Curious about the music industry? Find out stuff.

[MisterGobbles]

I never really thought about that, but yeah, when I hear "Money" I do think about it that way. When I hear something like Meshuggah, most of the time I don't even try to understand what the guitar is doing in terms of time signature, I mainly just focus on the drums, which are in 4/4 most of the time.

 

[Ham_authority95]

What defines "lo-fi" and how would you make a lo-fi production on an album?

 

[BonsaiK]

What defines "lo-fi" and how would you make a lo-fi production on an album?

There's no set definition of the term, it's really just a term that a bunch of people thought up to distingush their music from "hi-fi" (meaning "high fidelity", or high audio quality) because compared to the latest pop music or whatever, their stuff wasn't recorded that well. It doesn't however mean anything specific, because there's a lot of things that go into making a recording sound the way it does. It's considered the opposite of "polished" or "hi-fi" so I guess just record it a bit shittily and there you go, it's lo-fi if you say it is.

Sometimes the term gets used to mean a more "raw" production sound, and that might be characterised by dirty guitars feeding back everywhere, and/or a lack of the usual vocal processing effects that exist on most records, and/or lots of room ambience being used in the mix instead of directly miced instruments, and/or unusual mixing choices, and/or trying to get it to sound more natural, so it has a vibe like a live performance instead of like a studio recording. That doesn't necessarily mean that money wasn't spent getting it to sound that way, though!

 

[Fire Daemon]

Have shows like Australian Idol (and all the other country variants), The X Factor, Australia Has Talent (and all the other countries) etc have much of a serious impact on the music industry, either from your perspective or from an overarching standpoint. Do you have a personal opinion on these shows, and have you worked with anyone who competed?

 

[BonsaiK]

Have shows like Australian Idol (and all the other country variants), The X Factor, Australia Has Talent (and all the other countries) etc have much of a serious impact on the music industry, either from your perspective or from an overarching standpoint.

They've had no impact except to carve out their own little niche. Maybe if I was more involved in the pure pop side of things I would see it differently, but from where I sit, Idol doesn't affect what I do at all. The large majority of the musicians I work with think that those shows are an utter joke, and the people who are buying the stuff that I am involved in probably mostly think the same. Idol and related shows are good at churning out a certain type of thing and making money off it, but they're necessarily conservative (because they have to appeal to a wide range of people in a prime-time TV slot without offending) so only a small niche of activity can ever happen there. I see Idol as more a part of the TV industry than the music industry, because the main "product" that's being sold is actually the commercial airtime on the TV show which gets sold to advertising companies. Whether the music sells or not doesn't even really matter to those people as long as the punters watch the show and watch the advertising.

Do you have a personal opinion on these shows

I'm going to cut and paste my reply to someone else who asked this about ten pages back, because I'm lazy. It basically follows on from what I've just said, but goes into a lot more detail, in case you're interested.

From the industry side, I can see why such shows have developed - it's a really good way for them to monetize something which lately has been on a major, major downturn, and it's also a good way for them to tap into social networks and so forth. If the topic of office conversation is "who won Idol" then that's some serious marketing power right there, and probably the first time in decades that music has entered the realm of mainstream popular idle-time thought. Also giving people an emotional investment in the artists through the heavily inflated drama and shenanigans of a TV show is probably going to make them feel more attached to the finished product when it comes out...

For performers entertaining the idea of entering into such a competition, I have one word of advice - don't. The problem with competition shows from a performer's perspective is that the record contract you get at the end is something that you win as opposed to something that you negotiate, and in that kind of position your bargaining power is zero. If you've just beaten out thousands of other people and won some show, and you don't like what's in your contract, because it says that other people are going to be hired to write all your songs and therefore you won't get paid any royalties, or that they're going to spend x amount of promotional money on you that you haven't got a hope in hell of recouping through album sales, or that you don't have control over your image, or whatever, and you say "hey wait a minute, can we negotiate this", do you think they will? Hell no - they'll just tell you to fuck off and then they'll sign whoever got to second place in the competition, who will no doubt be more than delighted to sign their life away. After all, most singers who go through that process are fairly interchangeable because they're generally singers, not singer/songwriters with an actual distinctive style that you can't get elsewhere (those guys either get carefully weeded out before the finals begin, or they notice how much they'll have to butcher their songs to fit into the format of the show and are savvy enough to not even enter). Most people are so excited about winning that they'll sign any damn thing someone shoves in their face - after being through that ordeal, why make a fuss over a bit of paper at the end, which probably doesn't even look all that different to the untrained eye to the dozens of others that they've probably had to sign just to get to that point?

