Franklin's Garage to Stage
All things starting a musical band. From garage to stage getting your band going and beyond.
Interviews with musician's, Producers, club owners, recording artist's and others in field of recording or performing.
Discussions on pitfalls to avoid and what works from personal and other's experiences.
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Franklin's Garage to Stage
Building Bands with Passion and Perseverance
Picture this: a freezing Reno garage, a propane heater trying its best, and a practice session that feels more like a scene from a sitcom than the birth of a band. Our journey from Garage to Stage starts with tales like these—missteps, misadventures, and a lot of music-making in between. Whether you're striking out on your own or joining the ranks of an established group, we promise insights into the realities of band formation, from choosing the perfect practice spot to navigating the complex world of potential bandmates through platforms like Band Mix and social media.
The road to a harmonious band is paved with challenges, and our early days in Reno taught us that aligning musical visions isn't just about finding musicians; it's about finding the right ones. We unwrap the trials and triumphs of assembling musicians with varying skill levels and ambitions. Expect candid conversations about managing expectations, ensuring everyone shares the same musical direction, and the eternal quest for the perfect vocalist without letting egos take center stage. Our stories are your guide to understanding band dynamics and the creative synergy that fuels a cohesive group.
And then, there's the laughter. The auditions that went sideways, the gigs where cymbals became airborne—these stories aren't just for chuckles; they're lessons in preparation and perseverance. We explore how these nerve-wracking moments shaped our understanding of the time and dedication a band demands, rivaling even personal relationships. As we share these anecdotes, we open the floor to you, our listeners, inviting you to become part of our narrative, support our podcast, and maybe even win a guitar along the way. Join us in a community that celebrates the journey from Garage to Stage with humor and heart.
Thank you and please visit our social medial sites to leave feedback and or support our project.
Hello and welcome to Garage to Stage. My name is Rob Wardrums Franklin. I am your host today and my co-host is Dana Thunderbase Franklin.
Speaker 1:First of all, I want to thank all those of you that listened to our trailer and hopefully it sparked an interest in what we're going to be talking about today, which is basically the very first scenario. It's called Getting that Band Started, and there are basically two different scenarios we're going to be looking at today. There's one you're basically you're the one putting the band together, you or maybe a friend or somebody you've been jamming with, and you're like basically taking control. You're the one doing the auditions. You're the one that's like setting a direction for how you want the band to go. And the second scenario is basically you audition for an established band or a band maybe that's just starting out. So, uh, my co-host here, my best friend, my co-bandmate and, uh, my, like I said, my best friend here is going to kick off, uh, kick off the first scenario. So, dana, let let's hear what you've got to say. I'll tear your eye out over here.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the introduction. I appreciate that. So okay, so say you're a guitar player, bass player, drummer, vocalist, keyboardist, anybody with a musical interest and you want to start a band and you're like where do I start? How do I get this going? Well, first thing, obviously, is going to be where are you going to do this? You're going to have to figure out a location. You know you might be practicing in your room, but mom and dad are going to be like, oh hell, no, you're not bringing no drummer in here, vocalist and whole band set up. So you know, maybe you can move it to the garage if your parents are really supportive and have the room. But more than likely you're going to have to find an established practice spot, be it a room somebody's renting out, office space or, as most starting musicians and we've done numerous times, storage units. You got to find a storage unit that has electricity, somewhere where it's a safe environment so you don't have to worry about anybody ripping your shit off. And, as we've found is probably the best case scenario is get something that's climate controlled so you know nothing's messing with your guitars and your amps, your speakers and everything that you're leaving in there.
Speaker 2:So, once you get that location and you figure out where you're going to be doing this at, you got to figure out it's like, okay, how am I going to get people? What do I need to do to locate people? You know there's different sites you can get on. You know you can. Of course, you can advertise on paper. There's social media nowadays. You know there's still a paper around. You know I there might be. I'm not sure you know it's a digital people.
