Should I sack my drummer?

[Pundan]

Throughout the 2½ years that I've been playing with my band I've been frustrated with the lack of commitment our current drummer has had. Sure, he's learnt his instrument from scratch, and he's been my friend for 15 years or so but I've just about had it with this dude. I've never really thought about sacking him but I'm so fucking tired of him now that I'd rather save what little friendship's left and tell him to fuck off. Just to sum up what's been happening (remember this is 2½ years in the making ):

• He only likes to practice on his terms. Every band member try to cancel private/work things as far as possible to be able to rehearse, this guy still sends a text message 1-2 hours before practice telling us "I can't today, not in the mood, sorry".
• He doesn't like to learn other people's songs even though his drumming's pretty weak and what he should do is to at least watch a video once in a while on how to tune his drums.
• He doesn't rehearse on his own because he doesn't find that "inspiring enough", so each time we rehearse he's jamming and coming up with ideas whilst we like to make the song as tight as possible.
• He has saved up a shitload of cash for new drums, but he never buys them, and he's not interested in looking around for new drum sets/read up on what's "the shit" to have.

I lent him money for his first drum set (about $600) it took me almost 2 years to get the money back and I asked him for it about 20-30 times before I got it. I've shelled out $2000+ on my own equipment, same goes for the bass-player. This guy's very stubborn and he tunes his snare drum about 2-3 times each rehearsal, he doesn't listen while he tune either which basically makes it pretty worthless since it's very obvious he hasn't got a clue what he's doing. The only reason why he's been with us as long as 2½ years is because I go way back with him. He's very odd in his own way, very stubborn, very quiet guy and he doesn't like confrontations. He's pretty much been an asshole for the last month or so, and we have cancelled the last three rehearsals just because he hasn't felt like it or been with his girlfriend. I spent my entire weekend tabbing the next song we're going to learn (we usually like to learn other songs in between writing our own just to keep it going), he didn't have time (4 minutes 20 seconds) to listen to the song even once. His explanation was that he's been busy, I worked overtime 12 hours this weekend, I still tabbed the fucking song and I learnt it.

So I pretty much know what your answer is going to be, I just need it to be confirmed and how would you go around doing it?
Thanks Jam Room, you're my only hope!

[grimniggzy]

He's obviously not cutting it. Just explain that to him as plainly as you explained it in your post.

[Chovie D]

friend for 15 years?...
no, you shouldnt fire him. sorry, I know thats gonna be unpopular here but... lifelong friends before stupid band business for me. its not like he fucked your girlfreind or is shooting smack or something.

I think a heart to heart with a freindly warning/explanation of what  needs to happen and what might happen if it doesnt, is more appropriate. (Tho maybe youve already had this talk?) if so, did you put it in no uncertain terms, he  makes an effort or he'll have to step aside?

as far as not rehearsing on his own. I really wont do that either myself, and recently I was sacked for it (amongst other reasons)
I juts wasnt into it and they did the right thing cutting me loose because I felt Id be letting them down if I quit, plus it was my rehearsal space. They replaced me with a guitar player and a keys player and im sure we're all happier now, i know I am.

tought to say , you know the intricacies of this situation better than we can...just be mindful of your freindship if you can and its relative importance in the larger scheme of things. (that is to say, its more importnat than him not buying new drums).


edit: oops I missed teh "not in the mood" part  ...maybe it IS time to tell him if he aint in the mood, he needs to step aside.

[The Shocker]

It sounds like he is trying to quit, but doesn't want to come out and say it.

[RAGER]

If he's a good friend and you want to stay friends, you have to explain to him that it aint personal.  You just have an idea of what a band should be and you're still trying to figure that out.  I had to fire a drummer a couple years ago.  I told him straight up that he is too busy being a great dad to be the drummer in my band.  That's not a bad thing.  I told him to just go be a dad, that's obviously where his head is and for good reason.  Point out the good things about him first then let him off easy.

[RAGER]

Yeah that "not in the mood" shit doesn't fly with me.  people in bands have to be considerate of the fact that 2 or 3 or more people have set aside time that night too.  If you're sick or injured, that's one thing.....

