Aside from making money through playing gigs, you have to be a good salesman to make money in the music industry.  If people aren’t buying your CDs, t-shirts, and other products, you are missing out on a small fortune.  You really don’t need a degree in rocket science to become a great salesman.  You just have to understand the basic psychology behind helping your fans remove the money from their wallet and invest it in your music career by placing that money in your hand.  What is funny is that musicians lose out on so much of that money, simply because they lack the necessary skills to close the deal.  But, all it takes is one good salesman to turn a track record of poor returns into a lucrative operation where the band is making money hand over fist.

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We all have moments when our creativity just doesn’t seem to want to come out and play.  Maybe your singer is having writer’s block.  Or, perhaps your guitarist is finally starting to realize that there are only so many ways to rearrange the chords C, G, and D before they realize that all their songs sound too much alike.  Whatever the problem is that sufficates your creative genius, it can potentially effect your bands ability to make progress overall.  So, what does a musician do when they find themselves in a slump?

For some, the road to new creative discoveries is long and frustrating. I remember after playing guitar for many years that I hit a rut that kept me grounded for two years.  I would play and play but nothing really new and exciting seemed to jump out and grab my attention.  To make matters worse, I began to get board with practicing the same stuff over and over again.  In all honesty, I became so board i put my guitar in its case and ignored it for nearly a year.  Sometimes a person will put an instrument down and never pick it up again.  Fortunately, I got to a point where I started missing the feel of my strat.  So, one day I pulled it out of the closet, plugged it in, and cranked the amp.  I noticed that it didn’t feel quite so stale to run the neck like it used to.

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Whether you are already playing in a band or just getting yourself prepared to join a band, it is important to spend time alone with your instrument.  Often bands practice songs to iron out rough spots and nail down how they will execute songs by arranging them in sets.  It’s a time when you can make sure that all the members of your band are on the same page and doing what needs to be done to prepare for your next gig. Unfortunately, band practice sessions sometimes don’t leave much room for an artist to work on their own personal growth as a musician. Without some much needed personal practice, you will find that playing the same stuff over and over again just makes the whole experience of being a musician start to feel a little stale and redundant.

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A healthy band atmosphere does more to help a band become successful than the average musician may initially realize.  Sure, people are going to bicker and fight.  A certain level of conflict in any relationship is to be expected.  It is all part of the growing process.  However, at some point, if the members of your band do not recognize that the band should come before self, the end result is not likely one of fame and success.  In this article, I am going to list a few important red flags to watch out for and how to deal with them before they erupt into huge problems.

Creative Megalomania

Is the person who assigned themselves the leader over the band a complete megalomaniac and control freak?  If so, it is usually a waste of time trying to remedy this problem.  You have to ask yourself an important question in situations like this.  Do you want to spend more time working on perfecting your creative potential or playing therapist to other band members being abused by an idiot who doesn’t respect anyone’s ideas but his/her own?  Or, if you are being a control freak, is it really your goal to destroy your band in an attempt to wield power over others?

There is nothing professional or healthy about a band being bossed around by a control freak.  It is generally a good policy to make for the door as soon as you realize that you are in this type of situation. Most bands like this are doomed to failure before they even play their first gig.  So, before you decide to join a new band, it is a good idea to spend some time asking the members how they like being a part of the band in question.  If you find that the members consistantly complain that one of the other band members just takes over and causes lots of problems, you may be inheriting a lot of unwanted issues to deal with. So, make sure you get to know the people and personalities in a band before you agree to be a part of a group that spends more time insuring its failure rather than insuring its success. 

Practice before You Party

We all like to have fun, but an unfortunate problem in the music industry is that some people party to the point that it ruins not only their career but the careers of everyone else in the band.  When another members addictions prevents them from showing up to practice or gigs, it only makes them a liability to everyone else involved.  It’s far more beneficial for everyone in your band if you all agree that practice comes first.  I much prefer to work with people who do not have substance abuse problems than with people who do.  You never know who is going to get you entangled into their problems and people who are involved in over indulgence usually bring the worse kind of problems around.  And more often than not, they are willing to get you entrenched in their problems and not help you out after the damage is done.  So, the question is do you want a music career or do you want to be sucked into someone elses problems and addictions?  If you want a music career, then make sure practice comes first and that everyone in your band is clear about that.  And the minute someone decides that their addictions come first, get rid of them because they are really saying that the band doesn’t matter.  Rather, all that matters is their own selfish desire to indulge at the bands expense.

