Funny audition stories?

[Tonelover]

I was reading a thread on a different forum regarding strange audition stories and some of the characters that have been met through Craigslist. It was a good read so I'm looking for more.

One of mine was when I responded last year to a band looking for a guitarist. We set up a time to meet at one of their houses where they practice. After a week of hard work learning as many of their songs as well as I could, I show up at the house and not a single one of them are there. Hung out in the driveway for a while, tried to call a few times, no answer so I went home. Got a hold of them eventually and they were like dude, sorry, let's try again. I said thanks but no thanks.

Any others?

 

[Tawlks]

I asked a guy if I could audition. Later that day he phoned me when I was playing guitar, played a bit for him and he asked me to join. 1 practice, waste of time, the guy was an idiot.

 

[Red_Label]

I was reading a thread on a different forum regarding strange audition stories and some of the characters that have been met through Craigslist. It was a good read so I'm looking for more.

One of mine was when I responded last year to a band looking for a guitarist. We set up a time to meet at one of their houses where they practice. After a week of hard work learning as many of their songs as well as I could, I show up at the house and not a single one of them are there. Hung out in the driveway for a while, tried to call a few times, no answer so I went home. Got a hold of them eventually and they were like dude, sorry, let's try again. I said thanks but no thanks.

Any others?

WOW... that sounds like a pretty typical scenario when trying to find the right guys to play with (not that it wasn't "funny" or at least wacky). Mine usually involves working hard to learn all of their set list note-for-note, and then showing-up and knowing it better than they do, and having to teach it to them! LOL...

Here's another typical BS music biz story. It doesn't involve me, but it involves the band that I was with for the past 14 years. The first guy they tried-out at a gig after I left (I needed a change after that long and quit -- but gave them nearly six months notice), he ended-up drinking 18 beers that night (and an unknown number of shots). He's just stop playing in the middle of a song and stumble to the bathroom to take a leak. He was horrible and just sloshed the whole night. I found this out because I filled-in for them for a gig after that one. I felt bad for them, but not enough to rejoin the band!

Luckily, the current guys I'm with seem like they're very squared away and the drama is fairly minimal.

 

[joolzriff]

LONG LONG story short..... a guy flew from Sweden to England (where i lived a the time) to Audition as a Singer and COULDNT SING A NOTE!!!
the demo he sent to us was some unheard band from florida,...he;d bought the demo tape whilst on Holiday.....he used that tape to send to us after he had seen our add on Headbangers ball in Europe for a singer.....
as the guy was being confronted by our manager at the time about the ''where abouts'' of the real singer. the drummer and my self ruffled through his bag that he had left in the house and found a notebook full of lyrics for his songs and he had used lyrics from other bands tunes all compiled together....WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD
straight in a Cab back to GATWICK!

 

[Red_Label]

LONG LONG story short..... a guy flew from Sweden to England (where i lived a the time) to Audition as a Singer and COULDNT SING A NOTE!!!
the demo he sent to us was some unheard band from florida,...he;d bought the demo tape whilst on Holiday.....he used that tape to send to us after he had seen our add on Headbangers ball in Europe for a singer.....
as the guy was being confronted by our manager at the time about the ''where abouts'' of the real singer. the drummer and my self ruffled through his bag that he had left in the house and found a notebook full of lyrics for his songs and he had used lyrics from other bands tunes all compiled together....WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD
straight in a Cab back to GATWICK!

One must definitely have a sense of humor to spend much time in the music biz. There are some kooky wanna-be's out there!

 

[kasperjensen]

I went in way over my head once...

I wrote these guys that had a band, and they allowed me an audition. They told me to play two songs. So I practiced them day in and day out for two weeks straight... Got to the audition and I flippin' nailed it. Got the gig.

Then they slammed the rest of the 2 hour set on me with the words "Note for note". I had never played other peoples material, so this was very foreign to me. Boy did I have my work cut out for me! To add to it all, we played to a click/sequencer, so there was zero room for error, and very little time before we hit the road.