[hashbrowns]

Short answer... yes dude fire him. I feel that the drummer is far and away the most important element of a band and if he's the weakest link you need to find someone else. Everything starts with the drums man it's the core of your sound and he's what keeps you alive during live performances. If he's not a great drummer and can't even tune his shit let him go man. I mean if you had a guitar player with a combo amp who couldn't keep time and couldn't tune his shit would you put up with it?

[gatorsnot]

It sounds like everyone else's commitment level is way above his.  It's not fair to everyone else if that's the case and it would be a good idea to approach him on that point blank.  In my experience there are always some hard feelings when sacking a bandmate and I've had to do it to friends for basically the same reason.  We may not have talked for a little bit but we're still friends to this day.

Not an easy thing to do no matter how you slice it but if he's holding the whole band back...either he changes or goes.  If his playing isn't up to par, I don't know.  You've dealt with him this long but thats a tough one.  I've left bands in the early stages because of that so it's never been an issue.

[yesca]

you and your bassist should sit him down and talk it out and if nothing changes or hes doesnt care anymore then carry on with the snip snips 8< 8<

[Discö Rice]

I'm with Deaner. Don't be afraid to let him go on his way. You have goals, he doesn't. Doesn't mean you can't be friends. If anything, it might resolve some underlying resentments between you.

[Hemisaurus]

No you shouldn't. You haven't said what he's like when you are playing out, (or recording) that's where it counts.

Maybe you should just start jamming without him when he can't make it, get a metronome or a simple drum machine, just something to give you a basic rhythm. If he is interested, that should help him sit up and take a bit of notice. Even find another drummer to sit in a few times if you can.

As to how much someone spends on gear, that's their own business, if they turn up with a Rogue combo, and an Arion distortion and play a First Act WalMart special, if they can rock it fine. Too often it's the other way around, they turn up with $3000+ of Marshall and $1000 Gibson, and still can't play.

[Pundan]

friend for 15 years?...

Just to start it off, this is a comment on your whole post. We (the band) has confronted him twice about his commitment and each time it has become better just to go back to it's old ways again a couple of months later. Also what I didn't mention is that we've also had our own talks with him personally (not in front of the band as that easily makes everyone very defensive). I've suspected that he's depressed/had problems and I have said to him "Man, if you want to talk about it, I'm here for you". Every time we mention that his dedication is really lacking he's very defensive about it and tells us "I don't want to hear about this!". He's very dramatic in that sense and he's quite egoistical and naive too in that sense.

I totally dig your way of reasoning, this band is no way near to "hit it", it's not like we have gigs booked and record companies lining up. But we want to get there and if we're going in this pace it'll never happen.

It sounds like he is trying to quit, but doesn't want to come out and say it.

Yeah, I've thought about that too, but every time we confront him about it he turns 14 years old and is very drama about the whole situation.

Yeah that "not in the mood" shit doesn't fly with me.  people in bands have to be considerate of the fact that 2 or 3 or more people have set aside time that night too.  If you're sick or injured, that's one thing.....

That's what bothers me too. We're all friends in this band, we've known each other for 15+ years (I've known the bass-player since I was 8 years old) - we all go way back. I would never dream of kicking a member of the band or long time friend for nothing. Of course we all have our issues every now and then, and sometimes we get sick/injured whatever, but he fucks up my planning by not planning himself and being a total baby about the whole situation. My opinion is that you're either in the band or you're not, I'm not there to "hang" or whatever, I treat my band and music with passion and dedication and I expect the same from the other members.

Short answer... yes dude fire him. I feel that the drummer is far and away the most important element of a band and if he's the weakest link you need to find someone else. Everything starts with the drums man it's the core of your sound and he's what keeps you alive during live performances. If he's not a great drummer and can't even tune his shit let him go man. I mean if you had a guitar player with a combo amp who couldn't keep time and couldn't tune his shit would you put up with it?

