Starting a Band: 5 things to remember

We've had some great feedback on our last blog entry: '10 ways to get your band noticed' and we'd just like to say thanks to Aggressive Management for helping us with it. We thought we'd go back a few steps with the next one and give newbies a few ideas on how to get a band going...

#1 Find your members

So you can play a few chords on the old axe, now you just need a drummer, bassist, singer, euphonium player, spoons expert and a session ukulele-ist for the odd occasion. But where to look?

Well, a great place to start is your local forums. (in our case Sheffield Forum Musician's Page).

You can always hit up the local magazines, studios, tutors, even photographers. They may all have heard in passing that 'such and such is after joining a new band'. 

#2 Get some common ground 

Don't worry too much if there's just two of you to begin with, have a chat and work out a few songs that you both like. Before you do anything else, print off the music, learn the songs, get in a room and play some covers first.

If you try and go straight to the top and write the next Dark Side of the Moon, with someone you've just met, you're not going to achieve anything and it will put you off.

#3 Write your music organically

We've all tried to sit down and write a riff in the style of 'X, Y or Z'. Don't, you'll just get stuck. The best way to get the music together, is to jam and see what sounds good. Yeah, you will get loads of bad stuff, but you're only looking for that one hook that you can work on and keep going back to.

Take it from us as studio owners, we're always trying new stuff out on the guitars, it never works if you force it, just play and see where it goes!

#4 Words? Stick to what you know

The Arctic Monkeys are a double edged sword in good old Sheffield in our view. On the one hand, they're unbelievably good, original and downright awesome. On the other hand, they've managed to spawn a whole generation of kids singing about losing their fake id's in Bargain Booze, getting smashed at the local and having a 'kick about' on a Sunday morning.

It works for AM, because it's real. But if that's not what you do, don't try and write about it. Take our blog for example, if we don't know what we're talking about, we find someone who does. (Honestly!)
Once you find a subject you can write about, you're sorted.

#5 Finally, work towards something
Once you've got some songs together and a full band, what're you doing next?
It may be scary, but book a gig. That way, you've got a set date when everything needs to be polished off for. Sure, you'll have many a sleepless night thinking about the dreaded evening, but without biting the bullet, you'll never get around to it!

We hope you found this helpful and interesting. If you did, why not follow us on twitter, Facebook, or just check out our website! Don't forget to check out our other blog entries, we've got all sorts of stuff to keep you amused for a short while!

Thanks for reading!