The being fired or quitting thread

and what was with the "hair" thing in the 80's (70's too). i got a call from a friend that knew a country band that needed a fill in drummer for a few months, so i showed up with my kit, and got the evil eye from everyone in the band. (i wondered if i had a booger hangin') turns out my hair was waaaay too long (think michael shrieve woodstock) they said if i get my hair cut i could play with them. i told them that i hadn't heard them play before and that i might not WANT to play with them,but if i did decide to play with them (ahem...) my hair would remain as is. they showed me the door.
later i was playing with a metal band and had to cut my hair due to a new job, well you can guess what happened. they showed me the door.
the very next day i auditioned for a well known reggae band, and explained if there were issues with my hair i was not willing to change it because i was "told" to. they didn't give a rats behind, i played with them for the 20 years off and on, a very Very fun band.
 
bobdadruma said:
The political subject wasn't brought up intentionally. Ex; It was cold outside so the Conservative band member said, "So Much For Global Warming"
That prompted the Liberal band member to start arguing that Global Warming was real. It then started getting political. That is one example of how an argument can start from nothing.
On another occasion a Liberal band member asked me if I kept guns in the house. This was her second visit to my studio. I said, "No Comment".
I successfully stopped what could have become a political debate.
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That's not a liberal/conservative debate. That's a science vs. not-science debate. Global Warming has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with science :)
 
I have had to quit several bands throughout the years. Mostly due to my nomadic nature. I tend to move around quite a bit. Every few years I would pack up and head somewhere else. Because of this I have never been in a band long enough to get fired or see the band to its natural end. Actually I have been in my current band for 3 years, which is my longest tenure in any band since high-school. I definitely subscribe to the SUAP philosophy, so its pretty long odds that I will be the guy getting canned anytime soon.
 
drumngun said:
and what was with the "hair" thing in the 80's (70's too). i got a call from a friend that knew a country band that needed a fill in drummer for a few months, so i showed up with my kit, and got the evil eye from everyone in the band. (i wondered if i had a booger hangin') turns out my hair was waaaay too long (think michael shrieve woodstock) they said if i get my hair cut i could play with them. i told them that i hadn't heard them play before and that i might not WANT to play with them,but if i did decide to play with them (ahem...) my hair would remain as is. they showed me the door.
later i was playing with a metal band and had to cut my hair due to a new job, well you can guess what happened. they showed me the door.
the very next day i auditioned for a well known reggae band, and explained if there were issues with my hair i was not willing to change it because i was "told" to. they didn't give a rats behind, i played with them for the 20 years off and on, a very Very fun band.
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Great story. Very telling. I was internally cheering for you reading your comment to the country band guys. Of course that was what got you showed the door. But who cares with guys like that? Self respect is more important.

Right lol? :/
 
bobdadruma said:
As drumngun mentioned politics a few posts back.
We had to fire a bassist a few years ago after we repeatedly warned him about racist remarks. He insulted our Jewish singer several times with remarks that weren't said directly at her, but they offended her. He also offended the son of the guitar player who is gay. Basically we told him that we didn't care what his personal beliefs were but when he was with us on stage or at practice he wasn't to say anything that would be considered prejudice or racist.
He couldn't do it so after a few weeks we had to let him go.

Currently in the jazz band that I play in there are two members who are politically 180 degrees apart. I have had to put out a few fires that were starting at practice. I talked to both of them privately and the problem stopped.

Band rules are like Drummerworld forum rules. No Politics, or Religion remarks can be tolerated.
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Remarks like that would not go over well with anyone I play with and in this day and age it's unacceptable anywhere. How sad he couldn't even control himself.

