A Realistic Guide to Finding Your People
You’ve spent enough time playing in your bedroom, looking at yourself in the mirror and checking out the rock moves you plan to make when you get on stage (we all do it, don’t lie). You’ve got the calluses, a dozen songs, and the deep-seated need to make noise with other people. You’re ready to join a band.
It’s an idea we all romanticize in our heads, but the reality is, it’s hard—like really hard. Finding the right people is part magic, part luck, and all about chemistry. Think of it like this: if it was hard to find a girlfriend or boyfriend, now multiply that by 100 because of the drama and dynamics multiple humans bring to the table.
So, What Is a Band?
Forget the mystique for a second. At its core, a band is a small, dysfunctional, co-dependent business where no one is really qualified to be in charge and the product is audible emotion. It’s a relationship. It’s four or five people agreeing, for a little while, that the thing they build together is more important than any one person’s ego. When that chemistry clicks, it’s magic and one of the best feelings you’ll have in the world. It’s an unspoken conversation in the middle of a song—it feels like riding a wave and asking yourself if you’re actually doing it. However, when it doesn’t click, it’s just an expensive, time-consuming argument that can make you despise other humans and rethink why you wanted to be in a band in the first place.
That’s why getting yourself in a band—THE RIGHT BAND—requires that you’re armed with knowledge and doing the right things to stand out.
Getting Your Foot in the Door
Here’s the deal. You can be the best musician in the city, but if you’re not seen, you’ll stay in the bedroom or become a solo act. You have to put yourself out there for people to know you. You have to be seen to be seen in the scene. See what I did there? LOL.
- Show Up. Go to shows. I’ve beaten this horse to death and I’m still beating it. Go to open mics. Be a face in the scene. Musicians tend to recruit people they already know and can stand to be around. Be one of those people. You’re not just auditioning your skills; you’re auditioning your personality. No one wants to spend ten hours in a van with an asshole, no matter how well they play.
- Have Proof. Get a few simple, clean videos of you playing. No one’s expecting an edited masterpiece, just something that meets the expectation your mouth just sold. Just prop your phone up, make sure the sound isn’t a distorted mess, and play something that shows what you can do. It’s your musical resume. Make it easy for people to say “yes.”
- The Audition. Learn the songs they send you. All of them, note for note. Not just the fun parts. It’s better to play something simple cleanly than to fumble through something complex. Be on time. Tune your instrument before you walk in the door. These small things signal that you’re a professional, not a hobbyist.
- Network Like a Human, Not a Bum. Don’t be the person who only talks to musicians when you need something. Support other bands’ shows, buy their merch, genuinely celebrate their wins. When someone sees you being cool to others, they remember that. The music scene is smaller than you think, and word travels fast about who’s worth working with.
- Learn the Local Scene’s Unwritten Rules. Every music scene has its weird quirks and politics. Maybe the sound guy at the popular venue hates when bands are late, or maybe there’s a musician everyone avoids. Pay attention, ask questions, and don’t step on landmines other people can help you avoid.
- Bring Something Extra to the Table. Maybe you’ve got a truck that can haul gear, or you have a rehearsal place, or you’re decent with social media. Being a good musician is the baseline—what else do you offer? Bands remember the person who makes their lives easier, not just the person who plays their parts correctly.
A Field Guide to Annoying Behaviors and NOT Being That Guy
Getting into the band is one thing. Staying in it, well, requires a level of self-awareness that many musicians mysteriously lack. I’d say more than 50% have one or more of these characteristics.
- The “I’m Sorry” Late Guy. This person is always, always late. Not five minutes, but twenty. Thirty. An hour. It’s the most purely disrespectful thing you can do. It sends a clear message: “My time is more important than all of your time combined.” It’s a band killer. I’ve personally heard excuses as wild as “My guitar flew out the back of the truck and I had to go back and search for it”—creative. LOL.
- The Slacker Guy. This person treats practice like a personal study hall. They show up having clearly not touched their instrument since the last time you were all together. A rehearsal is for tightening the songs and working on dynamics, not for watching one person slowly remember the chord changes. It grinds everything to a halt and breeds resentment faster than anything else.
