Why did you get fired?

The fences are mended now, but I flipped out after a long day schlepping drums and finding parking (many hours before the set), and getting no support and last minute changes from bandmates of 9 years. Too many unresolved issues after that long. Not healthy. The soundguy reading a book during our entire set really put me over the edge...
 
I was gigging with this one band 3 nights a week at a dive bar. The bandleader would have a bottle of something in his pocket. Not every night, but by the end of some nights he was so sloshed that this time was all over the place, and he got mad at me for not keeping able to be in time with him. Well, kind of hard to stay in time when the band leaders' sense of time is all over the place.....

Though by then I had already made up my mind I was going move to Los Angeles anyway.
 
Last and only time I got fired was because I just wasn't at a high enough level. My time/pocket simply wasn't consistent enough, and my dbl kick playing wasn't good enough.

Was a wake up call to spend as much time as possible playing and practicing to a click.
 
Been fired from 2 bands.

First band, the bandleader fired the entire band. Why? Because nobody showed up to a rehearsal at his house during an icy snowstorm. He bragged about it on social media, too. It was a great band. That one hurt.

The other one was just this last fall. I had joined up with a cover band. Everything was going well. At one gig, one of the bandleader’s high school buddies shows up and asks to sit in on drums for one song. I watch as he completely butchers the song (and gorilla fists my drum set). He and the bandleader have a few drinks and a few laughs at the next break. You know what’s coming up…After the next gig, the bandleader has his WIFE call me to deliver the bad news that they want to go a different direction. That was annoying. I was only in the group for about 6 months.
 
That sucks.

A local female singer puts together bands and then fires them after a while, just to have to start over.
 
In my early 20’s, I was asked to join a 2 girl lead singer band. Band had a modest degree of success, & I played about 8 gigs with them. One day, I got a call from the bass player saying the girls had decided to let me go because I didn’t fit the band image. I’m not sure what was specifically meant by that, but I remember remarking, "as far as I’m aware, I’ve not become more ugly since joining", & that was that. Act broke up a week later.
 
Bo Eder said:
I guess this is a normal thing for bands, but my "hired gun" mentality got me excused from a project. I played with a classic rock band and did two gigs with them, but when they insisted I always be available for band rehearsal on Sundays (regardless if there was a gig coming up), and I couldn't do those because I'd be out playing with other people, they couldn't handle that and we parted ways. It was the weirdest thing. I was brought up to play with whoever you could. I had no idea bands wanted you to be loyal to them only once you were in. Needless to say, it was good for both of us. I wonder what those guys are doing now....
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I've never understood the loyalty thing either, if you're a working musician your diary is always free if you're not double booked and a paid gig trumps a practice.

The band I've been in for the past 13 years knows the score, everyone is interchangeable and deps are always plentiful if it's a well paid gig.

Don't get me wrong if you're very lucky and get that life changing gig that gives you a career do it, but those are 1 in a million.
 
That 'loyalty' thing isn't the only reason but is just 1 factor urging me to leave the current band. It was a big deal when I asked for 1 night free (after a year of never asking) on a day we weren't yet booked so that I could do 1 show with a friend I'd been wanting to jam with forever. Lots of drama over that request.

Our current guit player did several fill-ins for Blues Jams the next month (nobody said chit about it). The guy who had a problem with my request does duo shows thru the year so we cant book those nights either. He sent a caledar with a duo show listed then a deaf message that he didn't mean to let us know about that show. Ok, then. You do your own shows, but someone else can't, without a ton of drama, and knowing his duo dates would allow me to say yes to a blues jam that night if I were asked to fill in.
 
yeah...I am in 4 bands, and they all got the 'I book first come, first serve" speech. If band A books June 29th, and then 3 weeks later band B gets an offer to play that same night, the band A gig does not get bumped. I keep a Google calendar that all of my band mates can see that also has my school band duties on it as well. I try to be as forward and proactive as possible with them all. 10 years running and no problems at all

the country/jazz band has 2 other guys that fill in for me when I can't do stuff, and I have no problem with that. Sometimes they even ask if they can play a certain gig for whatever reason, and i also have no problem with that either.
 
I played drums and sang in a band fronted by a sister and brother. We were the house band in one bar for 2 years.
The sister was a good singer and front person but the bro was more of a clown, think Jethro /Grizzly Adams, who played acoustic guitar very poorly.
The sister got pregnant and had to take a month off. They hired a replacement singer, she was good but after a couple of weeks, Bro fired her and hired a sax player. He then started playing about half the guitar solos and butchering them. On a break one night I told the Bro that he should let the REAL guitar player take all the solos.
Bro says" I think you'd be happier in another band:" I said "that's possible". He fired me, we finished the night .
The next day the entire band quit him and it took the Bro and Sis about a year to have a band working again.
I got in a Blues trio that got a good rep and worked a lot, we hosted a jam that was very popular, I am seriously glad I got fired!
 