I'd tell that Combo amp owner with a out of tune guitar to fuck off, I guess it was that easy - it's the friendship thing that fucks it up for me and makes me even think twice about this.

It sounds like everyone else's commitment level is way above his.

It's not a secret that I'm the most passionate member of the band, I write everything and it's probably I that want to take this as far as possible. If this band ever would gain any attention of the outside world I'd quit my well-paying IT-job right away and look for a part-time job to keep up with the touring. I might be alone with that kind of dedication but at least the bass-player wants to take this band on the road, I don't get that feeling from the drummer and he's very vague when I ask him about that.



I'm just going to give you a back story, it's not like it's been shitty all the time, we have our moments and once every now and then one can almost forget how bad it's been. The drummer texted me yesterday saying "Hey, I'm not in the mood for rehearsals today, some other time". I got the message 3 hours before we were to start, I was in between meetings and very stressed but I just replied "Ok, can we rehearse tomorrow then?". The drummer and bass-player (both work very near me) picked me up after work and during the ride I asked the drummer again if we could rehearse the next day, he was in a very pissed mood and this is the conversation that took place (D = Drummer, M = Me)

D "I don't know"
M "Ok... when.. do you know?"
D "I don't know OK! Do you really need an answer now?"
M "Eh, yeah because I want to plan my free time you know"
D "Thursday" (two days away)
M "Not until' Thursday, why?"
D "You needed an answer now!"
M "Ok..."


When our bass-player dropped us of (me and the drummer live like 5 min apart) I tried to reason with him and he promised to text us the very same evening telling us if we could rehearse the next day or not. I never got a text from him so before I got to bed I sent him "Not to be an ass or anything, but can we rehearse tomorrow or not? The only reason why I keep nagging about this is because if not I'd rather hang with some friends of mine". I got a text from him this morning saying "I guess we can rehearse today then..."

We got to rehearsals today, we have just started to work on a new song that we are going to learn. And I begged the drummer to at least listen to the song or whatever he needs to do to learn the song, he promised me about a week ago that he would. The first thing he said when we got there was "Oh, I haven't even listened to the song". I had to bite my lip just to not go apeshit on him. I said "Well, I spent the whole weekend tabbing this song, could you please just jam to the song, it doesn't need to be accurate and 100% like the real band plays it!". He played the first riff/beat on the drums and then said "Well I gotta listen to the song if I can play it" (no shit!) and he just stopped and didn't play a single note more. We basically just had to end rehearsals early because the mood was very bad by now.

Just to update you guys (sorry for the long post, I'm kind of good at that) I texted the bass-player and said "Hey, you're the most unbiased of us both am I shooting for stars here or is about time that we go looking for a new drummer? Am I overreacting? It feels like this is a problem that seems to be coming back all the time" and the response I got back was "I think there's something to what you're saying. There's been a shitty mood in the jam room the last three times we've rehearsed now and he's clearly not caring about what we think". We decided to talk about it on Thursday after our rehearsals (nowadays though we can never be to sure that we will rehearse as planned though).

[cat shepard]

Get another drummer on the side if possible and he may just fade out.

[Discö Rice]

This kinda sounds like a no-brainer to me. Find someone committed and enjoy yourself. Why subject yourself to that B.S.? A real friend wouldn't put you through all that. I think there's a good chance he'll just be relieved.

[Pundan]

Thanks for the suggestions. I just talked this through with another friend of mine who knows the drummer too and he's with me. I'll keep you updated on how this progresses.

Hemi, we haven't played live with this band. Part of why this has been going on for the last three years without gigs is because when we started out the drummer had never touched a drum set before and the bass-player was pretty new as well. I've played guitar for several years and that's probably why I'm more hesitant to reach some kind of level of success earlier. Although the total lack of commitment (not rehearsing on his own), the fact that it's always been the bass-player and I who has had to fix his drums when they've broken (his snare has broken three times), and that we constantly need to push him to develop his skills is really tearing on our patience.

I'm really mad at the moment about this, so I'll have to let this settle - I can't make a quick decision about this as that wouldn't be fair to anyone in the band.