- The Important Guy. This is the player who can’t seem to grasp that they are part of a whole. They talk over people, their amp is always a little too loud, and they treat constructive criticism like a personal attack. They see the band as their backing musicians. This attitude is exhausting, and its shelf life is incredibly short.
- The Drama Guy. Look, everyone has a personal life, and sometimes it’s a mess. But rehearsal can’t become a weekly therapy session. Bringing a constant stream of personal drama into the creative space poisons the well. The band is an escape from that stuff, not another venue for it.
- The Superiority Guy. These people will argue about anything to try and show some level of intelligence or superiority, even when they have no clue. The Dunning-Kruger effect is high in these folks, and it doesn’t matter if it’s Alabama football or complex theory on global macroeconomic networks—these folks want to make sure they have the last word and will argue for it. Band killer.
- The Gear Snob Guy. This person can’t play a note without a twenty-minute dissertation on why their vintage whatever is superior to everyone else’s equipment. They spend more time tweaking their tone than actually playing, and they somehow always need “just one more pedal” to sound right. Meanwhile, their actual playing is mediocre at best.
- The Flake Master Guy. Different from the late guy—this person confirms they’ll be there, swears they’ll be there, and then texts thirty minutes after practice started with some elaborate excuse. They treat band commitments like people treat coming out to shows.
- The Negative Energy Guy. Everything sucks to this person. The songs suck, the venue sucks, the sound guy sucks, the other bands suck. They drain the life out of every creative moment and make everyone question why they’re even doing this. Playing music should be fun, but this person seems personally offended by joy.
So, you’ve hooked one, they have asked you to join. What’s next?
The Awkward Conversation
This is the most important part. You have to be brutally honest about your expectations from the beginning and ask the band what expectations they have. It’s an awkward, un-rock-and-roll thing to do, but it will save you from a world of pain.
- Goals: Are we trying to get signed and tour the world? Or are we trying to play the local bar once a month and have a good time? There is no wrong answer, but if one person is googling “tour bus for sale” and another is just looking for a Friday night to get away from their spouse, you’re doomed.
- Songs: Are we playing for our own enjoyment or looking to play what others want to hear? Are we doing covers or originals? What genre?
- Availability: Be specific. “I’m free most nights” is useless. “I have work until 6 on weekdays, and my kid has soccer on Saturdays” is information people can work with. Honesty about your real-life commitments is a sign of respect.
- Money: Talk about it. Now. How do you pay for rehearsal space? Who pays for gas? If you get paid $400 for a gig, how is it split? Agreeing on a system—any system—before money is even on the table prevents it from becoming the thing that breaks you up.
- Creative Control: Who writes or picks the songs? Who gets to veto a terrible idea? Are we a democracy or a benevolent dictatorship? Some bands work best with one clear leader, others function as a collective. Figure out what works for your group before someone’s feelings get hurt because their three-minute bass solo got shot down.
- The Exit Strategy: Nobody wants to think about breaking up before you’ve even started, but having a mature conversation about how to handle it if someone wants out saves friendships. Will you give two weeks’ notice? A month? What happens to the songs? It’s like a prenup, but for musicians.
- Social Media and Image: Decide early who’s posting what and where. Nothing kills a band’s momentum like conflicting messages online, or worse, one person making the whole band look unprofessional with their drunk Facebook rants. Designate a social media person, or at least agree on some basic guidelines about what represents the band.
Hopefully this article will assist you in finding the perfect band and bandmates. It’s frustrating, it’s difficult, and it requires a shocking amount of patience. But when you find the right people, and you all hit that downbeat together, the sound that comes out is bigger and better than any of you could have made alone. Check out Pro Tip#1, all the way back in 2019 for more detail on selecting members. https://liveatharlows.com/pro-tip-1-have-the-same-commitment/
At the end of the day, I guess I could have just written the entire article by saying “Be a good human.” Rock on.