 

[IndyWS6]

We posted an ad on Craigslist looking for a bass player. One guy that answered the ad sounded reasonable on the phone so we had him come by to audition. He showed up with his girlfriend, both of them dressed in black from head to toe with makeup and chains and looking like an Alice Cooper nightmare. The best part is, as he was walking in the door, he blurted out that he had been diagnosed as schizophrenic but that the medication seemed to be helping. His girlfriend was with him because she drove - he couldn't while taking the medication. He's not our bass player

You can't make this shit up...

 

[thiswaythatway]

I was in a band back in the 90's and we were looking for a singer. A friend of a friend wanted to try out so we tell him when and where. We were playing before the guy showed up but he walked in while we were playing. He's wearing ragged clothes and looks like OJ's buddy Kato Kaelin. He's got a 40oz beer with him, he grabs the mic and screams for 20 seconds straight, sits down on the coach and watches us finish the song. Then he left, that was it. We all stood around and said WTF was that?

 

[Gsxrbusa]

I was in a cover band that lost the drummer. We auditioned quite a few. One dude shows up with a kit that appeared to have been ordered from the SEARS catalog. I'm thinking ....eh whatever. He is visibly nervous. We get half way through the first song and his fucking JCpenny snare falls over and he has to pick it up to continue playing. I had to turn around to laugh my ass off. Problem was that it kept happening. We didn't go with that guy. I felt bad for the dude, he was trying really hard.

 

[benduncan]

not exactly an audition but great none the less

can't embed

http://www.rocktube.us/COW9iQIWpoL/The_ ... orld_.html

 

[datriani]

I was living out in Vegas for about a year and got to play with some pretty cool musicians but it seemed like it was kind of an extension of LA where image was almost more important than musicianship...... At the time I was 32 y.o. asian male and I look like I'm about 10 years younger than I am, probably doesn't help that I'm relatively clean cut as well.

I called an ad on Craigslist for a heavy metal guitarist and the vocalist who posted the ad told me he had Vince Neil's bass player (during his solo act) along with a pretty solid drummer. We chatted a few times and had a lot in common musically (Whitesnake, Ozzy, Pantera, etc) everything seemed to be perfectly inline. I pull up to the house for the audition and as I walk up to the garage, the guys come out and the vocalist looks at me and says "You're Dat??? alright get your shit in the house" He seemed so disappointed by my un-heavy metal look (probably didn't help that I was wearing a blue polo shirt with khaki shorts) but all I could think was "this is going to be awesome." I roll my Marshall half stack in and spend a few minutes to set up. The vocalist asked unenthusiastically "what can you play" so I picked "Fool for your loving" by Whitesnake. Guitar solo comes up, I nail it, the drummer stops mid song and says, "Dude that was sick... you got the part!!" I replied "why don't we play a few more songs, I want to make sure this is the right band for me....." We play a few more and killed it song after song. I left and said, "well I have a few more bands I'm checking out and will let you guys know" Called them a week later and told them they just weren't what I was looking for.

 

[locoed]

As a matter of fact,i put an ad on CL,looking for a drummer etc,influences AIC/Tool,a dude replys with,"Hey you sound like the guy we're looking for" "we are into Tool,thats all we play and i have my buddy who plays bass" I was like killer,i'll be there.
So i show up to some middle aged men who would rather drink fuckin beer and wanna play "Proud Mary" "Mustang Sally" and so on.
Needless to say,they couldn't play Tool,or anything else after 1985.
Before i even went there,they told me the goal was to bee gigging soon,and today i got a text saying i'd probably have better luck playing with another band since i want to practice more than once a week,and that it was more of a hobby to them.
WHY IN THE FUCK WOULD THESE RETARDS WASTE MY TIME?
I play in a band now that does rock/hard rock,but i feel i need to get my "Prog Metal" groove on,and so far it's been a total
joke,is it me? Am i the only one who wants to play this kind of music or is it that hard to find a solid drummer?
I hate looking for musicians in Detroit,they all wanna play White stripes,IT'S OVER YOU DOUCHE BAGS,THAT MUSIC IS DEAD>

 

[Mr. Burton]

I have to front load this story by saying that I have no feelings one way or the other about homosexuals...

