Anyone ever pass/quit a band due to disagreement over "personal beliefs"?

[jimijimmyjeffy]

No but it would depend on degree. How much did it interfere? I have that situation now as far as musicians around me. I can keep my mouth shut but can they?

If it became too intense I would walk for sure. If it stayed more neutral and benign I'd stay.

This is a hard time to be alive on this planet for most. So we have to find our path to cope.

 

[RGB]

One of my closest friends and band mates of almost 40 years has always had different views than I do. We treat it the way thinking adults would and just leave it at home.

Never a problem for either of us...we respect each other's opinions, but don't spend any time arguing about our differences. A little civility goes a long way.

 

[metropolis_4]

Only once.

I was about 17 and in high school. There was a guy I knew from one of my classes who carried around Anton LaVey books in his backpack and was in a black metal band. One day he told me his band got asked to tour Europe as the opening act for a Cannibal Corpse tour; their drummer had just quit and they needed someone to fill in for the tour and offered me the job.

Dropping out of high school to spend a year in a satanic black metal band touring with Cannibal Corpse just seemed a little too intense to my 17 year old self and I decided to pass.

(for context, at the time I was musically all about big band swing and hard bop, and was obsessed with the late 60s hippie movement so it was pretty far out of character for me )

 

[Hawkmoon269]

I would say it's been the opposite for me. I've been in bands with people whose opinions are quite different than my own and it's been helpful to see the other sides of some issues. Some are people I probably wouldn't have hung out with had we not been in the same band. That's the thing about music, it brings together people from different backgrounds and experiences who can share something they all enjoy.

 

[Thwap]

Nope, I'm pretty good at putting people in the "Charlie Brown adult zone" when they start going off on stuff.
I just hear wha wha whaaaaa, wha whaww wha.

 

[tvegas99]

I have a 12 piece band that has been around for 20 years... I've had all types of people/personalities (probably 25 - 30 members) with varied political and religious beliefs.

As long as the band is something all of us can be proud of and the players get fairly paid for their time, I can't see why their would ever be a problem.
We would never go off at a rehearsal on a political or personal rant because we are too busy working. Like most work environments, rehearsal is a terrible place to vent any personal or political issues. Everyone is their to rehearse and get finished as quickly as possible, everyone's time is valuable.

Obviously if there is no money to be made, then rehearsals need to be 'fun' ... that's the buy-in for the members.

 

[DGAS]

Humans didn’t have disagreements in the past?

Read some history. We are significantly more polite than any time in human history. Of course there are areas of the planet that are terrible. But as a whole....

This has nothing to do with disagreements.

Up until pretty recently, in the US at least, people could hold all manner of opposing views and simply agree to disagree.

Now, instead we vilify people with whom we disagree, assigning them nefarious motives and essentially calling for their elimination.

Additionally, there's no gray area, or subtlety, or nuance anymore. It's black and white, us or them. Your either on my side, or you're an evil horrible person who deserves to have your head smashed in.

It's been said before, but if we can't talk to one another and see the humanity in one another and accept that we can't have absolutely everything we want all the time, and compromise with one another, all is lost.

 

[Jon C]

Yes, I left a band that was doing well over doing a political benefit for a candidate/party I refused to support or donate my time to.

... no regrets... still friends with the band leader years later.

 

[NotTheArrow]

This has nothing to do with disagreements.

Anyone ever pass/quit a band due to disagreement over "personal beliefs"?

 

[sonhenry]

Only once in almost 40 years.

I was working as a guitar player in a Texas country band. The singer made some real strident, racist comments about Hispanic people over the mic at a gig. My wife was in the audience that night and she's Hispanic. I quit between sets that night, finished out the night.

 

[NotTheArrow]

Only once in almost 40 years.

I was working as a guitar player in a Texas country band. The singer made some real strident, racist comments about Hispanic people over the mic at a gig. My wife was in the audience that night and she's Hispanic. I quit between sets that night, finished out the night.

Well you handled that differently than I would have.
At least the crowd got a complete show.

 

[LardVader]

I guess it depends if you have common ground outside those differing beliefs and they aren't the primary base for the band, or main topic of conversation.

 

[Leonc]

Yup. As a young 19 or 20 year old in the early 70s, I auditioned for a band. The guys in the band seemed okay. I asked them for more info about what kind of music they wanted to play. The response I got was something to the effect of, "You know, rock & roll...none of that n____ music." I thought to myself, these guys are so f'ing dumb....they have no awareness of irony.

 

[CharAznable]

In my old band, every night ended with a good natured political debate. Didn't affect the band or our friendship.

 

[aiq]

OP
Do you mean something important like Ford vs Chevy?

Gibson versus Fender?

Some subjects are best left out of polite conversation.

I was in a trio where two of us were supporters of X and one was a supporter of Y. We did not bring up these raging issues and stuck to the music. No political gigs. No singing so no mic to speak of, certainly no politicing.

The only agenda was improvisation and we were polite.

Worked pretty well.

Overt advocacy in public would be problematic. If a musical colleague began public advocacy with the crazy* (this may have happened) I would think twice.

*Your definition of crazy may vary.

 

[Bigsby]

Hey, it ruins families, why not bands? Butting heads and ruining relationships about things that we individually have only the tiniest amount of influence over seems to be a national pastime.

Actually, I know a guy who's a great musician, but is really in to the whole UFO/lizard people thing. I'm not joining that band.

 

[66fuzz]

Yep, dude believed alcohol and coke made him play soooo great yet ithe opposite was true! Sh*t show everynight!!!

 

[sitedrifter]

. . . and there you have it!

If we all handled each situation as if 'it might be his sister' we'd be in a very different world.
And we'd probably be able to talk about some very difficult stuff too.

Or if people decided to be considerate versus the world revolving around them, we all might be able to talk about things wihtout losing our minds.

 

[Gasp100]

I try to keep all conversations light, normally about the music or band related information that matters. I have not been in a band in decades where I would consider myself "good friends" with the players. In most cases we are solid acquaintences that are working towards a common purpose to gig, have fun playing and make some extra scratch which is how I prefer things.
I try to respect and understand most people's beliefs unless they are extreme/absurd and I would never align myself with people who are completely overt about those views including social media posts.
I do have some close friends (non music related) with completely diametrically opposed views from myself, I simply don't bring up those subjects ever and we're good.

Part of me has a hard time seeing venue owner rants online down here - makes me cringe about having to try and hustle gigs with many of these people, which I actually hate to do under normal circumstances anyway.
I try to separate the business aspect from individual opinions and it is one reason I have "unfollowed" about 90% of my FB "friends" and only manually keep tabs on venues, certain bands and events, etc. to stay in the know on possible opportunities.

 

[straightblues]

Yes, I am conservative and religous. It is never usually an issue early on but over time it always seems to be. Not from my side, but from others. So I will no longer work to form a band without folks who are aligned with my world view. I have had too many bad experiences 1 or 2 years down the line when bands really get rolling.

I do a lot of sideman work, and I can get along with anyone over the short term. I regularly play with many people i don't even like.