Speaker 1:It's on your phone everything's's on your phone now. That makes sense. That makes sense.
Speaker 2:So you know you've got to find other people that are interested. You know there's sites called like Band Mix where you just put in, you know the local area wherever you're trying to form the band in, you know, and they'll ask you all kinds of stuff for your level, your level of commitment, what you've done before, how many gigs have you played and you know, et cetera, stuff like that. So you know that's a good start and you start finding people. Maybe you know some friends that know friends and you know you just start connecting that way with other musicians.
Speaker 1:Okay, man. So you've got a hold of these people. Have you set up a time and a location to get together with these guys and jam and see what it's all about? Uh, where do you go from there, man?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, when you talk to the people, you you gotta, you gotta have a base of what, what you're going to jam to. You know, is this going to be a 15 minute blues jam, you know, to see what everybody's about? Or you want to lay down a couple of songs like hey, you know, this is the songs that we're going to plan on playing. You know, learn this. That way you've got an idea of you know what the song is already supposed to sound like and you can kind of judge them off. What you already know. Um, so there's different scenarios you can do with with auditioning, with that.
Speaker 2:But you know, you got to ask these people ahead of time what kind of music are you into? Is it the same genre? You just say, hey, we want to be a rock band. Well, how many categories does that fall under? Way, way low Are you going to be an ABBA-type?
Speaker 1:soft rock band or.
Speaker 2:Bee Gees yeah hell no. But for those of you out there that like that kind of music, we do not discriminate. Well put.
Speaker 1:Good disclaimer.
Speaker 2:Or do you want to do something you know, like acdc, iron maiden, you want to do something that's a little bit more, more heavy, and you know, or then you got, you know the black sabbaths and the tool, and you know so many different types of rock out there. So you gotta, you know you gotta find people that are into the same kind of music that you want to do. And then you know, of course there's always the talk of well, are we going to be a cover band? Are we going to do all originals or a little bit of both to get out there and play? There's so many different things you guys all need to talk about. And of course, you've got to decide on practice times. How much are we going to practice every week?
Speaker 1:So true.
Speaker 2:What's everybody's level of commitment. I, you're going to practice every week, so true, you know what's everybody's level of commitment. I mean, how many times have we been in bands and people like, oh well, let's practice in a couple of weeks for like a couple weeks? Or you mean like 10 times in the next couple weeks? You know some people a little bit more committed than others and that might tear apart the band or it might not even make it to audition.
Speaker 1:Once you talk to people about that I know we first started we were kind of control freaks too. We were doing everything from getting a business name uh, go down to the courthouse and get a business name checking account start working on logos and t-shirts and stickers. The whole works before we even established band.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we even had. I mean, we had a contract for the club owners.
Speaker 1:Exactly, we did, we did, we were carried away. What are you getting?
Speaker 2:paid, but these are the type of things that you need to think about, especially if you want to be the leader of a band or if you're the one that wants to really start out this band. That's another thing you got to talk about with everybody. Are they comfortable with having one person as a leader, like we've been in some of these other past bands, it's like, or do you want to make it more of a democracy where everybody decides on? You know, they, you know? Do you decide on, hey, what type of songs we want to do, and you know all that type of stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay. So all right, you're jamming along and maybe you're making mistakes. They're making mistakes. How do you handle a situation like that when you're doing an audition? I mean, are you going to like, say, well, you know that wasn't right, or are you just going to let it go and discuss it at the end? Or how do you? How do you handle, basically, how everybody's playing?
Speaker 2:well, you know criticism being in part of bands just like. You know this is like being on a sports team or anything else. You got to be able to take constructive criticism. You know good and bad. You got to be able to give it. You got to be able to receive it.