The first reality TV music show was actually made in New Zealand, and it was a bunch of girls competing to be part of a Spice Girls-style "girl group". The girls who won, won, an album was rush-released, it was a massive hit in NZ, going double-platinum, and guess how much money the girls saw? Well, let's do some slightly hypothetical math.

The album that group made sold 40,000 copies approximately (that's right folks, a "platinum record" in New Zealand is only 15,000 sales - those gold and silver framed records don't look so impressive now, do they?). Times that by CD retail price which I'll very generously estimate at $40NZ. 40000 x 40 = $1,600,000. Ka-ching, right? Well, no. Firstly, divide by 5, because there's five girls in the group, now we're down to $320,000 per girl. Then deduct production costs which might be $1NZ per unit and divide the result again by 5 which means 8000 so now we're at $312,000 per girl. Still fairly respectable - but wait. That promotional video, that cost quite a bit of money. So did those TV ads the record label took out. Then there's stylists, wardrobe managers and all that bullshit that pop artists at that level absolutely must have or they'll die screaming in a pool of acetate. And we haven't even got to the cost of the TV show, all the people who need to be paid for that, not just judges and stars but those behind the scenes doing unglamourous work like making sure the mechanical lights move properly, arranging the cheese dip backstage etc. All those people have to be factored into the budget for this thing, then if there's money left over the girls might see it... if they wrote their own songs, that is. Oops. Someone else wrote them, so guess who gets the royalties? Anyway, the thing ran out of steam eventually as the idea went cold in the marketplace as such things inevitably do, and the girls didn't see much more money than what they would have seen if they'd been working behind the checkout in a supermarket the whole time. $1,600,000 really isn't much, the TV station would have probably made more money selling the advertising time in the commercial breaks.

Anyway this business model was a huge success for everyone else ahem so the idea was quickly repeated in Australia with another group who had slightly more longevity before suffering a similar fate, and then other places in the world, and then the Idol thing spawned a bit later, basically inspired by the same concept. Out of all the girls who entered a few did go onto bigger careers, but those ones were generally the girls who were smart enough to jump ship before it started sinking. It's a model designed to make money for the people running it, and it does. It doesn't do much else, because it's not designed to.

have you worked with anyone who competed?

I know Guy Sebastian peripherally but I wouldn't work with him on principle, and if he was made aware of some of the pies I have my fingers in, I'm pretty sure the feeling would be mutual. I respect his talent though, certainly a worthy winner, and a nice guy too.

The school where I teach has trained up quite a few singers for the purpose of auditioning for Australian Idol. One of them got into the final 12 a few years back, can't remember which year as I don't watch TV much at all so I never got to see her do her thing, but I got to hear her do it through the walls of the building enough times so that was enough for me.

I also know a few people who enlisted in Idol just for laughs, with a "let's see how far we can get before they boot our asses out" mentality. None of them got too far, I think the show's pretty savvy at weeding that sort of element out.

 

[Aphex Demon]

BonsaiK, what are your opinions on mainstream 'bullshit' in comparison with actual talent coming from the underground of music...?

 

[BonsaiK]

BonsaiK, what are your opinions on mainstream 'bullshit' in comparison with actual talent coming from the underground of music...?

Define what 'mainstream', 'bullshit', 'talent' and 'underground' mean to you (because they're very subjective terms) and then I'll have a serious attempt at answering this question.

 

[Aphex Demon]

BonsaiK, what are your opinions on mainstream 'bullshit' in comparison with actual talent coming from the underground of music...?

Define what 'mainstream', 'bullshit', 'talent' and 'underground' mean to you (because they're very subjective terms) and then I'll have a serious attempt at answering this question.

Apologies.

To me, mainstream music is usually stuff that sounds catchy, I mean artists that don't write there own music but get famous by having rich parents who pay for their way to fame. From then on they become a role model to kids with not much of an insight in what music really should be thus assuming because they are on TV and famous etc, they are immensly talented and give an ignorant view on other music claiming it sucks or whatever. For me, underground music consists of people who take a passion in writing music, getting that perfect sound spending months, maybe years creating an EP/Album refining it to make it the best it can possibly be. For instance the band ISIS, these guys make (for me) the most amazing, incredible music that gives me the shivers when listening to it, even bringing out intense emotion at times. These guys split up, and for the most respectable reason - http://www.myspace.com/isis/blog (That was their last post made to say they have split up, if you wish give it a read to see what i'm trying to explain...)

