“I can’t complain but sometimes I still do.” -Joe Walsh

Last week, I wrote about why being in a band is terrible. This week, I answer me with a few reasons everyone should experience the joy of being in a band. Nothing in life is perfect, but being in a band is about as good as it gets.

YOU ARE BETTER THAN GOD
Only gods and artists are capable of the act of creation (if you don’t count everyone who’s ever drunkenly humped their way into parenthood). What makes musicians better than God is that, unlike the Magic Daddy in the Sky, musicians stop after they’ve created a song. They don’t add shit like flesh-eating bacteria, AIDS, and Glenn Beck.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE GREAT
I am a great drummer. Not Hall of Fame great, but I’ve put in my 10,000 hours several times over and I’m definitely a pro. But you don’t have to be a super-talent to make great music or to have fun making it because music is about doing something expressive. Neil Young does not have a classically beautiful voice, but he makes great music. Grahm Parsons, same deal. Everyone in The Velvet Underground sucked, but somehow it worked. On the other end of the spectrum you have Michael Bolton, Celine Dion, and that grey-haired Taylor Hicks douchebag who won American Idol. They all have been blessed with amazing voices but have been scientifically proven to be 100% awful.

SOMETIMES YOU FEEL COOL
At the dawn of the Washington D.C. punk rock era, the city ran something called The Summer Youth Employment Program. Like a lot of kids from my upper Northwest neighborhood, I joined as a way of being paid minimum wage to play music all summer. During that summer I met Brendan Canty and Guy Piccotto just as they were forming Rites of Spring (a precursor to Fugazi). I showed Brendan three or four drum fills and beats that he thought were cool. A few times after that, he introduced me to people at parties as “The guy who taught me to play the drums.” It wasn’t true, but it made me feel good.

YOU MIGHT BE A PART OF SOMETHING GREAT
Most bands suck, but some are truly great. I was lucky enough to be in some really good bands, have a couple record deals, and play with some well-known artists. They weren’t all rewarding experiences, but sometimes they were. An example: One day, my friends Rob and Tom played me some demos of a songwriter they were hoping to produce a record with. As soon as I heard the songs, I knew this guy was an amazing talent. I told my friends, “If you ever make a record with this guy, you have to let me play on it.” A month later, in Rob’s living room, I was playing on Beck’s first album, Mellow Gold. Sure, I only made $250 bucks for being on a multi-platinum record, but I was a part of something great and my mom has a gold record on her basement wall.

YOU GET TO DO SOMETHING COOL WITH YOUR FRIENDS
Making a record or going on tour — just for a weekend or for months at a time — with your friends is about the most fun a person can have. In the studio, you get to explore the best possible version of what your songs can be. On tour, you feel invincible because you’re surrounded by allies and you feel interesting because you’re from somewhere else and doing something everyone wants to do.

IT’S THE ONLY JOB IN THE WORLD THAT STARTS WITH A BEER
No matter where you are in the world, when an artist walks into a music venue there is a gray bar tray full of ice and beer waiting for them backstage. I know of no other job where they essentially ask, “Do you have enough alcohol to do your job correctly?”

IT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE WORK
If you don’t love it, being in a band sucks. The hours are grueling, the pay is intermittent and usually terrible, the hotels are bad, and the food is worse. You will get stiffed by the racist asshole that owns the Electric Banana in Pittsburgh. But if you love it, those all seem like charming details in a never-ending funny anecdote. Granted, it eventually wears thin, but until then, it’s great.

YOU WILL GET LAID
I don’t know why, but smart, otherwise self-respecting, reasonable women seem to throw away all their judgment when it comes to boys in bands. And most guys in bands are disgusting pigs. It’s like the ladies see a guy with a guitar and say, “There’s an alcoholic asshole with bad hygiene who’s leaving town tomorrow — I simply must have sex with him and his friends in a van this instant!”

-DAVID HARTE

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