Ever shown up to play with a new musician and realized it was a bad fit immediately?

Superman

Gold Member
So tonight I showed up at someones house that I answered an ad to. He seemed pleasant over text messaging and had similar musical interests. I pulled in the driveway and he came outside. He appeared highly intoxicated. He introduced himself and then his wife came outside. They immediately got into a verbal dispute that involved loud cursing and foul language. I had all my gear still packed up in my car and wanted to leave that very second. I knew right away that this was not the situation for me. Has anyone else had a situation like this where you knew it was a mismatch the second you arrived at a jam/ audition?
 
I never had that situation. But what I want to know is ,did you stay or get the hell out of there?
 
Never anything that awkward. It's usually the guy that comes in to audition and is unprepared, or not a stylistic fit. The personality mismatches take a few rehearsals to key in on.
 
Before we had this thing called the internet where we can talk online and exchange music samples: many, many times.
 
I want to a guy's place after he answered my drummer available ad. He was pretty lit up when I got there and kept drinking the whole time I was there. He sat down and handed me a pair of headphones while explaining to me that he had been back and forth a few times over the Internet with some Grammy award winning producer I had never heard of who said he wanted to mix some of his tracks. He then proceeded to play me a couple of tracks he had recorded and it was immediately apparent that someone on the Internet was having him on. The songs sounded just terrible. The song writing, the performance, the recording quality, everything was just about the worst thing I had ever heard. I then politely tried to make it through a jam on a couple of his songs on this terrible electronic kit he had that lagged about an eighth of a second on every hit on every pad. The jam sounded worse than the recording but he could hardly contain himself, he was so excited about how good he thought our jam went. He then started planning out our eventual world wide domination. At this point his completely wasted buddy came over and hung out. He wanted to sing a couple of tunes. At that point I had been entertained enough and made up an excuse to leave. For some reason or another I never ended up going back for another jam.
 
It happens a lot. I don't mind, really. I jam with everybody, I learn from everybody.
 
Yes that did happen to me as well. The guitar player was half under the bag when I showed up.We played a few songs,he explained to me that is not how my old drummer does it,he is all over the place, as his hands are waving in the air . Being all over the place did not suit the eagle songs we played. The drunker he got the busier he thought I should be.He new nothing about drumming.Frustrating it was.The rest of the guys where great and sober.
 
Yeah i have! A band contacted me asking me to play with them, we arranged a time and a studio etc. Before i went i listened to them via the recordings they sent and they sounded goooooood, awesome harmonies and generally great musicians.
When i got there they had already set up so i got my gear out, set up and said lets do it as i had already practiced a couple of the songs at home. Well what followed was the worst, most embarrassing time of my life! to say they were awful is an understatement. How they made themselves sound that good on a recording I'll never know? unfortunately i had to play the night through but as you can imagine i never went back.
Why people do this is beyond me so now i ask for live footage just to be sure.
 
If i showed up to meet someone and they were slightly drunk i would leave... just not the best people to deal with..
 
I turned up for a jam with some guys who wanted to play Jazz Funk. Not my bag at all but my bass player mate reccomended me.

We had a few songs to work at, sent by email and they were very Jazz.

All night the guitarist, who seemed to style himself as the leader and was a humourless soul, from the off, kept telling me to play quieter. I use a 20, 10, 12, 14 setup and I had rings on all the drums to soften them and tape on the cymbals, a coat over the BD but still he was giving me looks.

"Can you just play 55 on the ride" he would say, not politely I might add.

I thought this was supposed to be Jazz/Funk/Fusion I said to my mate at one point.

At the end I was hardly touching the drums, I have never played so softly in my life and it was impossible to do more than keep time at that intensity. It is the hardest I have ever concentrated whil playing music and my head hurt..

"What do you think then?" our leader said at the end, "I think that went well"........ "Nah, not for me" I said.

The keyboard player also binned it as it was "too loud and not straight Jazz enough" for him.

A tough night all round. My ride playing did come on a ton though.
 
About ten years ago a friend invited to jam with some people he knew. Turned out they were wanting to play music that was 'inspirational' as well as having an extreme political slant. I just wanted to play any kind of rock, felt very out of place. They have since had a project going, but haven't played much more than an occasional tea party rally. They have since gained a reputation of being too polarizing.
 
I never had that situation. But what I want to know is ,did you stay or get the hell out of there?

I got out of there. I just had a really bad feeling from the start. I told him I got a call out from work as I was on my way and I apologized for the inconvenience. I know it was kind of lame; but between his behavior and the unsafe neighborhood I just knew this wasn't for me.
 
I got out of there. I just had a really bad feeling from the start. I told him I got a call out from work as I was on my way and I apologized for the inconvenience. I know it was kind of lame; but between his behavior and the unsafe neighborhood I just knew this wasn't for me.

That makes sense.... good to know. I'm glad you weren't trying to be some sort of superman... Sorry, I couldn't resist.
 
Yep, you just do the gig, figure out if the person is always like that and what's your personal tolerance for what they're bringing and what reward you're getting from the whole endeavor and is it worth it.

A wise woman told me once "when the pain outweighs the love then it's time to move on." That applies to life.
 
Twice.

I responded to an ad for a drummer for a Top-40 dance band. Showed up to the rehearsal and only me and the singer (who placed the ad) were there. Thirty minutes later the keyboardist shows up drunk and carrying a 4-pack of tall boys. It was 2pm on a Sunday.

More recently a friend asked me to sub in his band. I said yes without doing research. Now I've looked at the videos of a past performance and every part of me is screaming GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT ... but I don't want to leave a friend hanging.

Music is sure weird.
 
I prefer if one or more of the group is a little bit sideways.

When everybody connects and the chemistry is there l start thinking that l am the bad neighbour on the block.

Barry
 
I prefer if one or more of the group is a little bit sideways.

When everybody connects and the chemistry is there l start thinking that l am the bad neighbour on the block.

Barry

Yep. As they say....If you are not the worst neighbour in your street, you should move up.
 
Totally had this... I received an email asking me to go and join this group. She was putting together a few players for a new project etc. So I turned up at this house and I had never seen anything like it. There were several cats and several rabbits in the lounge and it really wasn't pleasant. Then the others turned up and she just said lets write something and we al just looked at each other threw a few chords and beats around and left. We all then received an email saying that it didn't work as she had planned and kind of blamed us for the way it went and said bye. I can't say I minded. That place was grim.
 
So tonight I showed up at someones house that I answered an ad to. He seemed pleasant over text messaging and had similar musical interests. I pulled in the driveway and he came outside. He appeared highly intoxicated. He introduced himself and then his wife came outside. They immediately got into a verbal dispute that involved loud cursing and foul language. I had all my gear still packed up in my car and wanted to leave that very second. I knew right away that this was not the situation for me. Has anyone else had a situation like this where you knew it was a mismatch the second you arrived at a jam/ audition?

Heck yeah, dude! Happens all the time! I have been playing for seventeen years and I wish I had a dollar for every time I jammed with someone who ended up not working out. Sometimes I didn't even get THAT far. People are nuts.
 
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