I was playing with a rhythm section in a pretty heavy band and looking for a lead guitarist to start gigging. The guy we tried out was pretty clean cut wore polos and stuff. He had a very good paying job and a very nice rig (Mark IV and a high end Ibanez). Was thinking this dude was going to suck but he was a total shredder also. Didn't care much about his image so long as he could play. He continued to jam with us for weeks and we were nearly ready to start gigging. After practice one day we were all sitting around drinking beers, playing video games, and goofing off. In the middle of all of this the guy gets a very serious look on his face and says he has to tell us something. He's like, "I just want all of you to know....that I hate f@&&0^$." We were all like WTF?? I'll spare the rest of the homophobic rant the dude went on but he literally went on and on and on and on and on and on about his thoughts on the subject. We were all sitting there drop jawed in complete disbelief. The dude then got up and took off. We spent the remaining hours of the evening trying to figure out wtf just happened. I had to call the dude back b4 our next practice to inform him we had decided to let him go. He had no idea what the problem was.

There are some crazy people in this world.

 

[Inearthed]

I auditioned for a band with just the other guitarist and the drummer present at the time. They gave me a list of about 5 of their songs that they wanted me to learn, I showed up and was pretty nervous feeling as I'd never been the only guitarist doing solos in a band before (typically I was either rhythm guitar or I'd do about 30% of the lead work) but I didn't show it at all. They say "Lets play song A" and we start, got about 10 seconds into it before the drummer and other guitarist got lost... Kinda repeated itself 5 or 6 times and I was really confused... I guess they'd come off of a longer hiatus and no one in the band had played any of their songs during that time! Made for a weird audition. I was pretty young at the time and the band had two tours planned for later in the year, as well as a record deal with a small label (but they were paying for all duplication and a chunk of the recording costs) so I stuck with it. I ended up getting the gig and it went well. In the end I got kicked out of the band via myspace around two years later (no joke -- they never called me back, I ended up finding out that I was out of the band because someone updated the myspace page by removing my name)

We auditioned a guy for keyboards for a band at one point and he showed up and (drumroll) didn't have a keyboard to play. So he just sorta hung out. He repeated this twice more and finally showed up the 4th time with someone else's borrowed keyboard, but no power cables or instrument cables. At the time we didn't really have any other leads, but we kept telling the guy that we needed to hear some of his playing and we wanted to jam for at least 4 or 5 practices with him actually playing before making a decision. Needless to say after a couple practices of him sorta kinda playing single held note stuff here and there he didn't show up twice and then sent an e-mail to the other guitarist from a library in Portland saying that he moved and forgot to tell us but he'd like to stay in the band or something like that.

 

[kasperjensen]

When I lived in Liverpool I put up an ad for a rhythm guitar player. I didn't expect much, as they are seriously hard to find.
We had already recorded a song, which was quite anthemic and huge, so I posted that on the ad, along with some buzz words...

Not an hour later, Ryan sends me an email:

"Hi, my name is Ryan. I really need to audition for your band. I love the music, and I will not let you down!!!"

I ask him if we can do the following day at 6, and he needs to know the song I uploaded. "No problem".
So, we had arranged to meet at a Pub close to our studio. When we got there, early, Ryan was sitting outside holding onto his Epi Les Paul.

"You Ryan?"

"Aye."

Ryan springs up apologetically. I ask him how long he has been sitting there... "oh since abuut noon, I rrreckin".

Turns out Ryan lives in the North of Scotland, and has been travelling since about 1 hour after he replied my email. Then he sat outside the Pub for the better part of 4 hours, freezing his butt off. Took him inside and bought him some tea and lager.

Then took him down to our studio to play. Oh he ha learnt the song alright. Annoying all other passengers on his train. I played half a step down, which Ryan didnt know... How he managed to play the song in standard tuning escapes me! Either way, he was too young, and we couldn't take him on. I did however give him the couch for the night, and get him drunk. Bless his heart.

Ryan if you are out there... Hope you are well!

 

[OUTLAW1969]

I was living out in Vegas for about a year and got to play with some pretty cool musicians but it seemed like it was kind of an extension of LA where image was almost more important than musicianship.......

