When Did Joining A Band Become A Life Sentence?

A friend of mine whose band had a couple hits is now caught in a yearly "rut" of playing the outdoor summer festivals, the casinos, the cruise ships, and he HATES IT.

"The same exact sea of faces aging right in front of me," he says, his eyes darkened by the thought. "They are a reflection of myself, my band, my youth growing smaller in the rear-view mirror.

I tell him I'd have hated it too (boning hot chicks is such a drag) but that he seems to have no qualms about cashing those checks. He and I became friends during the lean years following his band's semi-successful major label run when the band's split and the end of his marriage happened remarkably close to one another. A guy who'd actually managed to live the dream in L.A. in the mid-to-late '80s began a series of comical straight jobs, dying slowly paycheck-to-paycheck just like the rest of us.

I got to see the wave of nostalgia wash over an entire generation, raising the profile of anything remotely connected to the '80s. Of course, with the local modern rock FM powerhouse still playing your band's song, little by little, the gigs started to increase in both frequency and pay. 

Even my friend's band, whose success was more regional than national, were seemingly stuck at the soft ticket level: Ribfests, county fair midways, and the ever-popular "mall grand opening", but now they've become a favorite low bill act to help flesh out any number of '80s cruises or other such events.

My buddy's not about to rock the boat, though.

See, he has come to realize that joining a band is a life sentence, yet, for some, no amount of money is worth reopening old wounds.

In hindsight, I could have saved myself decades of heartache by snuffing out my own rock & roll dreams and just knocking around in fifteen different bands playing ten different kinds of music until all the bands I grew up idolizing began to shed original members.

By then, I'd have the skills and experience to nail any fucking audition and live out my rock & roll dreams as a non-original member of Blondie, The Cult, or, Men Without Hats.

Instead of explaining to my fellow classmates at the high school reunion how I almost did this and almost did that, I could be signing autographs on napkins as the dude you know from school who went on to perform with Sparks, the Motels, and A Flock of Seagulls.

Mike Score and three guys who grew up to be
non-original members of A Flock Of Seagulls

"You guys were great at Ribfest last year! We could hear you in between tractor pulls!"

"My daughter can't find your name on any of their good albums."

"Why isn't your face on any of the tour shirts!"

Ah, that's livin' baby.

Of course, the reason this idea escaped me at the time was because I stupidly believed that bands of my generation would never succumb to the same pitfalls that ruined every prior generation of great bands.

No band of my generation would ever split up, only to have two different members go on to form their own version of the same band, eventually leading to prolonged legal battles and bad blood. Nope. No way.

No bands of my generation would replace an iconic drummer with the guitarist's son. Nope. No way.

If only I'd had just a little less faith in my heroes at the time, I could have gone on to join them when they were eventually reduced to two original members trotting out twenty-year-old tunes to a gaggle of fifty-somethings.

But then who knew nostalgia would be the future and that every fucking band we grew up on would still be around in one cobbled together for or another because the gig money was too good not to be?