We had a politics blowout right after the midterms and it took a few minutes to get everything under control. Bassist is left, guitarist is right, and I'm in the middle!! We all said let's rock and we moved on with the rehearsal.
 
bobdadruma said:
The political subject wasn't brought up intentionally. Ex; It was cold outside so the Conservative band member said, "So Much For Global Warming"
That prompted the Liberal band member to start arguing that Global Warming was real. It then started getting political. That is one example of how an argument can start from nothing.
On another occasion a Liberal band member asked me if I kept guns in the house. This was her second visit to my studio. I said, "No Comment".
I successfully stopped what could have become a political debate.
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If there's someone who wears their political leanings on their sleeve so much that it defines who they are, I generally don't work with that person. There was a guy here in my town who was a hardcore conservative and would say disparaging things about "liberals" on Facebook. Just shitty, shitty things. Nothing of value, nothing good. A constant drumbeat (pardon the pun) of garbage thrown at the left side. One day I finally laid him out and told him:

"the reason I've never come to your jam session is that you've told me how much you hate anyone with a "liberal" bone in their body, but here you are on MY music scene, the place that I've toiled and worked for a quarter century now, and until I started seeing your posts on FB about your jam sessions and gigs, etc... where have you been all this time to just come up in here and start turning off the players who can possibly help your cause, only because of your disdain for an ideology?"

That shut him up and he's not really playing out that much anymore. Maybe that's what it took to pull his head out of his ass. Or to help other people see what a douchebag this guy was really being. I dunno... I'm not the arbiter of all things musical in San Diego, CA... I just work here!

My political leanings should have absolutely ZERO bearing on who I am as a person or player. When someone delineates on that divide then it's not about playing music, it's more like a cult or a club.
 
I stopped jamming with a certain guitar player because of his conservative jokes on FB and email, also he cheated on his wife all the time. He just wasn't the type of guy I want to be around.
 
The first band I was in never got in touch with me after our first gig. The 2 guitarists and singer set up the amps and PA right at the front of the stage. Me and the bassist spent the whole gig just exchanging confused expressions because neither of us could hear a thing. We occasionally had to stop mid song to find out what we were playing and where. We weren't tight enough as a band to play totally from memory. After that gig I never heard from them again. I wasn't that worried because the guitarists and singer were pretty superficial and really only talked about wanting to make lots of money and get lots of girls. I believe they got neither. They also pissed me off because me and the keyboard player had written a song together and they only credited it to him. They were also more interested in image and photo shoots than the music. They were 18 year old kids and I was about 24 at the time.
Another band I quit. It was a Marilyn Manson cover band. This was also a good few years ago and at the time I'd never heard any of his music. A friend of of mine at the time was a big fan and wanted to do a cover band with him as singer. I was playing guitar then and he asked me if I wanted to join it. I said ok as I had nothing else going and didn't really know what I was letting myself in for.
So we had our regular rehersals and I'd listened to a few songs (didn't like any of them by the way). It soon became apparent that our singer was pretty talent free in the vocals department. Doesn't matter I thought, so's Marilyn Manson. So we get the band sounding pretty good and the singer organises a local gig for us at a rock night.
Now one thing I have to explain here is that our singer didn't resemble Marilyn Manson in any way, shape or form. Marilyn Manson is a tall slim bloke, where as our singer was average height and rather portly. This didn't help the cause. He also shaved his entire body for the show because he wanted to do it bare chested. Think Budda in leather trousers.
The night of the concert comes along and to help his nerves and to supply a little Dutch courage he drinks half a bottle of Absinthe. The band played a musically tight show that night, but unfortunately the singer stole the show for the wrong reasons. Once he revealed his body the comments from the audience came thick and fast. When attempting a dramatic scream he managed to drop the mic because he had his foot on the mic cable, but successfully caught the said microphone between his knees. Naturally the audience found this rather amusing. He screwed so many things up that evening I can't even remember half of them.
We attempted to salvage something from the shattered remains of the project, but I finally called it a day as it was clearly doomed to fail. The singer moved to a city about 300 km away and I haven't heard from him since.
Sometimes it's just better to walk away.
 
Never been ousted from a band but I have had to call people together and tell em I was done working with them. I think the hardest of those was the second band I was in, with good friends, just in our 20s, and we were getting some pretty decent traction in Texas during the whole 90s Epitaph style punk movement.

For a few years, things were good. Very good.

Then.

