If you drummers need to present a solid case to your band members (and this really is for band members -hired gigs are a totally different story which I’ll visit later) that you deserve a slice of that publishing pie, ya’ll be needing some good arguments. Like the following.
Band Harmony.
This is a good bit o’ wisdom for you non-drummer band members and band leaders as well -perhaps even more so.
Go get yourself a really nasty case of the flu, chicken pox or whatever, park on the couch, and watch a weekend marathon of VH1’s ‘Behind the Music’. Besides drugs and women, guess what the usual suspect is behind many or most of those ‘band conflicts’ and ‘creative differences’?
Yep, Publishing.
Like in the episode on ‘Twisted Sister’ (dude, I was really sick…and I swear I did watch all of them one weekend) one of the non-Dee Snider sisters said, “Yeah…when the rest of us were finally making enough money to buy our first condo or whatever, Dee was already buying his third house. Needless to say, we were all a bit jealous and pissed at how that was going down…”
R.E.M. decided early on to split everything equally. I remember an article where one of them said, “We knew if we didn’t do it that way, there would be problems. There is no way there wouldn’t be if one of us has a hit and shows up in his new Corvette to rehearsal when everyone else is driving their beaters.”
We all know the vast majority of bands do not make boatloads of cash. But when they do, if it ain’t getting divvied up equally or pretty close to it, there will be problems. Big problems.
Artistic coherence.
By artistic coherence I mean this- If there is a writer or a couple of writers that do the bulk of the writing and it has a certain style, feel or flavor to it, and in fact really defines the band sound, it might be in everyone’s interest to keep it that way so as to not have songs in the band’s repertoire that sound like they flew in from another planet.
I think of Queen when I write this.
The Queen dudes all wrote music. And sang by the way- which I never understood. Why on God’s green Earth would you ever want to sing when you have Freddie Mercury in the band? Good Grief… Anyhow, they did not split things equally so consequently each guy was scurrying to write songs, get ’em on the record and guess what? Get paid. The result? The Queen records are the most inconsistent records ever. I mean, their classics like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘We are the Champions’ and all that good stuff are undeniable pop rock masterpieces. But when you listen to an entire Queen record it’s like taking a lovely boat ride down some breathtakingly beautiful river, and out of nowhere some giant prehistoric bird beast swoops down and craps all over you. There is always at least one song on every Queen record that is at worst unlistenable, and at best, painfully out of step with the rest of the record.
So often times it’s in everybody’s interest –artistically as well as relationally to split publishing.
Like Beavis once yelled -“Stop! In the name of that which does not suck!”
Everyone is thinking about Music, not Money.
Which is what was not going on with Queen much of the time. They all wanted the fat paycheck they new Freddie was going to get when ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ hit the airwaves. If it was equal, they may have been thinking more about what was going on artistically rather than financially.
Who knows, maybe Queen would have had great albums that contained great songs, not great songs that you have to search for on their mish mash albums.
I once read an interview with a jazz musician who said when he goes to a recording session and the writer/artist/producer asks somebody to just ‘play something’, things get a little awkward. Why? Because if somebody just ‘comes up’ with something (as in writes it) what comes to his mind is -am I going to credit for it? The session guy is there to play the notes on the page for so much an hour and if he is asked to just ‘create’ he wants to know if he will get paid for it. So guess what happens? Creativity is squelched because he is thinking about money and not music.
The playing is an obviously integral part of the music.
Like Tool. Or Zeppelin
Again this does have a lot to do with the style of music. If it’s really simple rock there probably is not going to be a need for really stand out unique drum parts. When the music is progressive it’s a much easier case to be made. How much was Neil Peart’s playing actually part of what made their tunes ‘songs‘? How many of the fans were tuned into what he was doing? A lot on both counts, I would argue.
But what if the music is not progressive or drum heavy? Well, this leads to my next point which starts with a question.
How did the collective musical effort (I love calling it that-it keeps things in perspective) or ‘band’ come together and what value are you the drummer (or anybody in the band for that matter) providing? What are you doing to help move the project forward?
One time when I was strapped to the couch (man, I guess I get sick a lot…) I ended up watching a made for TV movie about the formation of def Leppard. Now, I have never owned a Def Leppard record and probably never will but I must say they have a fascinating story. And what makes much of it fascinating is they were a bunch of guys who lived in the same crappy area and had no future to speak of. So they all buckled down, worked their limey arses off and did everything they could to ‘make it’. And for all intents and purposes they did (zillions of records sold). I do not know what they did with the publishing but I would think it a crime if they didn’t split it. Why? Because of my last point-
You are all equally working your way up and out of the rat hole you are in and making sacrifices to do it.
Now when I say ‘rat hole’ that could truly be a rat hole like the dismal factory town of Birmingham (as was the case Black Sabbath -who split the publishing by the way) or simply a 9 to 5 job you don’t like anymore. Or just a life with no music. Whatever the case may be it is about effort and value-what are you putting into it and what are you bringing to it that helps move it along?
In the early days of U2, the bass player Adam Clayton took it upon himself to make contacts and take charge with booking and business. My guess is he knew he was not the strongest musician in the band (in fact he was the weakest) so he needed to step up and provide value and service elsewhere. He added to the collective effort and walked point on the ‘meet and greets’ when Edge was too shy, Bono was too brash, and Larry was just too damn pretty.
So if everyone is working equally hard on getting the music out there into the ears of people, how will it be a good thing if one guy gets rich and the others just make rent?
So drummers -make your case. But-
Play like a musician.
And-
Work hard and provide value.
But don’t be lame.
From your lips to god’s ear.
Huh?