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Posted by: Iron King Feb 7 2008, 07:31 AM

I am so nervous right now!
I answered an ad for a band looking for a good rhythm guitarist. I've played rhythm in bands before so I figured I'd give it a shot.

While I waited for them to get back to me I looked up their previous bands. The vocalist, bassist and lead guitarist were in a band together that just broke up, and it turns out that band won a city wide battle of the bands and played huge venues in front of thousands of people!

The most I've done is small bars and house parties!

The guy I'm replacing had a totally different style than me. I'm worried they are gonna expect me to play like he did. I'm also worried that my personal style won't impress them.

Does anybody have any experience joining a band that has already been playing together for a long time?
any advice?

Posted by: Nobody Feb 7 2008, 08:35 AM

Well I joined a few months ago a band for their third studio album, but it wasn't a big shock because they were very cool people and made it a real pleasure. And it was a Punkrock band.. I mean it's not progressive metal so I could easily do everything good enough :]

Hristian

Posted by: Juan M. Valero Feb 7 2008, 08:48 AM

Don't worry my friend, just imagine all the people in the audition naked !!!

well, first of all believe me, there are a lot of BAD guitar players in great bands, so that's not the problem. The most imporant (IMO) is your own style and your skills to learn new songs and arrange your parts... of course good playing is also important but not the most important

Posted by: bliopster Feb 7 2008, 10:34 AM

You heard him, Juan said just what i was thinking style>skill most of the time

Posted by: MickeM Feb 7 2008, 10:36 AM

Just go there and do your thing. They are probably looking for someone who's a good rhythm player and also a nice person, so it's not all about the playing I suppose.
If it was me I'd forst value the playing but if there's a clash between personalities I'd turn it down. I'd give the job to someone less skilled who plays good enough.

You can teach any monkey to play the guitar but it's more difficult to teach it how to be a certain way


Just go there and do your best! If 100 guitarists show up you can comfort yourself with that there will be 99 leaving together with you.
No worries! And break a leg!

Posted by: OrganisedConfusion Feb 7 2008, 10:58 AM

Don't be nervous just go in there and show them what you've got. They will be looking for somebody who can play the stuff and somebody they can go out with and hang around with. They may want you to be good at jamming but I'm not sure if that band will obviously.

Good luck anyway and more importantly enjoy it.

Posted by: JensN Feb 7 2008, 01:30 PM

A lot of great advices already, but also keep in mind that you should kinda audition them as well. Are they the kind of musicians/persons you'd like to spend a lot of time with?

And as the others say, do your thing, be confident in what you do and I'm sure it'll go just fine.

Posted by: MickeM Feb 7 2008, 02:10 PM

QUOTE (JensN @ Feb 7 2008, 01:30 PM)

Posted by: Wallimann Feb 7 2008, 02:13 PM

It happened to me about 2 years ago.
I joined a well known band and was extremely nervous...
It turned out that they were very nice and accepted my new ideas.
Don't be too nervous, you'll be fine!
Let us know how it went!

QUOTE (Iron King @ Feb 7 2008, 01:31 AM)

Posted by: Iron King Feb 10 2008, 04:16 AM

thanks for the responses guys
I'm still nervous but I figure at worst they tell me I suck and I move on to bigger and better things

My audition is soon and I wanna be as prepared as I can be... what are some good hard rock songs with good rhythm guitar?

These guys are very Guns n' Roses so anything like that would be great

Posted by: Bogdan Feb 10 2008, 12:40 PM

Did they ask you to learn how to play one of their songs or something ? If they did learn them very well and than get to other stuff ? You won't know how it goes for them..You just give your best shot and if they accept you cool if not - well you tried! Either way you are not doing harm to them for trying... Good luck , and please report how it went..

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Feb 10 2008, 06:08 PM

Don't worry man, just learn your parts well, and execute them with a style and a little stage act and you'll be fine. If they are nice guys they will accept you, if not, don't worry you'll find another band. It's not that big of a deal. Everybody are nervous on auditions, I was nervous as hell, but in the end it's your appereance and correct song playing that matters.

Posted by: Iron King Feb 10 2008, 10:07 PM

yeah, they asked me to learn one of their songs
it's not a hard song to play but I'm gonna have trouble learning it by ear
ugh, I have a bad feeling about this
oh well, never get anywhere unless you try

I'm thinking of playing

Rock & Roll - Led Zeppelin
Shake a Leg - AC/DC
Same Old Song and Dance - Aerosmith
Paradise City - Guns N' Roses
and then their song

Posted by: Bogdan Feb 10 2008, 10:33 PM

Well concentrate on learning their song best !! Also seek for help from friends in transcripting it if you can't..They will be much more impressed if you play their song awesome rather than hearing another good cover of famous songs.. Are you sure you will have to play that many songs with them ?? You should cut it to 3 max including their song..Just say I have prepared these songs for you and will learn others if you take me...They should make rules for audition and be able to make a judgment on 3 songs heard...Also be prepared for some random jamming but since they are looking strictly for rhythm player I don't think they will ask you that..but who knows

Posted by: Iron King Feb 10 2008, 10:58 PM

yeah, I'm only gonna play a couple of those songs
If I'm gonna go to this audition I'm gonna need a friend to help me transcribe this song, I can play the riff but I'm working off a myspace recording so I'm not sure if I'm in the right key

is there any way to take the song off the site and make it an mp3?

Posted by: Bogdan Feb 11 2008, 01:20 AM

Can't you ask them to send the mp3 , or upload it somewhere for you ?? Also can you post their myspace link so we can hear them

Posted by: JVM Feb 11 2008, 01:30 AM

QUOTE (Bogdan @ Feb 10 2008, 07:20 PM)

Can't you ask them to send the mp3 , or upload it somewhere for you ?? Also can you post their myspace link so we can hear them

Posted by: Iron King Feb 11 2008, 02:49 AM

QUOTE (Bogdan @ Feb 10 2008, 07:20 PM)

Can't you ask them to send the mp3 , or upload it somewhere for you ?? Also can you post their myspace link so we can hear them

Posted by: Milenkovic Ivan Feb 11 2008, 03:22 AM

Can you update us with the song? Maybe we can make a lesson or give you some tips if you have the time

Posted by: JVM Feb 11 2008, 04:00 AM

Whoo they're pretty good.

Good luck mate, they'll definitely be looking for someone with the right personality, judging from the type of the music. The rhythm doesn't sound incredibly hard.

Posted by: Iron King Feb 11 2008, 05:08 AM

QUOTE (Milenkovic Ivan @ Feb 10 2008, 09:22 PM)

Can you update us with the song? Maybe we can make a lesson or give you some tips if you have the time

Posted by: Iron King Feb 12 2008, 01:59 AM

the audition went well btw
I didn't learn the entire song but I asked to guy to play the riff once and I picked it up instantly

I started off with Rock & Roll by Zep, and they all just joined in so that was cool
Then we jammed on their song, followed by a jam off a riff I improvised... which was bad

my riff was cool but the lead guitarist wasn't able to do anything with it, so despite showing off my skills, it was probably wasn't a good thing because we seemed at odds. anyway so we ended up doing a 12 bar blues

I ended it by playing the first song they ever played "Search and Destroy" by Iggy Pop and I think that went well. It also helped that I was wearing my Motorhead shirt, which was one of their favorite bands.

oh yeah, sometime during the jam I clicked on my wah pedal and started doing some funk... they just looked at me like I was crazy, funny

anyway, it went a lot better than I thought but they have about 20 candidates so even though they said I was a talented guitarist, it's easy to be lost in the shuffle.

we'll see
thanks for all the help guys