The bassist and singer were at complete ends with each other.....over a woman. A woman who I was once friends with. Their friction actually added to the stage show at first. They'd insult each other. They had this flow of conflict that got the crowd amped up. Then they'd spend the night one upping each other for showmanship. It started seeping into rehearsal schedules, writing, and recording time though. They were the principle songwriters so they'd veto strong song parts just to be petty assholes to each other. The bassist started calling the singer out on his "Tim Armstrong fetish"

The other guitarist and I tried to keep things rolling along in as much peace as possible but one person said some really obnoxious stuff during a radio interview at a college and we couldn't keep their tempers in check anymore. They fought in the rehearsal space before I showed up. Stuff got damaged. I'm a pretty patient person, but to me, tainting the rehearsal space like that is a violation of some kind of sanctity you don't come back from.

I talked with the other calm guy first then called the bassist and singer to my place and in short said "I cant even hang out with you guys together as friends like we used to, let alone do this business or be in a van with you. Alex says he's sticking with it, but I'm out." Then said my piece about the girl at the center of the drama. Didnt have to argue or throw punches afterwords.

A week later the bassist quit. The singer left the girl they were fighting over. He tried to keep the band floating with the "calm guy" but they fizzled within a year. I formed a new project with the bassist and another friend that was far better musically, but got much less attention.

There's a lesson contained somewhere within.
 
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Having read through this, it seems getting 'fired' isn't such a bad thing. Let me briefly add my recent story.

Three years ago, I was approached by my ex-bass player to form a one-off benefit gig band with two other guys in another defunct band (at the time).

We got easily up to 50 songs on a few rehersals and played the gig. It well well enough to decide to book the band. (the 4 of us were without a steady band at the time)

We played quite a few shows and had decent success for about 8 months. Then, as word got around, the singer's ex-drummer came a knockin for a gig. He was given it. I was shown the door. I was okay with it because I was sick of playing these songs for all the years I had been playing them. It was getting stale to me.

About 3 months later, I get a message about another band needing a drummer. I learned the tunes, met the guys at the gig (for the first time) and had a ball.

I am WAAAYYY happier now with this group than I could or would ever be with that other group. Both play out, we play more and seem to be building something really good. We're playing a Packer tailgate deal for thousands of people at the end of the month in a freezing cold tent. That other group would never get that gig. I won!!
 
Blisco said:
Having read through this, it seems getting 'fired' isn't such a bad thing.
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It often isn't. There are quite a few articles in Modern Drummer where the subject comes up and the person talks about the circumstances and how they eventually learned that it's not necessarily that they are playing poorly or someone does not like them, their sound just doesnt match the vibe of the project. I'm sure that will not apply to all situations, but it worth throwing in the thought bowl.
 
It was like Apocalypse Now-the horror! It was my own fault coming to a gig completely unprepared. It was humiliating-like a deer in headlights at the one practice before the gig that evening. Everyone was extremely nice in their bashing me-but I deserved it. Luckily found a replacement to save the day as I whimpered home tail between my legs a broken man. Gosh before I got on the kit I was humiliated and defeated in the pre-discussion of music which I was clueless, then to add further insult I foolishly got on the kit and proceeded to demonstrate their concerns "I was clueless and unprepared" were true as I sucked royally. I was depressed at the time dealing with personal issues and that was like icing on the cake and the last straw-but Lesson learned. Get my head out of my arse, and Start working on your weaknesses-which I still am.
 
Like most of you, I had been in bands that simply came to the end of their natural lives. I recently however left my regular gig of 10 years because, succinctly put, the front man rhythm guitarist, an acquaintance of some 20 odd years ad two bands, turned into a complete bell end over the past 2 years. He had some personal stuff going on and couldn't stop it from affecting his demeanour when playing and it always seemed directed at me- no idea why, other than I am a very reasonable man who is generally non-confrontational. But I do have a very strong sense of right and wrong and the straw that broke the camel's back appeared and I suggested he placed the band up his alimentary canal sideways. This led to an online rant from him towards me which meant that the bass player, a really good friend of mine who was already leaving at the end of the year, followed me immediately out the same door and left him to stew in the mess he had made.

It took a lot for me to get to that point, but I realised that I had been on edge when we played for some time and the day before after were a ramping up/calming down period that was affecting other aspects in my life. As music is my hobby, relaxation and opportunity to switch off from the stress of my professional life, this was clearly contradictory, but in the end he left me with no choice.

And you know what, it must have been the right decision, because I haven't regretted it for a minute since I made the decision! I'm now involved in 2 new projects which are so unpressured in comparison that I'm sorry that I didn't jump ship years ago!
 