Speaker 2:You know, not everybody's going to be on your same level. You know you're ready to start a band, maybe you're feeling really comfortable and you're ready to hit the stage. You know, right off and you're like, okay, let's learn these 10 songs in the next few days. And the other person's like whoa, you know I, you know it'll take me months to learn 10 songs. So you know you. You talk about level and I guess the first 10 minutes that you're playing with somebody you're going to definitely know. You know where they're at compared to where you know you're at. And now your main question is you know, how do you can handle it? Well, I'd say you'd be up front with everybody, you know, right there, and then, instead of saying, oh well, we'll give you a call and say, hey, you know are you into this type of music, you know, yeah, okay, hey, I totally agree with everything you said.
Speaker 1:There's one thing I want to put out there, though Pitfall you want to kind of avoid, I know, if you haven't played with a bunch of people before, you're going to be real excited about playing with somebody else and you're going to be a little on the unjudgmental side and say, okay, well, that sounded kind of cool, let's keep going. But I think in the long run, you really want to. You want to really think about the position you're in right now. Do you want to keep auditioning or are you just real excited about this first place person you played with and then go from there?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's very true. We've definitely been in that scenario where it's like you know, it's just been you and me playing for a while. We're like, okay, let's find some drummer or some guitar player, Not a drummer.
Speaker 1:I hope yeah. Well, no, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:Let's find a guitar player or vocalist and all of a sudden the first guitar player comes in. You're like, okay, that sounds cool because you haven't played with anybody in a while. Yeah, exactly, all of a sudden you go back to, maybe listening to recordings, you know, and that's another riff that you want to put in a song.
Speaker 1:Well, back in our day we couldn't afford to record anything because we had nothing to record on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, things are a lot easier now.
Speaker 1:That's for sure that's very true, okay, okay. So let's say, everybody just auditioned, it went well. How do you proceed? I mean, what would be your next step, do you think?
Speaker 2:Well, next step you know if you're feeling like everybody's egos and attitudes are all in line and you don't have one person, that's going off the deep end and you know is going to go crazy on you, you know your next thing is discussing. You know really practice times and that's where the level of commitment comes in. You know if it's sounding good and you're like you know what this project is badass, let's keep it going there. You go. You know, and you got people there. Like I said before, you know maybe you know between work and family or whatever they got going on in their life, they can only commit to one day a week. You know, can you? Can you do that, or are you looking for something that's a little bit more serious? You know that's a that's a big subject that everybody's going to have to decide on right from the beginning.
Speaker 1:Okay, man, hey, can you discuss basically our first three bands, Because we were Reno-based at the time and we basically what the scenario that Dana's talking about right now? Basically we went through that three times and if you could discuss a little bit about what we did and how it morphed into what it was?
Speaker 2:Okay yeah, our first band. I believe we called it Pyrite.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:It was you and me. We had this cool house with a cool-ass basement.
Speaker 1:And we were writing all the songs.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Being just a drummer and bass player is unusual. We were writing everything.
Speaker 2:So we were like, okay, well, we got this tight and we're doing good, let's form a band. And talking about where you find people, it's like you know, ours ended up to where. We went to this local guitar shop and, like Rob said, it was in Reno, I don't know if it's still there. It's called Bizarre Guitar and you know, we knew this guitar tech that was in there all the time. We'd always talk to him and knew he was a good player, and We'd always talk to him and knew he was a good player and it's like, dude, you need to be in a band. And so we told him we were forming something and he was actually the first one that came down. His name was Neil, by the way, neil Schlocker, if you're out there he came down and came to our basement.
Speaker 1:And we started jamming. I think it was to Dockin' Song or something like that, I believe it was Breaking the Chains.