I dont know what else to say. IMO I think 90% of mainstream music or music in the charts is fake to me. Manufactured crap which takes around maximum of a month to make consisting of dry, shallow lyrics. Perhaps people who like this music won't ever, ever experience the feeling of jaw dropping, moving, life changing music that only some people of today enjoy.

 

[Fire Daemon]

Snip

Thanks for that, I have no idea how I missed that earlier post as I've been reading this thread since day one. Best thread on the forum probably.

How do record producers and the people working behind the singer/band react to changes in taste over time? If a type of music that they don't like replace the popular music that they do like as the most successful thing, how do they adapt to that? Do they strive to continue a niche market or do they swallow their taste and work with what pays, or a mixture of both?

 

[BonsaiK]

BonsaiK, what are your opinions on mainstream 'bullshit' in comparison with actual talent coming from the underground of music...?

Define what 'mainstream', 'bullshit', 'talent' and 'underground' mean to you (because they're very subjective terms) and then I'll have a serious attempt at answering this question.

Apologies.

To me, mainstream music is usually stuff that sounds catchy, I mean artists that don't write there own music but get famous by having rich parents who pay for their way to fame. From then on they become a role model to kids with not much of an insight in what music really should be thus assuming because they are on TV and famous etc, they are immensly talented and give an ignorant view on other music claiming it sucks or whatever. For me, underground music consists of people who take a passion in writing music, getting that perfect sound spending months, maybe years creating an EP/Album refining it to make it the best it can possibly be. For instance the band ISIS, these guys make (for me) the most amazing, incredible music that gives me the shivers when listening to it, even bringing out intense emotion at times. These guys split up, and for the most respectable reason - http://www.myspace.com/isis/blog (That was their last post made to say they have split up, if you wish give it a read to see what i'm trying to explain...)

I dont know what else to say. IMO I think 90% of mainstream music or music in the charts is fake to me. Manufactured crap which takes around maximum of a month to make consisting of dry, shallow lyrics. Perhaps people who like this music won't ever, ever experience the feeling of jaw dropping, moving, life changing music that only some people of today enjoy.

Or maybe they already do, but they're experiencing that with music that you just don't happen to like.

Mainstream music may or may not be written by the person singing it, but somebody still had to write that song. Usually, the performers are writing or co-writing it, or at least having a hand in the process on some level. It's exceedingly rare for an artist even in the bubblegum pop arena to have no control over the song whatsoever, at the very least they generally get to choose what songs they get to sing. There's practical reasons for that - it's really hard to pull a good vocal performance out of somebody in a recording studio if they're not comfortable with what lyrics they're singing.

Seeing mainstream performers claiming "my stuff is great, other music sucks" is so rare that I can't think of a single example off the top of my head.

Rich parents can't really pay anybody's way to fame. Sure, money won't hurt, but without a song that people like, nobody is buying that record and it's that simple. For every pop princess that had parents forking out $$$ for charm school, there were thousands of others who did the exact same thing and their little darlings got nowhere. The difference? Starlet A had a song that some people liked and the ability to deliver it in a way that people liked, starlet B did not.

As for "underground music", most of the bands that I work with or know personally, who I consider "underground" (which to me means that they're all on the lower rung of things financially and flying under the level of mass public awareness), record their albums very quickly. Why? Because studio time costs money! One of my friend's bands recorded an entire 22-track album in one afternoon! Unless you're Michael Jackson, if you don't have a day job or some other money coming in from something then you simply haven't got money to waste perfecting your album over the course of a year or two. That's a luxury of the rich. Pop stars generally take far longer to record their music than other genres, because all that pristine production takes time to get right and it's a luxury that only those at the very top can spend infinite stretches of time on. Does that make it better? Not necessarily. I don't think that "time worked on product = quality", I mean, look at Chinese Democracy... or Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk"...

I guess to answer your initial question, I think it's a false dichotomy. I think both worthwhile music and crappy music comes from both the mainstream and elsewhere. I think there's only two types of music - music you like, and music you don't like, and everyone's got their own personal list like that. I don't think it gets any more complicated than that, and I don't think the origins of music are as important as the music itself. I think people let their perceptions of everything else BUT the music cloud their view of music more often than not.

For the record, I find Isis incredibly boring, but I love Agoraphobic Nosebleed, who share some of the same membership.