Be Professional

Immaturity may get you somewhere with the drunken fans that hang around the club where you gig.  But, when it comes to building relationships with other music industry professionals, make sure that they don’t walk away thinking your band is a bunch of immature morons.  I’ve listened to a lot of interviews by bands who are unsigned and struggling to make it, and it is no wonder why they are struggling.  In a lot of cases it is because they never took a good look at themselves in the mirror or listened to themselves talk.  It’s a good idea to have a friend with a video camera sit your band down in a nice setting and help you to develop some interviewing skills.  A little polish on the brass doesn’t hurt to prepare you for the real inspection.  This way, when you do speak to someone who has some clout in the music industry, you might actually impress them enough to want to take a risk on helping your band get the funds it needs to get your music career off the ground. 

It is important to be sure to watch your own home interview videos and to take some notes on where you could personally work on making some improvements.  If you have difficulty with public speaking in general, you can always look into groups like Toastmasters to help you develop the skill of speaking well in front of other people.  It’s a good skill to have even if your music career doesn’t pan out as you had hoped. Also, pay attention to your body language.  Don’t have a retarded look on your face and try to look somewhat interested even if you aren’t. Fans tend to relate better to musicians who show that they are having some degree of fun.

Know your Band’s Financial Status

It’s always a good idea for the members of a band to set up a regular meeting to go over the books.  Whoever is keeping your finances in order should be able to provide every member of the band with a statement of how the band’s money is being spent.  You don’t want to find out months down the road that your hard earned money walked right out from under your nose and went into someone else’s pocket when it should have been going into your pocket.  You also want to be clear about the financial terms.  If a certain portion of your earnings is supposed to go to the band fund to insure that you can replace equipment that breaks or to work on your tour bus, then you want to be fully aware that that is where the money is actually going.  Nothing gets a potentially successful band into more trouble than when the members ignore their duty of staying on top of the finances.  This is one of those areas that will cause more bickering and fighting among band members than you want to believe.  Mismanaged money can destroy a band from the inside out so fast it will make your head spin.

Goals and Deadlines 

It is always a good idea to write out a list of goals and state some expected deadlines to help insure that more of your time is spent working towards real progress than wasting time.  When all the band members are on the same page and know what is expected of them, it helps to keep your band operating like a well-oiled machine.  It’s also good for morale when the members of a band see that everyone is doing their part and that the band is actually meeting its goals from the standpoint of working together as a team.  Again, this sort of formal structure and team work just adds to the overall professional look of a band.

Dealing with Criticism

You could be the best musicians on the planet and still there will be critics and disgruntled fans who will simply bad mouth you every step of the way.  The more you let criticism get between you and your success as a musician, the worse it will be for everyone in your band.  It is often a good idea to sit down with your band and make sure that any negative press will be met with a positive attitude.  The more maturely you handle negative press and critical fans, the easier it will be to put such criticism behind you and move on to what is important.

Dealing with Hardship

It never fails.  No matter how prepared you think you are, something is going to pop up that puts a strain on the relationships in your band. It could be the death of a fellow band member, a tragic accident that severs three fingers off your guitarist’s fretting hand two hours before you open for Ozzie, or your wall of amps might take a tumble causing thousands of dollars in damage.  It’s not a matter of if it will happen but more a matter of when it will happen.  So, you should start to mentally prepare yourself for these sorts of problems early on and be ready for when they strike.  Who knew that your pyrotecnics team would burn down the venue you were playing at killing three people in the process and injuring many others?  It’s publicity like this that can ruin a band even at the height of its career.  But, if you handle things professionally and as mentally stable as you can, it makes your chances of working through hardship like this much better than if you panic.

In closing, it is up to you to make a list of problems to watch out for for yourself.  These are just some of the more obvious problems that can happen.  And it would be nice if I could provide you with an exhaustive list of all possibilities, but unfortunately there are too many to mention here.  But, if you take the time to get together with other members in your band and do the necessary brain storming to cover your bases, you can do a lot to insure that your band will exude a healthy atmosphere for all its members and for your fans as well.