Speaker 2:I think it was the Dokken song or something like that. I believe it was Breaking the Chains, yeah, something like that. And after we played that song we were all looking at each other like, okay, this is sick, and we must have played that song 15, 20 times and other stuff and jamming. And then that turned into we found another guitar player, I think someone that you worked with, and then we looked for a singer and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:That's the struggle right there Found a vocal, a good front man for the project. If you have a vision and you can't find a vocalist that fits that vision, that's a. That's a difficult spot to be in and we've been in it more than more than once or twice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you know, to find a good vocalist that you know doesn't want to be the main leader or had that ego and the attitude that goes usually with being the front man, you know, not a bad thing, cause there's amazing front men out there that you know. The reason they are what they are is because of their ego and their attitude, exactly Um. But you know, once you've established all that um, then you start doing the band thing and, like I said, our first band we started out as a cover band. I mean, we must have learned 40 or 50 songs.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, because in Reno the clubs are open until like 2 am. You're playing until 2 am, so you're starting at 9 and playing until 2. So you've got to have some material, definitely.
Speaker 2:But the level of commitment that we were all at. We we were practicing a lot, you know. We learned those 50, 60 songs and probably two, three months. Then we were ready to go out and start playing exactly those are good days.
Speaker 1:I miss those. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Hard work, but good days then that that pyrite band actually, you know, morphed into, turned into our first original working band, which we changed the name to Vices.
Speaker 1:V-I-C-E-Z, by the way.
Speaker 2:V-I-C-E-Z. Yeah, vices, which, of course, is a bad habit.
Speaker 1:Don't look for it on social media, because back then there was no social media.
Speaker 2:Everything we recorded was on cassette tapes or a camcorder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, from boom boxes.
Speaker 2:The recordings were pretty sad and ugly compared to nowadays.
Speaker 1:Okay, matt from Advices.
Speaker 2:What happened Well, Advices, like I said, we started playing out all over the place. We were doing, like I said, the cover songs and I think in those three or four months we put together one original song, which was kind of sad because we were so concentrated on doing the cover songs.
Speaker 1:Back then you pretty much had to just to get into the clubs. I mean they wanted, you know, the girls had to have something to dance to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So you know we did do the one original song but you know, after a while we're like you know we want to do just original music. I'm tired of playing other people's music. We felt comfortable with our playing tour.
Speaker 1:Plus, we set our sights high. We wanted to be more than just a local band. Of course, we had the dream of being worldwide.
Speaker 2:It's just like any solid musician would be. It's like you don't want to just play. All of a sudden you're going from your garage to your playing clubs and then you're like, well, okay, this is cool playing in front of 10, 50 people, but you know, now I want to do 500, a thousand two thousand twenty thousand, you know and you know, with that dream. So our, our band vices actually turned into our third band called monolith, which was, you know, in my opinion, our most successful band.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely For the Reno area. We were pretty popular at that time and a lot of the club owners actually at one point were calling us when they had openings, instead of us having to call the club owners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was nice to get to that point where, you know, I mean, we were playing every weekend you know, by choice, you know we could have played every weekend and then sometimes even on Mondays and Tuesdays, off days.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and that band, you know, when we got that one going we did just we started out with just writing original music, which you know you and me wrote 90% of the stuff which you know. In most bands it tends to go that way. You'll get one or two songwriters and you know it'll kind of gravitate towards their writing most of the stuff until someone else in the band is like hey, check this out, you know. You know I want to throw this little piece in. You know, the more people that can contribute, you know, the better your sound, I think, is. That way everybody's a little bit more interested in it and you're getting a.
Speaker 2:You're putting together a unique sound with just you individuals as opposed to one person writing everything and all of a sudden you're like, oh okay, well, I know these guys, I can tell just from that guitar riff because they're kind of in the same.
Speaker 1:And I've got to kick out a kudo here for a guitar player we had at the time. We'd had multiple guitar players, but one we had at this point in Monolith. If you're out there, sammy, you were the best. I mean you were, uh, when we wrote songs and one in particular called fool's gold. We me and dana had an idea for that song. We knew the direction we wanted to go with it and he just, it's like magically, just fell into the song where we needed it yeah, and now that's you know, and that's going back to the auditions part.