Been fired twice.

The first one kind of caught me by surprise...but it was a doomed alliance from the start (the other three members wore makeup and tight pants; I was a jeans and wife-beater type). I'd only been with the band for a year, probably a little less. Now in my previous band, it was ritual for everyone to get completely shit faced after the gig and spend the rest of the night arguing with and insulting each other. The next morning, we'd wake up hung over and laugh about it over breakfast. (I know - strange ritual, but somehow we thrived on it.)

So I get in this new band, and at the end of one tour, I got completely hammered on the Fosters Oil Cans provided by the club. Reflexively, I began arguing with and insulting the other members. They looked confused and a bit frightened, which amused me to no end; but in my haze, I completely overlooked the fact that they were not, in fact, engaging in any repartee.

The next morning the band leader woke me up and told me that they would not be able to play with me any more. Thought he was joking! But no, they'd been sufficiently shaken that they actually cancelled the last few shows of the tour. As I said before, it was destined to be - though the music sounded good, I was really not the right guy for that band.

My second firing was in a band with two brothers. The younger one was a little shit with a mouth that was constantly getting him in trouble - I personally had to save him from getting his ass kicked on the road more than once. The trouble was that as time went on, and we gained a little success, his ego inflated enormously, which led to a derisive attitude towards any band member that wasn't his brother. He started mouthing off to me, or trying to insult me in front of people in an effort to appear cool. I don't take shit - not from band members, not from anybody. The day was fast approaching that I was going to have to re-arrange the little bastard's face, and his brother - more intelligent than his sibliing - recognized this, and dismissed me from the band in order to head off the massacre. I'd had enough by that point anyway, so it was no great loss. But I still feel like I owe little brother a little something...kind of hope I run into him again someday.

Other than those two instances I've had some good luck with bands and stayed with most of them for a decade or more. I'm not hard to get along with...provided you don't deliberately push me. Then all bets are off.
 
bobdadruma said:
Liberal band member asked me if I kept guns in the house.
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While I personally do not like guns, I would find offense to that one because it is no ones business what you have or don't have. And it would have me wondering why they want to know and suspecting ulterior motives. But then I do not trust people easily.

While I haven't been in a band as of yet as I know I have A LOT of practicing to get to the point where I am ready to gig, I know my drum teacher sometime within the last year has parted with the band he was in. Only he won't dish out the dirt on why. But I had been questioning why the band he was in started a second band with most of the original members but a different drummer.
 
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1) I quit a band earlier this year because the singer was turning into a weird recluse - kept turning down shows, would forget the chords to songs he wrote, and when we would play the occasional show he'd drink bucket loads beforehand, make tons of mistakes during our set and then blame it on "not enough light" onstage (as opposed to having a brewery's worth of drink in him). The final straw was when he said he was going to get a clip on reading light for the top of his guitar the next time we played. This was a punk band by the way.

2) One time I joined a band but left after a month when it became apparent that the singer/guitarist just wanted me to sound like a really boring drum machine - he'd only ever played/recorded with one so was conditioned to that sound I guess. Too boring for me so I made my exit.
 
every band breaks up / fizzles out / explodes spectacularly - eventually.

I've quit bands, and been fired from bands. "Shut up and Play" is a spectacularly good piece of advice.

I've also never seen any good come from band members deciding to all be buddies and hang out outside of band situations. At some point someone is going to say something to someone else and cause a fight. And once that happens, it's going to end badly. One band I was in, two members wives didn't like each other, and that slowly turned into the band members not liking each other which eventually turned into the bass player unslinging his bass on stage to get ready to break it over the singers head. I broke that up just in time. It would have been a hell of a stage show though! Band never played again after that night.

Just treat it professionally and do your best. That's all you can do. Don't take things personally.
 
Same with me as a few on here, Never been fired from a band but a band I was in for years broke up and then reformed a month later without me.
 
petey said:
Same with me as a few on here, Never been fired from a band but a band I was in for years broke up and then reformed a month later without me.
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That's the basic equivalent of being fired but the boss couldn't be arsed commuting up to tell you in person, so they sent a letter instead.

Been there !!

:)
 
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