The story I'm about to share is shocking to me, but I'm sure we all have our own stories, or stories that we've heard. I'm sorry for the novel but this could be extremely beneficial to all of us who want to break into the music business.
One of my favorite bands is a local L.A. band called Reeve Carney and the Revolving Band. It's a weird, soulful, bluesy, funky, swingy, type of band, but I loooove there sound. Their drummer always caught my eye. He had it all as far as I was concerned.
I always check into there website and they were recently recording and working with a well known producer for their first album. I was looking through the pictures and I saw that their drummer, Gavin, was not there. I promptly sent an email to ask why not expecting to hear back from them. The lead singer and keyboardist both tour with Jonny Lang. Surprisingly, Reeve himself contacted me.
Here's the email.
"Hey there,
No Gavin sill lives in L.A. It's a long story, but unfortunately the producer's we had met with, and the one we eventually ended up working with did not feel that he would be able to do what he (our producer) needed to get from him, so he hired a session drummer for our album. We weren't to happy with that idea, but we knew that in order to work with this producer, Gavin would not be able to play drums for us on the record. We had a few of our other drummer friends play in front of our producer in the hopes that if we couldn't use Gavin, we could at least have someone with whom we had a personal relationship. And that's where we found Jon. He was actually the first drummer I ever played with. We were in bands together in Middle school. That of course didn't make it any easier for Gavin, but for the rest of us it made things slightly less depressing.
At this point, we are still feeling things out. Gavin was gracious enough to say that he would still play with us even after not having had the chance to go into the studio with us. So right now, we're playing shows with Jon and we'll see where that leads. Thanks for asking.
Reeve"
I've emailed him again to find out specifics. I heard this guy Gavin play, and I really thought his playing was amazing. But anyway, if you have a true story, POST IT UP. This will help ALL OF US prepare for the real world and business aspect of the music industry. It could most definitely help the younger drummers on this board adjust their eyes and goals to different things.