Speaker 2:That's you know. Someone like Rob said with that guitar player we had in Sammy Martin, you'll know, not only are they going to be able to make you sound better, but they're going to help you create your unique sound. And he definitely did, and those were good times. Missed that shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too did, and we, those were good times. I miss that shit. Yeah, me too. And speaking of which, uh, you're gonna hear some pre, mid and post uh music in in our episode here, and that's basically from this band, monolith. Uh, you're gonna notice, the recording is, you know, less than optimal, but, uh, you have to remember this was back in the days when you're lucky to have a four truck recorder, and this was actually done at a live show.
Speaker 1:uh, all the segments of it were done at a live show through a camcorder, so it was difficult to even get somewhat of a good mix, even through some software. Oh yeah, okay, it's time for what we're going to call special segment.
Speaker 1:Oh shit, special this is basically between Dana and myself. We're going to talk about what was either the funniest or the worst thing that happened to you, either on stage or in practice. And for me personally, I'm just going to do a progressive kind of thing, like my earliest memories to like the most recent. So, dana, let's, let's shoot it off with you, man. What was like the funniest or worst thing that ever happened to you? Practice?
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess this could be funny and worse.
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess this could be funny and worse.
Speaker 2:You know, back in the day in Reno, when we were doing a band, it was you, me and this guy named Brian Wenzel. He's a guitar player amazing guitar player.
Speaker 1:He's a guitar, god, it's outstanding.
Speaker 2:We were fortunate to play with him for a couple weeks until, you know, when he had his own manager that took him off to a band inzona back in the day. But but when we were, when we were playing, it was in the middle of winter, probably december, january, and of course it's colder and shit, snow's flying, yeah, and we got the storage unit that's, you know, pretty close to railroad tracks, or no, not the railroad tracks by the airport yeah, yeah and um, you know, like I said, it's december.
Speaker 2:This is not a climate controlled place, so we're in there freezing our ass off. I think we're playing songs and practicing in between putting our gloves back on trying to keep our hands warm enough to play, and if we tried to record anything, of course we had to wait for the airplanes to land or take off, because we were so close to the runways.
Speaker 1:Or that heater that sounded like a jet airplane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had this heater in there, heater that sounded like a jet airplane. Yeah, yeah, we had this heater in there that it literally looked like a jet engine and you know, as I don't know if it's propane or something.
Speaker 1:It was propane and oh yeah, it stunk really bad. Oh yeah, I mean five minutes of that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we're just we're thinking of all kinds of crazy stuff to play, because we're you know, we got some definitely fumes going and we're we're hiring shit just from the remember this is like a 10 by 15 like storage unit at the time. Yeah, so we're going from freezing our ass off to all of a sudden it's 100 degrees in there. We turn that thing off and 10 minutes later retune all the instruments yeah, so it's you know that good old days, cool.
Speaker 1:Well, mine was uh, basically, uh, very like one of my very first bands uh, this is even before me, and dana, this was a. It was actually a pretty successful band for for the time. But we were playing this outdoor party and there had to been probably 150 people there. Everything was going really really good. But another thing about reno it gets really really windy and at the time I had this really cheap piece of shit drum set and with the single bar, you know, uh stands. So, needless to say, halfway through this, the set we were doing, the wind picks up and my cymbals are blowing off and over to, you know, just blowing over. So by the time we got done with one song, I only had my ride because that was the only one with a double brace stand. So that was my first and definitely embarrassing, but there's nothing I could do about it, so I just played through.
Speaker 2:Playing some air cymbals, huh.
Speaker 1:Exactly Okay. So I'm going to kick off the second scenario we discussed. Okay, you're going to audition for an established band and one just starting out. I'm older and have a little bit more experience in this area than Dana because he was more involved at the time with, you know, building up his business and you know spending time with family, which is totally understandable. But basically I went through a few different scenarios in this scenario.
