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Band members - mainly the difficulty in finding them

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Posted By : Markk (Vankwish) | Comments : 16

Is it singers/front person ?


As some of you know, we as sabre have been looking for a singer for approx a year now,

As luck would have it, we borrowed one of the best front men you can find on NWB's, and from "can you just do a couple of gigs to help us out" turned into pretty much a year of total excellant rocking, and even better than that a great friendship with Marc from Vankwish, ............................

Sadly he will be leaving us in September to re-concentrate on his own band Vankiwish.

We have auditioned a few, and thats not to say that (and in all honesty) non have been bad, but, I think after having Marc on a long term loan we have been spoiled in our outlook to fronting Sabre,

So my question, is, just who is the most difficult person to find in the band ?
If anyone person left, who would be the hardest to replace?

We have been looking for this amazing front person to join Sabre in over a year now, we have used all the normal haunts from musicians and not really decided on any one person to take the roll, it is us ?

your thoughts please !!

Regards Mark

Comments

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# Posted by Invisible Ducks - 11/07/2010, 22:48 (GMT)

I understand what you mean about finding a good front person being hard but I think if our bass player left we would be stuck because when we were putting our band together the most difficult member to get was the bassist.

Tony


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# Posted by 53 Degrees North - 11/07/2010, 22:57 (GMT)

my own viewpoint on bands in general has always been this:

You can have great musicians, and a crap frontman, and you'll get no recognition whatsoever.

You can have mediocre musicians and a great frontman, and everyone will love you.

It's a sad thing to say that a frontman is probably the most important person come gig night. And also the most difficult to replace.

Mick


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# Posted by Markk (Vankwish) - 11/07/2010, 23:01 (GMT)

@ 53 Degrees North

it would seam so, I was always of the mind that if you are a good/great musician thats what counts and the band will do well, but I have found out in the last few years that not only does the band (be it with great/good/average musos) need a great front man(person) as much as the front(person) need to have good musicians.

But to us it has been an impossible task to find the person we seek. had this been a guitarist/drummer would we have had the same problem ?


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# Posted by NIGHT TRAIN - 11/07/2010, 23:09 (GMT)

@ %3 Degrees
Quite right!!


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# Posted by 53 Degrees North - 11/07/2010, 23:16 (GMT)

ha. you were bound to say that alec!!

@markk - do you not find one problem is all the reality singing programs? everyone thinks they're a singer!

good luck - hope you find someone.

Mick


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# Posted by Markk (Vankwish) - 11/07/2010, 23:20 (GMT)

in all fairness if everyone thought they where a singer i would have thought we would have had more auditonees than 4 people in a year.

We have not had any bad singers, but whilst Marc was singing with us, we hd decided to hold out, just to see if that special person, maybe just someone would stand out from the crowd,


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# Posted by Stonecycle - 11/07/2010, 23:51 (GMT)

For us its always been drummers that are hardest to find. At least reliable ones with no other band commitments. It took us nearly 18 months of looking before we found Alex. Though I guess it helped that our guitarist and bassist just happened to be good mates anyway. I guess alot of it is down to who you know.


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# Posted by Smiler, Route66 - 12/07/2010, 09:20 (GMT)

hi mark, as a band in the same position, i agree with you, a singer ( closely followed by drummer) is the hardest to find, we are still looking, had a really good singer come down a few weeks ago , but he's about as reliable as a skoda from 1970 ! so the hunt goes on, good luck in your search....bill


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# Posted by James - Metalleeka - 12/07/2010, 09:25 (GMT)

@markk: did you fill Stixxy's role in Vankwish?


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# Posted by 53 Degrees North - 12/07/2010, 10:23 (GMT)

actually, for us personally, we searched for a drummer for 5 years!! we used computer based (and not too bad sounding if i might say so myself!) drum tracks for all that time since our original drummer left us after our very first gig!!

i suppose i was answering a different question in my earlier post - 'which member is the most important come gig night?'

i guess some of it comes down to circumstance - we had a couple of really decent drummers contact us, but they all wanted about 14 thousand gigs a month and to pay the mortgage on the 28 bedroom houses they'd bought from it! but we just can't commit to so much band activity, so we struggled with the lunatics and plain bad drummers for a while before giving up looking completely. Nicola, our drummer came to us in a chance meeting at a jam night.

Mick


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# Posted by TEX & THE HARDCORE TROUBAD... - 12/07/2010, 15:11 (GMT)

Finding muso's? easy, finding good muso's? tricky, finding good muso's you feel you could work with? damn near impossible !!!......Tex


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# Posted by Markk (Vankwish) - 12/07/2010, 15:53 (GMT)

@ Tex, yeh you have to spent 2/3/4 days aweeks with these guys, of course being able to get on without no pretence is something else totally as well as being a good muso !


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# Posted by BELIEVE - 12/07/2010, 17:01 (GMT)

I hope its not you :D.. I will try out for ya soon.. now ya frightening me :D

For me personally, its finding a band that aint cruel to their singers :D


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# Posted by 53 Degrees North - 13/07/2010, 09:19 (GMT)

Cruel to their singers???

Surely it's the job of any other band members to be as cruel as possible to singers to prevent their inflated ego's from taking over the planet??? ;)

Mick


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# Posted by Markk (Vankwish) - 13/07/2010, 09:30 (GMT)

You have to ba able to hold your own in any band or you will fade out in a live situation without a doubt !


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# Posted by BELIEVE - 13/07/2010, 10:45 (GMT)

I was just kidding ya :)

I think the main problem can be, has I have found in the past in bands I have been in and we are auditioning for others to join..

Talent counts for a high % but so does personality and being able to fit into, put yourself forward into what is already/hopefuly a tight nit group and also for that group to have the same idea of the type they are looking for and to be open/friendly enough to allow another in.. egos aside :)

When you have done many gigs with band members as I have in the past, bonds are made and even those I done gigs with years ago, when I see them now, even though I may have not seen them for years.. the bond/trust friendship remains, its what naturally comes from doing gigs together, having to rely on the other to do there part.. one fails, we all fail.

You need someone who A has talent and B Isnt shy, has the confidence in personality to step up to the plate but plays has a team, friendly with all..

eek, thats me :D, hopefully you will think so.. we will see :)


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