 

[Aphex Demon]

BonsaiK, what are your opinions on mainstream 'bullshit' in comparison with actual talent coming from the underground of music...?

Define what 'mainstream', 'bullshit', 'talent' and 'underground' mean to you (because they're very subjective terms) and then I'll have a serious attempt at answering this question.

Apologies.

To me, mainstream music is usually stuff that sounds catchy, I mean artists that don't write there own music but get famous by having rich parents who pay for their way to fame. From then on they become a role model to kids with not much of an insight in what music really should be thus assuming because they are on TV and famous etc, they are immensly talented and give an ignorant view on other music claiming it sucks or whatever. For me, underground music consists of people who take a passion in writing music, getting that perfect sound spending months, maybe years creating an EP/Album refining it to make it the best it can possibly be. For instance the band ISIS, these guys make (for me) the most amazing, incredible music that gives me the shivers when listening to it, even bringing out intense emotion at times. These guys split up, and for the most respectable reason - http://www.myspace.com/isis/blog (That was their last post made to say they have split up, if you wish give it a read to see what i'm trying to explain...)

I dont know what else to say. IMO I think 90% of mainstream music or music in the charts is fake to me. Manufactured crap which takes around maximum of a month to make consisting of dry, shallow lyrics. Perhaps people who like this music won't ever, ever experience the feeling of jaw dropping, moving, life changing music that only some people of today enjoy.

Or maybe they already do, but they're experiencing that with music that you just don't happen to like.

Mainstream music may or may not be written by the person singing it, but somebody still had to write that song. Usually, the performers are writing or co-writing it, or at least having a hand in the process on some level. It's exceedingly rare for an artist even in the bubblegum pop arena to have no control over the song whatsoever, at the very least they generally get to choose what songs they get to sing. There's practical reasons for that - it's really hard to pull a good vocal performance out of somebody in a recording studio if they're not comfortable with what lyrics they're singing.

Seeing mainstream performers claiming "my stuff is great, other music sucks" is so rare that I can't think of a single example off the top of my head.

Rich parents can't really pay anybody's way to fame. Sure, money won't hurt, but without a song that people like, nobody is buying that record and it's that simple. For every pop princess that had parents forking out $$$ for charm school, there were thousands of others who did the exact same thing and their little darlings got nowhere. The difference? Starlet A had a song that some people liked and the ability to deliver it in a way that people liked, starlet B did not.

As for "underground music", most of the bands that I work with or know personally, who I consider "underground" (which to me means that they're all on the lower rung of things financially and flying under the level of mass public awareness), record their albums very quickly. Why? Because studio time costs money! One of my friend's bands recorded an entire 22-track album in one afternoon! Unless you're Michael Jackson, if you don't have a day job or some other money coming in from something then you simply haven't got money to waste perfecting your album over the course of a year or two. That's a luxury of the rich. Pop stars generally take far longer to record their music than other genres, because all that pristine production takes time to get right and it's a luxury that only those at the very top can spend infinite stretches of time on. Does that make it better? Not necessarily. I don't think that "time worked on product = quality", I mean, look at Chinese Democracy... or Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk"...

I guess to answer your initial question, I think it's a false dichotomy. I think both worthwhile music and crappy music comes from both the mainstream and elsewhere. I think there's only two types of music - music you like, and music you don't like, and everyone's got their own personal list like that. I don't think it gets any more complicated than that, and I don't think the origins of music are as important as the music itself. I think people let their perceptions of everything else BUT the music cloud their view of music more often than not.

For the record, I find Isis incredibly boring, but I love Agoraphobic Nosebleed, who share some of the same membership.

Cheers for the reply man.

Yeah I suppose that does give me a valid source of someone elses opinion/fact.
All in all It's all preference of taste in music I guess.

I agree with what you say about G&R album, havent given Tusk a listen though, but you make your point there.

Ah and you see that's what I mean!, You find ISIS boring where as I find them amazing! All about taste and patience I guess

 

[BonsaiK]

Snip

Thanks for that, I have no idea how I missed that earlier post as I've been reading this thread since day one. Best thread on the forum probably.

How do record producers and the people working behind the singer/band react to changes in taste over time? If a type of music that they don't like replace the popular music that they do like as the most successful thing, how do they adapt to that? Do they strive to continue a niche market or do they swallow their taste and work with what pays, or a mixture of both?

That's a tightrope that's very difficult for many bands to walk. On the one hand, by changing their sound to match current music trends, they may gain a whole new audience to augment their existing audience. On the other hand, there's the real risk that they might just piss their original fans off by watering down what it was that got them fans in the first place, while at the same time failing to acquire any new ones.