Speaker 1:Um, I've auditioned for bands. I've got to tell you, one of my first ones was a guitar player. This was in the Sacramento area. Um, I auditioned for this band I really really respected and the guitar player I knew from a different band and at the time I had just moved to Sacramento and only had an apartment. So basically, I really didn't have a way to practice. I didn't know about the rubber practice pads you could put on your toms at the time and play in a scenario like in an apartment. Anyway, what I did was just like listen over and over and over again and basically you know tap on books or you know kick my foot to the floor trying to learn the material. But I showed up at the audition honestly unprepared. Were you nervous as shit? Oh, you're always nervous. I mean, I don't care how long you've been playing, you're always going to be nervous. And so I basically I tanked, I tanked it.
Speaker 1:And not only was I embarrassed, but it just made me understand that you really need to be prepared to show up for an audition. And then I've had some where they call you and you actually get together before, like whether it be like in a strip club or restaurant or a bar whatever to kind of discuss everybody's opinions about how they want to play or what the band's all about. And those are kind of auditions that I really appreciate, because that way you're kind of getting a feel for the people you're playing with before you even set foot in their studio or whatever their rehearsal spot may be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I guess you talk to someone for a few minutes and you kind of know a little bit more about them.
Speaker 1:Is it somebody you want to spend time with? Because, let's face it, in the band. I don't know if you realize, if you've gotten to this point or not, but you're going to spend more time with these guys than your spouse, your friend, your significant other. Whatever your waking hours, either you're working or you're rehearsing.
Speaker 2:There's been a lot of lost relationships because of bands.
Speaker 1:Wow, there's been a lot of lost relationships because of bands. Wow, that's a whole different episode.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure many of you out there have millions of stories on that alone.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I've had some good ones and obviously some bad ones. The good ones were really good, where everybody just got along and it just kicked right off. I know the best scenario was I was in Sacramento at the time again and I was joined this program called Weekend Warriors through one of the music stores there. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the music store.
Speaker 1:It was basically musicians that you know were seasoned musicians but having jammed with other people for a while, and they had these practice rooms where you go in, all the equipment was already there, you know, except for guitars and amps and shit like that. But I mean, basically there's a drum kit, a PA, things like that in there, but they would match you with other people with the same interest in like genres and those type of things. Oh sick. And that turned out to be really well and I ended up meeting a guitar player I ended up playing with in like three different bands in the Sacramento area. His name is Mike Howard. You know, kudos to you, buddy, and I miss you. But that was probably the best scenario for an audition because basically they already matched you up with people that you had an interest in. You know the same type of music.
Speaker 2:You know, and if you hear stories on some of these other bands, like you know, Motley Crue and some of these bands that have made a bit, it's because, hey, the guitar player knew of this singer that his friend saw playing Exactly exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's all about networking, word of mouth and networking, you know, going out and watching.
Speaker 2:I mean you're never going to create a band by sitting on your couch in the living room. I mean you've got to go out and you've got to watch these people. You know you should be out there.
Speaker 1:Exactly Okay. So my basic, my advice here is okay, you're confident in your skills. Now how do you get an audition? I mean, do you want to get feedback first on their approaching? They want to jam, they want to play out. I mean, what is their? Before you even go and audition for them, you get feedback, for you know really what they're all about. You don't want to go there and just have a totally different mindset than what they have. But also, be prepared, be confident, but don't be egotistical, because that's like the worst. I mean, nobody wants to walk into a room where he thinks he owns the world. I mean, you want to be confident, but just don't be an egotistical ass.
Speaker 1:Nobody wants that, no, no, and discuss with others in the band their approach, their idea, playing example. Do you want? I mean, do they mind if you play with your own technique, or do they want you to play note for note how something's recorded? If it's like a tribute band, you know, that's obvious you probably want to play the part as close as possible. But, um, if they're an original band or covers, do do they mind if you throw in your?