[chille01]

Sounds to me like it's either him or someone else.  His attitude is never going to permanently change... having been down this road many times, I can say that if he's not interested now, he's never going to get more interested in the future, no matter how many times you bring it up.  I guess there is an exception to every rule, but that has been my experience each and every time.  So, if you don't can him it will just fester until someone (maybe someone you actually want to keep in the band, maybe YOU) quits.  And in the meantime, all of your band time would have been frustrating and no fun, possibly to the point that you don't even want to bother with it anymore.

On the bright side, even when things have gotten nasty and dramatic in a band situation, it hasn't ever done any real permanent damage to any friendships.  If we were friends before the band, we were after as well.  There is only one exception to that in my history, and that was exceptionally nasty.  Like, stolen master tapes and small claims court nasty.

[Hemisaurus]

My personal experience with drummers is they get bored easily, and if you've been practicing for three years without actually playing out or recording or having anything to show for it, could be he's really bored. He may not be up to the level you think he should be, but perhaps he doesn't see the point in practicing if all he's doing is coming back the next week to practice again.

Sounds like one of those crappy team building things, but maybe you should set yourself goals, like want to play at a BBQ / Party / Invite a bunch of friends round, or, want to start making a demo something like that, so that you can all feel your progressing.

Also drum's aren't easy to practice on your own, if you don't dig covers, have you offered to make him tapes of the rest of you playing to a click (if it's a single tempo) or something like that to give him something to practice with?

I confess I'm quite happy to sit around and just jam in the practice room, but I understand that some of the other guys want to play out, and I'm cool with that, even if if you think you're not ready, perhaps the experience of a lousy gig will make him either work harder, or say, this ain't for me. Three years in the woodshed is like 2.5 years too long.

I think band confrontations are like telling your girlfriend you slept with someone else, or that you don't think the relationship is going anywhere. You get it off your chest and stop feeling guilty, and get to feel all righteous about coming clean, but 99 times out of 100 you completely fuck up the relationship, and everything falls apart. If you want to feel righteous, but have no band, go right ahead, otherwise I'd excercise caution

[fallen]

Think of it as a learning experience. Sometimes it's best to get out as early as possible. The more months/years go by the harder it gets to kick someone out. If you had to buy the guy his drums that should have been your first sign to say fuck it and find someone different but I understand how you would want to jam with a friend. Sounds like such a fun idea, hang out with some bros and play a few tunes.

There are some good points here. I used to play with a drummer who sucked in the jam room. Basically all we could do was jam once a week at most and make sure that everyone agreed on how the song went and when the changes were. Then at shows he came alive and rocked out. It was like playing on a team where we went 60% at practice and never went balls out until we were at the big game. Maybe you need to play some shows.

If you have your own space that you don't have to pay for the hour for it's easy as fuck to practice drums. Just put some headphones on and rock out. You don't need to know the song note for note or be in the same tuning. You don't have to plug anything in or set anything up. Just put a sabbath album on and start pounding. Some people just like the idea of being in a band but don't actually like playing an instrument.

If you want to go out of your way to avoid confrontation keep the old band going and start a new band with the same bass player and a new drummer. That way you can jam as much as you want and when your old drummer feels like playing he can come out and jam. I'm guessing if you just schedualled a regular Wednesday jam with this guy and stopped switching days to work around his schedule he'd fade out within a couple of months.

[RAGER]

Yep.  Some people like the idea of being in a band and they like telling people they're in a band but they don't want to put the time into actually doing it.  Played with a couple of those briefly.

[spookstrickland]

Just pull the old Buzzo trick and tell him you are quiting the band then the other guys quit and re-form a couple months latter.

[Lumpy]

I have similar issues with a guitar player (i started a thread about this a few months ago). It's difficult. A few different thoughts...

A problem drummer might be better than no drummer at all. Look around to see if there is somebody else, before making a decision. Different guy = different set of problems. But schedule some auditions or whatever.

Practice when scheduled, even if this guy cancels. Don't let him control the schedule. And don't let him kill your enthusiasm for the band.