Changes in musical direction generally happen for one of two reasons:

1. The band wants to do something a bit different, either because they're bored with things musically as they are, or to make more money, or maybe a bit of both, or some other reason
2. The label wants the band to do something a bit different, usually for fear that what the band is currently doing may soon go out of fashion, leaving them high and dry without an audience

Bands who keep doing the same thing over and over, do so for very similar reasons:

1. The band is happy with what they're doing and wants to keep doing things that way
2. The label is happy with the fanbase the band has built and doesn't want to jeopardise it by pushing the band's fans down an unwelcome new path

Of course, all bands, even the ones who stay more or less the same throughout the years (AC/DC and Iron Maiden both spring to mind) still change their sound a little as time marches on. It's unavoidable. Rich 50 year olds simply don't write songs the same way poor 20 year olds do. Also, studio production techniques change as technology evolves.

Overall, pop artists are much more likely to change their style to embrace new trends than artists in other styles. However, there are also artists who change their style not to the "latest thing" but just to whatever they feel is what they want to do at that moment, which may or may not be popular and may or may not win or lose them fans. Artists with a big back catalogue that sells well often tend to do this, because they've got the solid financial base to fall back on if the experiment fucks up that a new, emerging artist doesn't have. So I guess it changes on a case-by-case basis, there's no hard and fast rule here.

 

[BonsaiK]

Cheers for the reply man.

Yeah I suppose that does give me a valid source of someone elses opinion/fact.
All in all It's all preference of taste in music I guess.

I agree with what you say about G&R album, havent given Tusk a listen though, but you make your point there.

Ah and you see that's what I mean!, You find ISIS boring where as I find them amazing! All about taste and patience I guess

Everyone hears music differently, the sheer variety of stuff out there that people are willing to buy is testament to that.

Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" was (allegedly) recorded while the band were notoriously off their tits on various drugs and the group blew the budget of the album wildly, it was the most expensive album ever made at that time costing over $1m (and this is in 1979 dollars), and with few exceptions most fans of the band consider that album a low point. A similar situation to Chinese Democracy, I guess.

 

[xedi]

Is it just coincidence or are more and more bands releasing streams of their complete recordings? E.g. "Broken Bells" and "Between the Buried and Me" released their EP online for free this week. In the last weeks "The Strokes" and "A Skylit Drive" started a complete stream of their album.

How come that the music industry is giving stuff away for free now? I get the tactic that you release a stream for a limited time, so that people get curios and then will buy the album once it is not available online. However, e.g. "Say Anything" have their album online for over a year! If I am honest, in the meantime I bought their other stuff (which I planned to do anyways, it was not the online stream that convinced me :-D ), however I am not motivated to buy that particular album since I've heard it over and over again already and I spend my money rather on something new. I will buy it sometime in the future just for the sake of completing my collection, but intuitively I would say that streaming such a long time will not motivate people to buy the album. What are your thoughts about it?

 

[BonsaiK]

Is it just coincidence or are more and more bands releasing streams of their complete recordings? E.g. "Broken Bells" and "Between the Buried and Me" released their EP online for free this week. In the last weeks "The Strokes" and "A Skylit Drive" started a complete stream of their album.

How come that the music industry is giving stuff away for free now? I get the tactic that you release a stream for a limited time, so that people get curios and then will buy the album once it is not available online. However, e.g. "Say Anything" have their album online for over a year! If I am honest, in the meantime I bought their other stuff (which I planned to do anyways, it was not the online stream that convinced me :-D ), however I am not motivated to buy that particular album since I've heard it over and over again already and I spend my money rather on something new. I will buy it sometime in the future just for the sake of completing my collection, but intuitively I would say that streaming such a long time will not motivate people to buy the album. What are your thoughts about it?

Companies at this point figure that a whole bunch of entitled little Gen-Y shits are going to pirate the crap out of the music they spent thousands of dollars making anyway, and they can't stop it, so if they do the Internet distributing of it themselves at least if nothing else they can collect some meaningful statistics on how popular it is, who is downloading it, from what countries, demographics, etc. This way, they may make less or no money on the album (or in fact probably lose money) but they can recoup when the band goes on tour or sells merch, and in the meantime the band look like nice guys instead of complete cunts in the eyes of the "I'm a pirate therefore everything I do is right" crowd because they were willing to play the game a bit and share some music for free, to some extent. I think that's the thinking behind it, and it's not an ideal situation, but it's probably one of the better options most bands have in front of them at this point.