Speaker 1:basically your style, I mean because, I mean, obviously you want to play with the structure of a song, if it's an original or if it's a cover, but do they mind if you throw in different fills than what the original drummer had done?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like I've heard it a million times. You know, if you want to hear a certain song, play it.
Speaker 1:Your damn radio exactly go outside, listen to your car, see a live band yeah, they're gonna sound.
Speaker 2:They're gonna have their own style of how they play it and you know, you look at a lot of these new songs that are being covered now and they're even better than the original exactly, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah, throw your own style in there if it's, they're with it. That's exactly what you should be doing, because I mean, you're not only auditioning them, they're auditioning you, so it goes both ways and, like I said, know their dedication level. Does it match yours?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you go in, you know another thing. When you go in there and you know, say you're the guitar player, you know you don't want to crank everything on tent, where you're the only one being heard yeah, exactly you want to you want to contribute to the band and make the band sound better. You know, if you're one of those ego guys and you want everything about yourself, then start your own band with your own band name and don't even audition, just do your project and speaking of which, that is so huge.
Speaker 1:First thing you should do is like work on the mix before you guys start, before you start working on a tune with these guys is like work on the mix before you guys. Before you start working on a tune with these guys, make sure you're the mix is good, because there's nothing worse than than than doing an audition where the mix is just terrible and nobody can hear each other and just it's not going to work, it's not going to be a good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if it's really muddy it just sounds like a brick wall of music going from off the walls into each other and it's like you said, it doesn't help anything.
Speaker 1:You know, you have no idea what this guy sounds like and it's just a mess it is okay, and my next little piece of advice is show up with what you need. Example would be okay if you're a guitar player. If you break a string, make sure you have extra strings with you if you can afford it, or batteries if you have active pickups or, you know, if you need them for effects or what?
Speaker 2:here's one. Hey, if you're a vocalist, bring your damn mic. What?
Speaker 1:whoever heard of that? And then another, another thing. I mean, if you have a couple guitars, you may want to bring both, because they may be doing songs in standard and some in drop d, and if, if you don't want to spend all the time you know during an audition to, like you know, tune or down tune or whatever, you're doing.
Speaker 1:You know, be prepared. That's the number one thing I mean. That's my advice is plain be prepared. Yeah, Okay, so I know we spent a lot of time here, Dan, with just our experiences, but we really want to hear your experiences as well and feedback about this episode. If you don't mind, there's a place in the podcast to send us a text, and if you're willing to be a guest on our show, please text us your information, and that information will not come across unless we put it there. So if you tell us that you don't want that public, we definitely will not put it public.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we want to hear everybody's stories and let their voices be heard out there. That's what this is all about hearing advice from other musicians like hey, I just went to this audition and this is what happened. Yeah, tell us everything.
Speaker 1:We don't want this to be all about us. We're basically just like I said this is all about Garage to Stage. We want to give you our examples of what we've gone through, but we also want to hear from you, and we want you as a guest I mean anybody that's in any of these situations that we're talking about, or you're way down the road and you're already a recording artist. Please give us your information and we'll include you in our next episode or episodes coming up. Hey, dana, I think we've given some good information, hopefully. I think we've given some good information, hopefully, and hopefully we've sparked some interest, but you got anything else to say, buddy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know, like I said, if you want to leave comments on there, we want to hear from you, and there's also another place on the podcast. Yeah, so on that podcast, you know there's a place on there where you can contribute to this podcast. We you know, we're just starting out and we would really love to hear from you and we were also like you know if you got a couple extra bucks every month that you want to contribute to support the podcast, we would appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that'll help us get some, uh, the guests that we're really looking forward to getting on as well.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and then coming episodes, we're going to start giving stuff away. You know we're giving away guitars.
Speaker 1:Exactly Cool, we will get there.
Speaker 2:So for all of you that are listening, stay in touch, leave comments, leave some money. We'll take gold if you got it.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're here, platinum, it all works All right. Well, dana, I think this has been a great episode. I've had fun talking.
