How to Form a Band

You know I, like most guys, have said it for years; "Man, I should really get a band going".
Well, I've decided to finally put my money where my mouth is and just DO IT, rather than talk about it. I've even got a good idea of the type of music I'd like to do (Rockabilly/Classic Rock" and a band name (Domino and the Freebooters).
Unfortunately, thats about all I got Being new at this and, worse yet, only being able to sing and not play anything (Hey, it worked for Johnny Rotton! And you could argue, he couldn't even sing....not that I would. He might track me down ), I'm a bit clueless at how to do this.
So, from anyone out there who is currently in a band or ever was; how exactly should I go about getting some musicians together? Everyone I've met in town so far either seems to be in a band, has completely different tastes in music from me, or is quiet happy going solo.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Force your friends to learn instruments or just keep networking with musicians. Put a ad on craigslist or myspace. Forming a band with people who are reliable, good at there instruments, and get along with everybody is the hardest thing in the world. Takes practice. Go out and "Jam" with some people, whether its your taste of music or not.

are you able to write your own songs? if not, you'll need some help there -- generally writing the lyrics and foundation of the music first and adding parts from there.

the community > musicians section of craigslist.com (for better or for worse), is probably the de facto standard for connecting online with other musicians (at least here in the Bay Area at least). other than that, going to shows you're into and networking with the other bands is a good way to find people, as lots of folks are in more than one project or often looking for something new.

+1000000!

forming and keeping a band together is a lot of work, and most likely you will not make much (if any) money at this. so it's truly a labor of love. but you'll meet new people and get better at your craft by jamming with some of them (rule of thumb: try to jam with others who are better than you). if you guys don't take yourselves too seriously, being in a band can be a lot of fun to pass the time.

Get yourself a guitar and learn how to accompany yourself. If you're serious about it it won't take but a couple of months. It's much easier to find people to jam with if you can actually play a few songs.

I actually have both a Guitar and Fiddle; The Fiddle I'm ok with and, if I could ever get a tutor, I think I could actually become fairly proficient with it. The problem with the guitar is....

This is going to sound odd.

I have stubby fingers. When ever I've tried to pick it up and play chords my finger kinda...spreads out and hits other strings. I'm really not sure how to compensate for that; its annoying.

Still better off than my cousin. He has no individual finger movements. If he moves one finger they ALL move. Makes playing instruments..difficult

You know how you compensate for this?

Practice.

The guitarist in my band fucking SLAYS and he's got these chubby little nubs. He's fucking good. Why? Dedication and practice.

Everyone in my band is all 100% self-taught, and I'd drop 30 bucks to go see us live. Unfortunately we're brand-fucking-new and we lack fundage to get any serious recording just this second... We DO however have a couple signed deals for free demo recordings!

Buddy, guitar is a VERY difficult instrument to learn at first. Only because it's so disheartening and kind of easy to give up at when shit doesn't sound right. But keep practicing. And keep practicing. And so on and so forth.

Practice makes perfect.

Starting bands is difficult. In my experience, starting a band is about a hundred times harder than sustaining a band once it's formed. I've been in a handful of projects, and it's usually quite a chore to get them off the ground. For every ten bands I've discussed forming, one of them has actually made it to the stage where we bother getting together to try things out, and 3 out of 4 times, the dream dies right there. If you are just one guy, singing, you might be best to just compromise your standards and try to join a band that already exists and is looking for a singer. Even if you don't really care for them, it will almost definitely give you the experience you need to move on to better things. It'll get you out there, hopefully, performing, and that will open up the doors to meet other people. Networking, as other people have said, is VITAL. You can put up all the "musicians wanted" fliers you want, but nothing is going to work better than getting yourself out in the scene and meeting musicians in person and discussing music with them. You have it especially hard because you don't play an instrument. I know me personally, I wouldn't even consider forming a band with anybody who just sings. Hell, I'll barely even consider playing with somebody who only knows one instrument. Even if you learn guitar just well enough to come up with very very basic structures for your songs, it will probably do a lot more towards helping you find people willing to work with you.

one other thing to mention, is that it will probably be easier for you to get a cover band together (or to join one like not_jason suggested) than it would be to do original songs. when you're doing originals, chemistry is a huge thing, and everyone needs to kind of be on board, which makes things a lot tougher. if you're in a cover band, as long as you guys agree to the songs you want to do, there isn't as much chemistry involved as long as you can get along with each other and as long as everyone is fairly competent on their instrument.

If you can properly finger a violin/fiddle, you can do it on a guitar. If it's that big a problem, look for something with a wide fretboard. The only things that come to mind immediately as far as electrics are PRS and Ibanez.

That said, I've never met anyone whose fingers were actually physically too stubby to play guitar properly. Just work on it.

Good luck with the band thing; getting that shit together is rough. Easiest thing to do is to just start looking for and answering ads.