Regretfully, I admit that I have a story similiar to this one, but with a different angle. In 1989, my old band lost our bass player suddenly, in a freakish "girlfriend accident". We had a pretty big gig coming up in a few weeks, and wanted someone.......anyone to fill the bass spot....or so I thought. We posted ads on bulletin boards, walls all over town, and the local weekly artsy newspapers, etc. (Atlanta), for a metal bassist in the style of Crue, Faster Pussycat, Icon, GN'R, etc. The singer received a call from a guy that seemed to know his stuff, seemed compatible, and was very interested in coming out to meet us at our practice space, etc. He stated that he lived 70 miles away but saw our ad at Little 5 Points over the weekend, and said that he would commute at first, and then if everything went right, would re-locate to Atlanta. So the singer said, "Hey.....why don't I just mail you a tape, and you can learn a couple of our songs, and then you can ALSO play with us when you show up?".

At the time, the members of our band were all fairly talented, I guess, but basically we were just three 20 year olds, with big dreams, and bigger hair.......but no real idea what we were doing except having fun.

Fast forward to the day that we were supposed to meet him, and he calls the singer and they arranged the meeting time, and gave him directions. The guy said on the phone, that he knew that he was only supposed to learn a few songs, but went ahead and learned all of the songs on the tape. I was impressed with his initiative, based on that alone. Anyway, he was about 30 minutes late, and we were getting tired of waiting, and were ready to go inside, and just play without him. Then we heard tires screeching, and this old beat up, primered gray Trans Am comes flying into the parking lot. I think I just laughed and said "It doesn't get anymore rock and roll than that, guys". Well, "Tony" (the bass player) crawls out of the car and is every bit of 350 pounds. I guess we were just a little bit shocked and suprised, and no one said anything for about 30 seconds I remember thinking to myself that as long as he could play, it did not matter.

But I still felt guilty, because it did bother me a little bit, and THAT made me ashamed of myself.

Well, Tony could DEFINITELY play and our meeting / practice went extremely well. It felt good to have a bass player back in the mix, and I thought we sounded good. I was very excited, looked forward to the next practice, and even suggested that we learn a couple of new covers, before next practice. A few days later, while talking to the singer and drummer, they inform me that Tony would not be coming back. I got pissed and frustrated, and wanted to know what excuse he had provided. They informed me that THEY ( the two of them) had talked it over, and did not feel like he fit "the image", so they told him that we had found another bassist. We missed the important gig that we had been looking forawrd to, and I ended up quitting a month or two later.

 

[Gorehog]

Ive had the pleasure of auditioning singers that thought they sounded good with the radio bit in a band situation had no timing,rhythm or pitch.my story, one bad audition. I jammed with a band to play bass in. Cpl weeks later they called me to come join. Problem was they confused my ph num er wuth the guy they actually wanted and called me thinkin i was someone else.

 

[sinfish]

I tried out a bass player for our death metal band. He came down to hear us practice. He could not shut up about how good he was though he would not play a note. He ran his mouth about how our songs were wrong in some way, shape or form. I still to this day never met someone as narcissistic as him. I got to the point where I dropped my guitar, threw a punch at him, chased him out of the house and around his car a 1/2 dozen times screaming that I was gonna kill him. My band members held me down so the dude could leave.

Story 2
My new band looking for a metal drummer. Craigslister calls and meets at my house. An old guy with brown Napoleon dynamite pants shows up on a bicycle from 45 minutes away. I find out this is his only transportation. Now remember this is a Drummer. We got a weird pediphile vibe from him. We show him the songs being polite knowing there is no chance this is gonna work out. After he listens to the songs, in passing he says there is no way I can play like that. "Do you know any CCR?" I said no. He sat there for the next 2 hours talking about the old days in music. No matter what hint I dropped, I could not get him to leave. I finally said you need to leave now.

I have since learned my lesson and will always pre-screen a potential new member at a bar first.

 

[Red_Label]

I have to front load this story by saying that I have no feelings one way or the other about homosexuals...
[snip]
There are some crazy people in this world.

Seems like he may have been molested by a male as a youngster or something similar. To go-off like that about gays... he's definitely got some issues around that.

 

[tweed]

this thread is almost as epic as the shart thread a while back