How does one write for a band, really?

How does one write for a band, really?

So I’m asked backstage at Eggy, New Years eve 2024, by someone who works for Leland the Carpenter (whoever that is. Seems everyone knows him and his damn 2x4s).

I mean, it’s not like writing about bands isn’t well-worn ground. See Lester Bangs and Almost Famous. Or Chuck Klosterman. Relix. Mojo. Billboard. Pitchfork. Creem and Spin. David Fricke and Rolling Stone, for holy hell and chrissakes.

Well, we might as well get the name calling part out of the way.

Fine, you can call me a Fanboy. Hell, you can call me a Fangirl, if that suits your gender-neutral fancy pants. Groupie? Sounds so 1970s, like I’m going to take plaster molds of rock star cocks or something. I could be an Eminem Stan, or if it’s I-could-drink-all-day-in-the-sun-and-line-dance-with-my-dog country music, I could be a Buckle Bunny…which, well, I guess, could also serve as my porn name if I had a weird sexual fetish with rabbits. So there’s that.

How about I offer this more apt alternative: Artistic Benefactor.

Anyway, call me what you will, the real matter at hand happens to be what the hell should one actually write about. A Behind the Music concept would be simplest, which is all well and good — except readability requires a major crisis. We’re talking lip-syncing Milli Vanilli-style or super dark sh*t like Def Leppard’s drummer losing an arm in a bus accident (spoiler: he learns to drum with one hand), or TLC taking every single dollar they make and lighting them on fire like millions of Chinese Kǒngmíng lanterns.

Ok what’s that? Wait, I didn’t mean to insinuate…hold up…

No, it’s not like I’m going to slowly drip feed every band member narcotics until they each become addicted, unwashed, sodden shells of themselves, solely for the sake of good prose. And I would never generate drama between band members, ear-whispering “he said this” and “they said that,” playing egos off each other until they self destruct into shouting matches or, better yet, on stage fistfights (I see you Perry Farrell). Or, no way I’d just comp a whole bunch of hookers …erm…ladies with sexually free spirits, to come hang around before and after shows (during show could also be wonderfully zesty). Yield not to temptation, could be a hoot, right?

Ok, f*ck it, I guess I have more morals than I’d like to imagine and, well, Artistic Benefactor integrity here: a writer can’t fabricate the story arc. You can’t bend it to your will (or, I guess, you could, but you’d have to front me the money to a lucrative book deal and major studio movie script, and I’d like to be played by Jason Schwartzman or Adrian Brody because my nose has some of its own wit).

Anyway, an alternative would be to catalog every single show, annotating song choices, and analyzing chromatic root ascensions, Mixolydian to Dorian scale modulations, or interplay between band members; this all to keep your nerd salute at full mast.

Or, I could do a backstage tell-all, giving an insider’s look at the mystery that is a band on the come up. Pre-show routines, jobs of various band members, crew dynamics, who likes enchiladas and who tends to forage on salads and who tries Indian Food for the first time during long journeys on the road (hint: it’s road manager, CJ).

Maybe I’ll do interviews with the great music machine that propels a band to stardom. Booking agents cutting deals with radius clauses — or navigating rich, bored middle-aged dads into over-paying for a gratuitous private gig to use as bragging rights, probably while they’re playing pickleball or dry cleaning their collared shirts they need to dine at the country club.

I could do all this. But maybe more fun to lace up the boots and try something different?

How about this: let’s throw a f*cking party.

Or, a ‘beta festival’ if you want to be less dramatic. We’ll start from scratch and catalog, document, inspect, tear apart and put back together all of the characters, curmudgeons, doubters and well wishers, and we’ll sort through all the missteps, pitfalls and accidental achievements along the way. The festival itself? Hell, that’s the cherry on top of the layered woopie pie cake.

I’d start by talking a well-known festival producer out of partial retirement, someone who will demand perfection and we’d be lucky as hell to work with, but someone with a bit of edge, someone who couldn’t give two fucks or a jimmy jam. We’ll do a bit of Jekyll and Hyde or Bonnie and Clyde, him serving as the wise sage and me operating as the his naive but critical, bagman (you know because of the golden rule: he who holds the gold, rules).

I’d need to spend considerable amount of time with the band and their community, understanding their character, their spirit, what inspires their fans, what will distinguish this event as their own. To make a beta festival work, we’d need to pull off the impossible and navigate thousands of decisions, like whether to play Taylor Swift tunes during intermission or offer a beaded wristband system like they use at Club Med to pay for drinks — or decide if we’ll fly in drones during the encore, spraying everyone with laser bullets (this I don’t recommend).

If I were to do this, I’d make sure there’s some serious goddamn intrigue, like I might engineer the luxury porta pottys to explode at set break, dumping sewage into the nature conservatory’s BLM waterway (hey, stick with me, it’s Bureau of Land Management, not Black Lives Matter, that’s a different story, ok?), or stage a stand-off with the Police Chief when the tiny local Vermont town calls in the armed guard to manage thousands of unexpected fans, or find out the local arts non-profit is really is just a front for an illegal gambling ring (I don’t think this is true, but am hopeful).

Whatever happens, I promise to look closely for some heinous sex acts. And, for love of the story, hope to find both blue- and white-collar financial crimes. And drug deals gone bad, a few arrests, maybe light violence — but no gore, no way. That is, unless you’re into that sort of thing?

Maybe we’ll just get started, and see what happens, ok?

Unless you have a better idea?