United States

People change. My best friend was the other guit player and all of the sudden he wasnt the same person anymore .. (or was it me?) Dunno why it's hell to keep a band together. We went thru about 4 drummers and a lot of others (singers, bass players) b4 it became just too much and i had to get the hell out-of-there. I used to email/ phone him now and then. I asked about Barry (our best lead singer) and he said "Aw, he's dead. A heroin overdose I think . Like he didnt give a sht. fckin a-hole. No compassion at all.

Awww....C'mon.... I've witnessed heroin addiction 1st hand on quite a few peeps.... any opiate addiction robs one of their feelings, compassion, desire, etc.. It's a very hard pull-in drug that you can not stop on your own without help! I understand the addiction, the urge, the need....you don't care or think about anything else...you are now programmed to use and that's all there is to it. To those who take their evil deeds and non feeling attitude to heart should be very thankful that they aren't or, much worse, weren't in their shoes. I've seen it take the best of them...2 peeps I know were VERY successful in the corporate industry... The pull of heroin, pain killaz and coke are unbelievable and if you have access to them and your life really isn't going the way you thought it should, it makes for an easy outlet! Heroin is the a$$hole....not your friend..

Bottom line to the original question is: There isn't one single answer. But is there for anything in life?

The answer is this:

everyone has different expectations.






The money that could be made in the heyday isn't there anymore. Now you work much harder to keep your head above water, and then the taxes will kill ya.

So it's much harder to smooth over all the other "difficulties" involved with keeping a loose affiliation of non-committed people (Band) together once the members are out of high-school and have to start paying the bills.

I would rather have band mates who are easy to get along with, if not friends outright, who know their instrument, music, and song structure than incredible musicians who make things miserable for everybody. It's far more likely that the ones who are easy to deal with will get better musically than the ones with the great chops, who are jerks, will stop being a-holes. When you think about it, the dynamic between those making the music is just as important as the music itself. If the relationships suffer, so will the music. Don't make the music suffer.

I Agree! Good energy between bandmates is the most impotant thing. Rather have Good easy going mates with less talent than superstar assholes!

Robert Fripp, whom I had the honor to live and study with in 1985, once said that there are three things that hold a band together (in no order); the music they make, the money they make, the camaraderie.

Robert Fripp, whom I had the honor to live and study with in 1985, once said that there are three things that hold a band together (in no order); the music they make, the money they make, the camaraderie.

Wow, you were hanging with R. Fripp? Wow, small world..small world indeed.

I didn't know that much about him so I looked him up on You Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8kcuqIqmIU

He's quite a technician..impressive.