 

[MisterGobbles]

Could you give a little bit of background on the history of independent labels?

 

[BonsaiK]

Could you give a little bit of background on the history of independent labels?

I normally don't recommend Wikis, but the Wiki on independent labels actually has a reasonably good short history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_record_label

Further to that, I'd like to add that a major label is generally just an independent that's bigger. All big business and corporations started off as small businesses, and very few of those businesses started off with the intention of staying small. This however changed a bit with the birth of the punk movement, where small boutique labels inspired by punk's "anyone can do it" ideology sprung up just to get the bands out there - mainly these labels were run by band members themselves or their friends, and were only interested in recouping costs and being sustainable enough to continue to operate rather than growing the business. Before punk, you didn't really have the actual musicians tackling the business side, at least not from that kind of altruistic perspective.

 

[MisterGobbles]

Ok, this is probably the most important question I've yet asked, as other stuff was just trivial things I was interested in.

I'm in a situation where it would be very possible to join a local Christian band as their additional guitarist, as my friend is becoming the drummer. They have gigs, and I think it would be extremely important for me to get the onstage experience and experience being in a band in general.

However, there are a couple of problems with this. The first is that I'm not a Christian, and this band mainly plays covers of Christian songs and plays at Christian venues. This wouldn't bother me too much, but I don't wanna lie to people and mislead them about my beliefs. I'm also not sure how the band would feel about it.

The second problem is that this band pretty much sucks. Hopefully this is something I can influence.

The third problem is that I'm familiar with everyone in the band, and I'm not particularly fond of a couple people. I don't have a huge grudge against them or anything, but it might become a problem in the future.

The point being, the only reason I am considering joining is to get experience for any future musical aspirations I might have. Do you think that this would be worth it?

 

[BonsaiK]

Ok, this is probably the most important question I've yet asked, as other stuff was just trivial things I was interested in.

I'm in a situation where it would be very possible to join a local Christian band as their additional guitarist, as my friend is becoming the drummer. They have gigs, and I think it would be extremely important for me to get the onstage experience and experience being in a band in general.

However, there are a couple of problems with this. The first is that I'm not a Christian, and this band mainly plays covers of Christian songs and plays at Christian venues. This wouldn't bother me too much, but I don't wanna lie to people and mislead them about my beliefs. I'm also not sure how the band would feel about it.

The second problem is that this band pretty much sucks. Hopefully this is something I can influence.

The third problem is that I'm familiar with everyone in the band, and I'm not particularly fond of a couple people. I don't have a huge grudge against them or anything, but it might become a problem in the future.

The point being, the only reason I am considering joining is to get experience for any future musical aspirations I might have. Do you think that this would be worth it?

I was in an identical situation to this many years ago. In that case, I joined the band.

The first problem isn't a problem if the rest of the band don't consider it to be one. Absolutely be open and honest about your beliefs right from the word go. Tell your friend that you're considering joining his band for a while just for the experience, but you're not Christian, and would that be a requirement of being in the band. They might be tolerant of this, they might not, but to be honest most Christians welcome non-believers into the community, usually in the hope that if they see how much fun they're having in the church community they might be tempted to become Christians themselves, or at least open their mind to the possibility and consider it. There's no point preaching to the converted after all. Just be aware that if you're accepted with distinctly odd amounts of enthusiasm then this could be why - they may see it as an initial stage of conversion. I guess it depends on your tolerance leves as well as theirs - if you can handle people asking you periodically "so... are you saved yet?" then this shouldn't be an issue.

The second problem doesn't really matter that much either, if it's only a church band that plays at church things, who cares? Anyway, your influence may improve it.

The third problem could be a problem. Just see how it goes.

Overall I'd say there's no real harm in joining this band, however I wouldn't be making any long-term committments to them. It's certainly unlikely to be a viable long-term career (but I guess you never know). Tell them exactly what your agenda is - you want to try it out for a while just to get performing experience, you think it could be fun but you're not planning a lifelong committment to Jesus or to the band, you just want to give it a spin for a while and see how it goes. If you're honest with them, they'll likely return the favour.

 

[flare09]

Not sure if this has been asked before since I haven't checked some of the middle pages, but if it is just point me to the answer please.

How often does the whole "drop this person in the band and we'll sign you," thing actually happen? It seems like a popular staple in most music movies and other shows, but I'm just wondering if it's a plausible situation.