The
image of your band is something that should be
neither discounted nor over-considered. For one
thing, it's something that relates to the way people
think of your band away from the musical aspect,
which is something that is fairly trivial in the
early days of becoming an established band, yet it
also affects the context in which people listen to
your music. People can read into your lyrics very
differently depending on whether you have presented
yourselves as being cool and aloof or energetic and
upfront.
Band
image is something that can fail miserably if too
much effort is put into making it a certain way. It's
much better to allow your band to act naturally and
develop an image that's a true reflection of it's
constituent members. The skill in developing the
image of a band is to recognise what kind of
presentation you can pull off without it looking too
'manufactured'. Of course, part of the stage acting
is just that, acting, but for a young band it'a
relatively pointless exercise to try and convince the
audience that they're the hardest metallers around,
and spend so much time doing so they only manage to
prepare 3 songs for a gig.
However,
deciding what your image will be is part of the 'fun'
side of being in a band, and can add a lot of
'spirit' to the band, making simply being in it a
more enjoyable and proud experience. The feeling that
your band has a particular character helps you to
take what you do more seriously, and as long as you
remain realistic, you'll find this character shines
through in your music on stage and your songs will
begin to develop a unique style.
Image
stems from a lot of things, and the sound of your
music is an important one, from the instruments you
play to the particular ways in which they are played,
the tone of the lead singer's voice to the
instrumental make-up of the music. Obviously a soft
country image is not going to work if the guitarist
has skulls engraved all over his instrument, and by
the same token a band portraying themselves and a
heavy punk band will probably want a 'fat 'n' nasty'
sounding guitar with a more interesting body design.
When your band plays, look at how people stand and
how they hold themselves, do they put a lot of
physical movement into it or do they stand looking
wooden and solemn.
Neither
of these is better than any other way of appearing,
but it has to be taken into consideration when you
finally come to think about how people are going to
see your band. Also, listen to the members playing.
Does the keyboardist hammer the notes energetically
or does he move gracefully through his chords and
arpeggios? Does the guitarist jump about and whack
his instrument mercilessly, or does he stand,
plucking lightly and tapping his foot? Does the
singer sing with a deep gravelly voice or a thin
whisper?
Using
particular musical techniques can earn your band
certain trademarks. It's possible to use this by
finding a particular lick or twist that one of your
member's can do naturally and allow it to happen in
most of your songs. Of course don't overdo it and
make all your songs sound the same, it's equally
important to find something different for each
individual song to become a stand-alone piece.
Your
bands image is also to do with the member's
personalities. There's no real way to classify a
person, but look at the band and see which members
have the attitude, which have the charm, which have
an exuberant presence, and so on. And once again,
don't try and force an image on the band. The best
bands have become role-models for younger musicians,
and people like to believe that the image these idol
bands present to us are the representations of how
they really are, not how they would like to be.
Unlike
the image of your band, the way you appear on stage
is something that you'll want to give some careful
consideration to. Your stage appearance really falls
into two parts, how you look and how you act. How you
look is something that people may judge upon a little
less than how you act. It's perhaps a little less
common to find bands dressing up in elaborate
costumes and making as if they were in a pantomime,
yet you can still see some bands going for
uniformity. For example, a band may decide for all of
it's members to dress in black suits, which allows
for either a 'Blues Brothers' image or a 'Men in
Black' image, or any others you care to mention. It's
a good idea for all the band members to have a common
theme in the way they dress, such as smart, loose,
denim, or whatever. However, to an extent it's
important that the clothes you wear are clothes that
you might wear during everyday life, for two reason,
you must feel comfortable on stage, and you must
dress to a role that you can fulfill.
There's
no real need to sit everyone down and have a
discussion about how you're going to dress. All
that's required is to mutually decide on a general
theme which you can all stick to. Only go for more
gimmicky ways of dressing if everyone in the band is
happy with it. And don't forget, there's no harm in
each member dressing totally differently, after all,
the best kind of bands image-wise are the ones where
each member has their own image which contributes to
the overall band impression.
The
way you act on stage is something that happens
naturally rather than as a result of any deliberation
or discussion. It's much more important to
concentrate on your playing than on how you're
acting, so it's best to act however comes naturally.
As you gain experience, your stage presence will
improve, and as members become more confident
performing publicly, their act will become more
physical and they'll begin to give the audience
something to look at as well as listen to. Being able
to put on a physical show while playing is good,
because it radiates a kind of enjoyment that can be
absorbed by a receptive audience.
Trying
to put on too much of an extreme act may be difficult
for an amateur band's audience to swallow. Although
most bands try to emulate the greats they've seen
either live or on television, one must not forget
that when these professional bands perform they have
their image already laid down, and the audience knows
how they'll behave and have come because they like
it. Showing up in ripped t-shirts and jeans and
standing on the stage screaming and spitting may work
for the famous punk bands, but in an amateur band it
shows a loss of perspective and an balance of
attention towards image rather than sound. The other
extreme, the cool and aloof image, is easy to pull
of, but be aware that it can become too extreme and
make the band seem boring and lifeless. At the end of
the day, you're there to entertain the audience,
don't stand on stage trying to make a statement about
yourselves.
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