Hemi's advice to book a show sounds good. Deadlines get people to focus.

[Pundan]

About that whole practice situation, I just can't get it really. We have a rack mounted 8-channel sound card and a computer that I bought so we can start to record stuff better and we have a 400W PA which easily can be used by him on his own to play along to. The computer can play songs through the PA and I've filled the computer with songs that we all love in the band. He has his own set of keys to the jam room so he can go there anytime he wants and it's only 2-3 minutes away from where he live. I've said to him that I will go to the jam room any time he wants so if he wants me to help him out and not have to practice on his own he can just call me, he's called me once throughout the last three years and that was after our last clash with him because I brought that up.

I have a friend who owns his own record label and who can help us record an EP and release it on vinyl. He has said that he wants to help us and that he can help us with both distribution and vinyl pressings and such. That's what motivates me to jam three times a week.

I'm also friends with a guy that knows the drummer from the Swedish black metal band Marduk. When our drummer only had one year of playing or so to his name I got my friend to talk to the Marduk drummer and he agreed to help our drummer out, learn him to tune his drums, give him some easy things to practice, basically just give him a push in the right direction. Our drummer never really showed any interest at all, here's a video of the Marduk drummer it's safe to say he knows his stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9H_wk_wDSE

Also, I kinda forgot to tell you that we have one booked gig at a festival in our home town next year. It's about 6 months away and all of us have said "Well, we gotta get new drums til' then!". Our current drum set is a beginner-level Millenium set, some of the toms are missing their heads on the underside, the snare mechanism has broken three times and it has definitely taken it's toll on how the snare sounds. In the beginning our drummer bought loads of cymbals because he smashed them in months. That's why it took me two years to get my money back from the drum set, although both me and the bass-player lent him money to get new cymbals. Then we started to read up on that shit and said to him "Hey, there's no reason you should have gone through 5 cymbals by now, you must be doing something wrong". He didn't listen. So we found a video where they talk about how you should hold the drum-stick to not make keyholes in your cymbals and so forth, we showed him that and since then he's started to get it. Thankfully he doesn't break cymbals nowadays. Whilst some cymbals were broken the band was put on ice for months at an end because the guy never bought new ones. Oh and my drummer tunes his snare head in between songs without listening to what he's doing, they never get better and then it reaches that point where the upper drum head is beginning to tear because it's at so much strain. A thing like that can easily put the band on ice for two-three weeks since we have to be on his ass to go and buy new drum heads. We have in the past bought the stuff for him as presents and such but that doesn't feel like the right way to do it, he's not paying for my strings why should I pay for his drum sticks or drum heads?

I have shown every drum tech thread on here to my drummer. When you guys talk about tuning drums, techniques and so forth I read up on that shit, link my drummer to it and I try to be very positive about it, not pushy/forcing. It's very hard to inspire someone to have a passion for their instrument when they clearly not have it.

[hashbrowns]

Dude I don't mean to be harsh and I understand he's your friend but seriously that sounds like torture. I had a drummer sort of like that a long time ago and I told him straight up. You need to learn how to tune your shit and show up every rehearsal or your out. Thankfully he did change his ways but if he hadn't he'd have been out of the band man. I guess it depends on how serious you are about your band but I'm telling you, the drummer is INCREDIBLY important to your chemistry as a group. You're band is only as good as the weakest link.

[mortlock]

thats exactly why i quit the band i was in, that had a drummer problem. i started a drummerless noise band.. ive stripped shit down to two members and i couldnt be happier.. we both have the same passion and desire and vision..also traveling is way easy with just two people..
granted noise isnt what everyone wants to do and you may need a drummer..but i can assure you this guy is not the guy for the job..and dont make any mistake, it must be treated like a job and a business even if you want the most bottom barrel level of success you can think of..

[liquidsmoke]

Sounds like a nightmare. I'd rather just do a solo project all on my own and never play out than deal with that shit. "I'm not in the mood". What? And? Practice is work, nobody is always in the mood for work but you do it anyway or you suck. I suck because I don't practice enough.