You may ask yourself, do I have what it takes to be in a band? Am I really that good? Will people really come to see my show?
The truth is, you need a band to go on stage, otherwise you might want to stick to the street corners, unless you can sing really good…. then you could do karoke.
A band is more than just a group of friends with a mission. It’s a calling, a lifestyle and the embodiment of all things rock AND roll. To get into a band, you must pass an ultimate friendship test that will stress your intrapersonal friendships to the max. If you can survive, you band may be good, even great. Here’s a list of some cool ways that I have been initated into different bands throughout the years.
1. King of Beers–
Everyone in the band has to buy their own 12 pack, cans or bottles, it doesn’t matter. No borrowing money from other band mates, a king has to be able to get his own finances. Then, as an initate, you have to buy 2 fifths of the bands favorite alcohol, using money borrowed from friends of the band. This includes roadies, groupies and band-aids. How you get this money is up to you, but suggested ways are an empty guitar case in the band room, making a poster/flyer supporting your donation or creating some form of band memoribilia to sell for the band.
Now here’s how the game works. You, yourself has to finish all 12 of your beers by the end of the night. No cheating!! The first fifth is donated to the previous champ for his “wenches” but I’ll explain those in a minute. The second fifth is for you and your “wenches”.
The Wench system breaks down like this, there’s 1 queen or head wench (could be a girlfriend, wife, etc) and three princesses (groupies) that the king is responsible for. There is no taking the queen!! Any violation of this rule will get you removed from the band. You can trade whores… opps I mean groupies, (princesses! there got it.) but they can only drink from their kings chalice (the fifth).
To win the game, you have to drink all of your 12 beers and then put the empty carton on your head (your crown), extra points are awarded for the number of whores (Princesses!). If you fail to finish all 12 beers or all of your Wenches leave the party then you are disqualifed and have lost your chance to be in the band.
2. The Mighty Shaming
This method is usually applied to bassists or newbies who are trying to get into a band that has been playing for a while. The key here is to make your new member do everything a band and their crew is supposed to do. Carrying the heavy equipment, providing guitar picks to senior members, wrapping up cables and doing pretty much everything a roadie does by themselves until they learn the ropes of the band. This also includes going to Taco Bell at 2 in the morning, Beer runs and cleaning up after the afterparties. In order to use this one correctly, a time limit must be enforced. Usual time limits range between 1 week and 3 monthes before you have put your time in as band bitch.
3. The Set Challenge
The new member of the band has a set of 7 songs, they play all seven songs unless they are booed out America’s Got Talent Style. The initate must have 5 songs that all of the band members liked or it’s hitting the road in search of another band (this is also called try-outs)
4. Groupie Fest!!!
Some bands require that you have a set number of groupies before you even join the band. This kind of iniation requires you to bring all of your groupies to a band practice/gig/afterparty so that you and your band can look like a bunch of high-rollers. The bare minimum being 3 groupies.
As long as you keep your whores..er groupies (Fanbase!!! got it again 🙂 then you can stay in the band. Just try not to get an STD.
5. The Dark Arts
I’ve never really been a band that had this kind of iniation but I figured I’d mention. The Dark Art iniation is one where you basically sell your soul to the Dark Lord in exchange for rock and roll talent. Rituals include: Drinking Blood, sacrificing something to Satan, or being a fan of Type O Negative. You must dye your hair black, look unusually pale and burn all your Norman Greenbaulm albums to the tune of Stairway to Heaven backwords while chanting 6-6-6 for this iniation to work properly.
leftofdeth 