What are the steps involved in organizing a new band?

Question

I would like to create a band. This seems to me a non-trivial question to implement, as it involves a lot of management, which is not particularly tied to music theory. But it has musical specifics, and some of you may be successful bandleaders. So I'd like to ask you what your action sequence would be, if you had no friends in that field, and would like to know what you've done from scratch? Thanks.

P.S. If genre matters, I originated from '80s Metallica's Nothing Else Matters, which is kind of fingerstyle, and with bass I would like to do some funk melodies like the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Answer 1

There are so many considerations, it may well not be feasible, particularly right now.

Even if you have access to several good players, and you are also in that category, it can and most likely will take many months minimum to even reach the stage where you can do a gig.

• Players - what instruments, what level, what style, what age range?

• Equipment - who buys, owns, looks after, stores, transports what?

• Rehearsals - where, who pays, who finds, who attends, is available?

• Songs - who chooses, works out, arranges, decides?

• Gigs (eventually) - where, frequency, size, money paid?

• Publicity - how much (time, effort, cost)?

• Management - needed or not? One person in charge, or a group decision on what things?

• Hiring/firing - who does what, when, why?

That's just some starter questions to consider, before we get into 'can my mate come and sing? No, he hasn't even got a mic...'

There are places to advertise - schools, colleges, unis, churches, local rags, sites like 'Join my Band'.

Answer 2

I'd suggest that the first step in your action sequence, or rather the first intermediate goal you should set for yourself, should be to find just one other person, one other musician, with whom to get things started.

Ideally, it should be a compatible person, with similar tastes, with whom you can already start trying out some ideas. And you can already start looking for such a mate even now, during the lockdown period, why not. You can talk online, share ideas, etc. And at the first opportunity, meet somewhere and try playing together.

If you play bass, this first person could be a drummer or a guitarist. In both cases you'll already be able to get something started.

If you can get this done, you will have reached an important milestone toward eventually forming a full band.

And if you don't already have friends with those characteristics, try local ads, online ads, etc.

Again, the main principle is that you don't try to create a whole band all at once, but try instead to find one good person first, then after some time, if things gel, look for one more person that both of you will like, and so on. In this way things will always remain fairly simple and you'll gradually learn along the way whatever you need to learn.