Speaking of Firing, a country singer in Sacto fired his entire band. He held some auditions and me and 2 guys I'd been working with got the job. We worked several gigs but a short time later the leader tells me that he is going to can those 2 guys and get 2 of his original (fired) band guys back. He didn't know I was tight with these guys. He booked a gig out of town and having a sense that I would be fired soon and that he'd screwed over my friends, we just didn't show up and it was him and a fiddle player out where no replacements could be found. That's the only gig I ever skated on.
 
moodman said:
I played drums and sang in a band fronted by a sister and brother. We were the house band in one bar for 2 years.
The sister was a good singer and front person but the bro was more of a clown, think Jethro /Grizzly Adams, who played acoustic guitar very poorly.
The sister got pregnant and had to take a month off. They hired a replacement singer, she was good but after a couple of weeks, Bro fired her and hired a sax player. He then started playing about half the guitar solos and butchering them. On a break one night I told the Bro that he should let the REAL guitar player take all the solos.
Bro says" I think you'd be happier in another band:" I said "that's possible". He fired me, we finished the night .
The next day the entire band quit him and it took the Bro and Sis about a year to have a band working again.
I got in a Blues trio that got a good rep and worked a lot, we hosted a jam that was very popular, I am seriously glad I got fired!
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seems like a lot of these stories are situations where getting fired was the best thing that could have happened...leaving the clueless band people to deal with their own cluelessness
 
I told the singer her earrings would be good for pickerel . No sense of humour . Then I had to deal with her significant other . What made it worse was the rest of the band were laughing like crazy . Hell hath no fury .....
 
ravenson said:
I told the singer her earrings would be good for pickerel . No sense of humour . Then I had to deal with her significant other . What made it worse was the rest of the band were laughing like crazy . Hell hath no fury .....
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she probably didn't know what pickerel was...
 
Back in the late 80s I'm at rehearsal one night and the two guitarists are out of sync on a part. One is trying to show the other what he is doing wrong. I helpfully explain that the bit in question is a triplet. Neither of them had a clue what that was and they made it clear that my help was not welcome. A few days later the bass player/leader told me that when you learn too much about music you lose your street edge. And they had another drummer lined up. I was happy to take my gear and move on.
 
DrumPhil said:
Back in the late 80s I'm at rehearsal one night and the two guitarists are out of sync on a part. One is trying to show the other what he is doing wrong. I helpfully explain that the bit in question is a triplet. Neither of them had a clue what that was and they made it clear that my help was not welcome. A few days later the bass player/leader told me that when you learn too much about music you lose your street edge. And they had another drummer lined up. I was happy to take my gear and move on.
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yep...you dodged a bullet with that move!!!!

"Street Edge" ..... 😑 :cautious:🙄
 
I haven't been in bands that fired me. Haven't been in many bands too. Not really out there, just doing my project thing and focusing on that. Pretty sure if i was out there more I'd eventually would experience this.
 
I think there've been about 7-8 bands that I've been in. A slight majority dissolved.
 
DrumPhil said:
Back in the late 80s I'm at rehearsal one night and the two guitarists are out of sync on a part. One is trying to show the other what he is doing wrong. I helpfully explain that the bit in question is a triplet. Neither of them had a clue what that was and they made it clear that my help was not welcome. A few days later the bass player/leader told me that when you learn too much about music you lose your street edge. And they had another drummer lined up. I was happy to take my gear and move on.
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Street edge…some people will believe anything.
 
March 2022, gigs had started coming back in earnest, and I got booked to do two gigs with a guy who plays old time jazz. Lineup was singer/trumpet/trombone, clarinet, 6 string banjo, and me on upright, which admittedly I’m no Ron Carter but I’m solid.

We do the first gig, and everyone is out of whack. Horn players are cracking notes, playing bizarre stuff, banjo player is slowing everything down tremendously and not listening to me trying to play the tempo the singer counts off, and honestly I felt like the only person who had actually practiced (I didn’t practice much, but they made me feel like I woodshedded for 8 hours a day compared to them).

A week later I get a call…”Jimmy, you know I love you and think you’re a great guy, but I’m pulling you off the next gig because you’re not where I need you to be.”

I pretended not to be upset about it because upright definitely isn’t my strong suit, but I got canned because I couldn’t keep the banjo player in time because he wasn’t listening. Meanwhile, he’s still there. It was all due to the pandemic layoff, and he’s ordinarily fantastic, but nobody had a right to claim musical superiority on that day simply because we were all out of shape, and I said as much. BL says I’m right but I’m still not doing the gig. I think the clarinet player, who is kind of a jerk who thinks he’s the ultimate, got in his head.

So I’m not talking to the guy anymore. Don’t tell me you love me then fire me because I’m not up to the high standards you set for everybody but yourself.
 
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