation right now. My brother (lead guitar) and I are the only two doing anything in our five-person band. So we're left wondering what to do ourselves. It's frustrating! I really don't want to have to write lyrics and melodies for the singer for every song in addition to writing my drum part.

Oh yeah, one more thing: we were supposed to have a gig last weekend when one of our band members suddenly found out he couldn't make it the week before (these were circumstances out of anybody's control), but he says he went and talked to the owner of the place and basically did everything he could but we were going to have to cancel the gig. Okay, fine. This week we come to find out that they were there that night still expecting us to come and play. We've since smoothed everything over with the place, as he thought he was still waiting on a call from us to confirm we couldn't get a sub or something, but that is a situation I don't want my band to find itself in ever again.

I write alot of the work in my band. But whenever we all write something together it's always different from our other songs, which is pretty awesome and it's going to appeal to everyone. My Mum or Dad will come up and be like "That sounds really good" and it's something we can be proud of. Because they like loads of Electronic and dance stuff and my dad likes British New Wave of Heavy Metal and we write something and he likes it.
When I write something though, it wows everyone and we keep it in our book of ideas.

It all makes sense, Chris. That's how it goes for lots of players.

The first band becomes frustrating for whatever reason so you start looking to upgrade. Keep up the practice, keep on grooving and put out the feelers ...

Totally! It's the first band which I've actually been able to be a fully comitted songwriter rather than "Play drums to this" I'm actually orientating it with guitars and stuff aswell as trying to write songs at the same time.

My band's having almost exactly the same problem, except I'm not the one who does most of the work. Our bassist heard me singing once and thought it was good, but I really don't want to sing, so we still don't have one.

I got that once in the early days of my band... I said "I'll do backing..." and this was when our guitarist sang. He doesn't do it anymore sadly.

It's tough, isn't it. My band's looking for a singer at the moment too, they do not grow on trees...especially not power metal singers, that's for sure!

My band found a singer today actually, and I know the guy which makes it easy. You guys are lucky to have Guitar Center to advertise. In the UK most of the stores that advertised are closed. Though, my drum shop has a bulletin board. Which has loads of deals on it.


Thanks guys!
 
Stal,

When a guitar player asks you to play "this or that", your job, as a drummer, is NOT to say " "it won't work". Your job is to find out what the guitar player is thinking..................even if you try it and it sounds awful...............get in his/her head and find out how they wrote the song, the inspiration. Then collaborate with them and come to an understanding. That's what music is. That is unless the songwriter is an absolute freak genius and your opinion is nothing. Ha! ; )
 
Stal,

When a guitar player asks you to play "this or that", your job, as a drummer, is NOT to say " "it won't work". Your job is to find out what the guitar player is thinking..................even if you try it and it sounds awful...............get in his/her head and find out how they wrote the song, the inspiration. Then collaborate with them and come to an understanding. That's what music is. That is unless the songwriter is an absolute freak genius and your opinion is nothing. Ha! ; )

He told me to play a blast beat on a pop-punk song. I said "That's for sure not going to work" and I showed him what I'd play and he said "fair enough".

Good to keep them in square-shape too and make them think twice.
 
Keep communication open always. If the GIT player says "XYZ" you say in reply "ABC". Then see what he says. Never throw the baby out with the bath water.
 
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