It is with great pride and my hand on my heart that I can honestly say: if you are auditioning singers for your band and you plan on going on the road and ‘making it’ here is my advice……..

As the singer enters the room, listen for a while to the anecdotes of days gone by or days yet to come. Marvel as he or she weaves a tapestry of brilliant threads, joining words that were never before joined into songs that were never before sung…..look at the words as they appear to sparkle and dance in front of your eyes, then punch the singer in the throat. I don’t mean really hard, not as hard (say) as you might want to knee him in the nuts, but, hard enough.

WHY? (At least some of you are asking.)

Well, I’ve been looking at simple things you can do to better your chances of gaining popularity in this huge country without breaking, snapping, and then setting fire to the bank account and your partner’s credit score. One of these things is to perform 7 days a week instead of 4 or 5…….it’s the EASIEST way to make more of the difficult REAL equations work…….in fact: if you are a band gigging to 100 - 150 people on an o.k. night…. then, allowing for some extra t-shirt sales and a few more CDs, etc., over the course of 40 weeks of gigging will put an extra 75k in your pocket – $75 k.o.k.!!

Allowing for the fact that in any larger city there are hundreds of bands, there are going to be hundreds of singers in any city and, ASS-uming that 6 out of the 10 applicants are pretty good and not too insane, then that’s my advice: punch each one in the throat. It's harsh, but fun as all hell. You HAVE to make sure that they can deal with the throat stress that touring these days is going to rain down on them.

No sooner had I written this than I started to look at some e-mails from indie record stores across the country. Many of them have started to advertise early intimate/acoustic performances from bands performing at the larger venues. So, HELL, that means another gig for your dulcet-toned singer……..see what I mean? This started off to be a fun afternoon assaulting singers and now it’s turned into some really good advice. You NEED someone fronting your band who can sing 7 shows a week, hit a few acoustic afternoon shows, and do ten 10 interviews a DAY without losing his voice (or at least losing it but getting it back by early morning).

Wasn’t this part of the problem that the big band CREED had with their singer? By the time they were playing stadium shows, they realized the singer couldn’t hack it--he was, er, hacking too much--so they just gave him horse tranquilizer injections or something in his throat! All kinds of toxicity along with the idea that, when pain is diminished you are robbed of the body’s early warning system – like when you have a broken leg – THE BODY HINTS AT YOU not to walk. Well, these drugs will make you want to snowboard on your twisted broken stumps. It's no different for the throat, ”Mama Mia! Mama Mia! Mama Mia, let me go!” Anyway, here are some more ideas on the same theme:

THINK before you start a band with 9 members. It's going to sound amazing! Until you have to feed everyone! Any club owner is going to run screaming from giving you a shot at a first gig. You can try saying you only want pizza and beer – but, how many fucking pizzas is that? More than the DJ gets. Also, your chances of crashing at someone’s apartment are severely limited. Anyone cool enough to let you stay is unlikely to have the room to accommodate 9 of yas (unless it’s on the king size water bed with the black latex sheets)… Anyone with the room is unlikely to want to watch in horror as you trash one of their three bathrooms with your hair dye and while the percussionist throws up in the Jacuzzi and what was that again – don’t let the cat out and carefully close the microwave?…Ooops?

Multi-tasking is good. Think of yourself as though you're at the beginning of an episode of Mission Impossible. Think about the skills that might be needed on the road ahead: vehicle mechanic, computer nut, a bit of muscle here and there, a bit of sex appeal, a golden tongue for the interviews. Look at your choices as underlining the good points and balancing out your weak points (you probably do have a few). If you are totally shit at lyrics then look for someone who has a rhyming dictionary. Get some balance so that you can be totally unbalanced in a deliberate way…and understand that chemistry is unfathomable and impossible to stage, direct, or plan for. There isn’t a recipe for this stuff. Okay, well there kind of is. Sometimes it’s the opposite of a recipe. Sometimes it’s some of the same ingredients put together in a different order, half-baked or sometimes crispy round the edges.

You can hope and plan and plot and watch it all kerrrrumble over a plastic spoon – a true story of the straw that broke the camels back – except it was an Econoline, a band, and a plastic spoon – but other than that – no characters have been altered. Now I feel like I’m rambling – so let me sum all of this up into an easy to read checklist for greatness:

CHOOSE the drummer that shows up (if one does). Then, if you are struggling between two – choose the one with the smallest kit who doesn’t want to change drum heads every day (ask them!) or the one that hears you when you ask if they can play a little quieter. Or choose the one with the ultra hot girlfriend.

CHOOSE the bass player with the van and the rehearsal space he built with the proceeds from the car accident settlement - unless he is totally shit and can’t play bass. Then think about going all Human League and having him stand behind a keyboard with dark glasses and use a sequencer (and his van).

CHOOSE the guitarist that has several cup holders already built into his equipment along with ashtrays and several cigarette lighters Velcro-ed to his amp along with a blender. This is the mark of a true professional – you are in the presence of greatness.

CHOOSE wisely, surprisingly, and understand the consequences – one of them being that if you follow all of the rules of business and just choose two other people to be in your band based upon their assets instead of choosing the five nut jobs you really want to be in a band with then you might be fucked before you start. But you’ll have a hell of a time not getting there.

Maaaaaan, is your head swimming now?

Makes you want to hit a singer in the throat, doesn’t it?

And, one last thing: if you're a singer reading this please insert the word drummer every time the word singer is mentioned in the article above.

More top tips next time...SONGWRITING!

And thanks for your responses. There’s already a couple of case studies on the way. To have your band be the next case study leave me a comment below.

Martin Atkins is a drummer and session musician best known for his work in post-punk and industrial groups including Public Image Ltd., Ministry, Pigface, and Killing Joke. He has a book on touring and a new Pigface album coming out this year.