BandKarma

So you finally found that hip, young drummer you’ve been looking for and your band is ready to start rocking the local clubs and making some money, huh? Well, good for you! But there is a little more to managing a band than know the words to “Since You Bought The Waterbed We’ve Slowly Drifted Apart” (don’t worry, we will cover how NOT to name your county songs in a future post). The purpose of this post is to scare you. To make you aware that managing a band is exactly like running any other business (except, instead of responsible, sober employees, you have drunk, unreliable, friends and family to work with).

In fact, setting up your band as a business (limited liability corporation) is one of the best things you can do. You need to decide who owns the band. Members are going to come and go. There are going to be fights and disagreements, who settles them. Who can fire who. If there is a split, who keeps the names. The best way to do it is to set up the band before you bring in other talent. Have them sign contracts when the come in, just like any employee joining a company.

What kind of company should you make? What about taxes? Insurance? Where do you get contracts? How do you set up auditions? How do you get gigs? Invoice clients? Expense equipment? Do you need a lawyer? An accountant? What if you need to fire some one? What if you need to travel? Take out a loan in the name of the band?

Over the next few weeks, as we get this site rolling, we are going to track down the answers to these questions. If you are band manager who has gone through these issues and want to contribute to this site or if you have questions I didn’t cover, let us know in the comments.

To those about to rock – we salute you.

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