Advice: Possible Band Formation...

[Nerve Nickels]

I will be playing with a bass player and a drummer (i play guitar)... After many conversations, and a few jam sessions, we are going to start writing...

I feel I will bring more to the table as a musician/engineer/producer...

I have a very distinct sound and vision...

How can I keep my ass from hurting if this works out?

gigs and there after...

without their ass's hurting also...

thanks

[max cooper]

http://www.buttforyou.com/


Do you mean in the legal sense, like if there's any money from publishing, mechanicals, etc...or do you mean as far as the musical result and people wasting your time, or do you literally mean...nevermind.

[Dave Martin]

If you're writing with them, then it's a band, and these things tend to be split evenly. If you're bringing YOUR tunes and vision to the table as the main focus of the group, why not simply HIRE those guys as your sidemen since you don't appear to be all that interested in a group endeavor with an even split?

And if you're whining because you think that somehow, even before y'all start working, that you're more 'valuable' than the others, you should re-think what it means to be in a band...

[bnath]

Originally posted by Nerve Nickels
I feel I will bring more to the table as a musician/engineer/producer...

I have a very distinct sound and vision...

Should be easy: If you're collectively writing the songs... then artist and mechanical royalties get split three ways. If you're using your very distinct sound and vision to write the songs and present them to the group for performing, then artist royalties are split and mechanical goes to you (of course, in this case, as Dave mentioned, you may be better off hiring some folks).

In either event, if you are indeed producing and engineering the group, then the fees for those services should go to you. But, that's pretty independent of the mechanical and artist royalties -- and should be negotiated accordingly; the other members of the group should probably agree to hiring you as the producer/engineer in order to prevent any "ass sores" down the line.

b :*

[Nerve Nickels]

"you should re-think what it means to be in a band..."

perhaps your right...

But, I don't think I'm whining... I think it's more of a trust issue...



?

[enharmonic]

Don't form a band with people if you do not trust them. A band is like any other relationship x10 in intensity and commitment. If you're not ready to see these guys as equals, do not form a band. Hire them, or see if they feel as wowed about your talent as you do, and what they're willing to give up to work with you.

If you are writing songs and bringing them in, you should protect yourself. If you are collaborating, you should acknowledge their equality in that regard.

At the end of the day, unless you have someone waving money at you, what does your cut of mothing work out to be?

[Dave Martin]

What Enharmonic said - don't start a band with them if you don't trust them. If it's a part time, non-professional thing that you're doing for the fun of it, none of this matters. But if you're talking about committing to trying to do something bigger than that, you have to be aware that being in a band is kinda like marraige (except that you probably won't be having sex with the other members in the band...). A band ia a partnership - if you feel like you ought to be the 'senior parter', with a greater share of the input and a greater share of the rewards, make that very, very clear to the other guys up front.

I'm currently in a band - I have a fairly well equipped studio (and I'm producing a project with the singer). But neither of them have anything to do with the band - we go play, we have fun, we split the money that we make.

[natpub]

pre-thinking business/money worries is the worst way to start a band--save all that for when there is actually money to be had.

consider yourself lucky if you have any actual NET revenue from songs worth arguing about

Dave is totally right on about just splitting things

if you have platinum albums you can start bitching over splits on royalties and shit

and DONT even think that having some kind of contract early is going to really protect you if a main artist wants to re-debate the contractual arrangements--consider that Kurt Cobain had agreed to split royalties with the rest of Nirvana, then he decided he had written all the songs and wanted to go back, "Retroactively" and change it all to his money alone--he completely ****ed the band, but what choice did they have? they had to comply or loose him and all the potential Nirvana earnings--

as it turned out, he screwed them even more by killing himself, leaving Courtney Love with all the big cash from the Nirvana collection.

Just play, write, have fun, split everything--get lawyers when and if it starts making mega bucks :-)

[Nerve Nickels]

thanks guys...

Sometimes I just need a good fresh perspective!

can't wait to start giging again...

[LittleDogAudio]

Well if plan on engineering and producing the band as well as playing for them, you should try to seperate the two positions.

As a studio owner I always ended up recording and producing all of my bands stuff. I would charge them a nominal fee per hour for studio time because, if they were in there, a "paying" client was not.

Also, if you charge them a bit for engineering services, they will have a greater sense of urgency to get it done in a timely matter.

This has been my experiance.

Chris

[joeq]

Originally posted by LittleDogAudio


Also, if you charge them a bit for engineering services, they will have a greater sense of urgency to get it done in a timely matter.

Excellent point.

And if you end up not charging for engineering, at least keep careful records of the hours that you log so you can submit a bill when the big bucks start rolling in.

[enharmonic]

If i were in Nerve's position though, I'd have a tough time charging my band mates to record my songs...so if I were engineering (which is probably not a bad idea...at least in 90% of instances), I would feel pretty conflicted about charging others to record the songs that I teach them.

Now, if they wanted to use some of my gear, I could probably justify a rental fee, but that's quite a different direction.

Nerve, I say join the band and worry about the other stuff once you've written the next Sgt. Pepper :D

[LittleDogAudio]

I didn't see where the songs were going to be Nerve's alone.?

And, I always charged a "nominal" fee and usually just took a slightly larger cut of the door for a few gigs. Really not much at all.

My band never had an issue and totally understood my position. The same was true for our drummer who schlepped his PA system out to gigs that didn't supply one. Why would I assume that we should make this guy break his back when he was saving us the rental cost of a PA?

Just my .02

Chris

[Nerve Nickels]

well...things went somewhat of a 'wash'...

I guess funtime is over...

I'm gonna continue 2 work alone untill/(if) I meet my music-mates...

untill then its just me-myself-and-i

[meteor]

it's almost always best to just dive in for a song or two without discussing anything business related. as long as it is clear that the arrangements and evaluations will occur after the nature of your particular process is more clear.

i started in a band on an even split once. let's just say that there is a reason why communism never quite lives up to it's utopic vision. (i bust my ass, some other guy coasts and expects to have the same possibilty of reward... bullsh...)

cheers,