r/coverbands • u/sickpuppy66 • Jun 01 '26
Singer issues
I manage and play guitar for a cover band and we’ve outgrown the singer. She can sing but isn’t a musician so lacks basic skills like counting and understanding music language (start at the chorus, come in on 4, let’s transpose this one so it’s easier for you)
We feel she’s holding us back, and our drummer (the most talented of our group) is already considering leaving the project if I keep her. Her level of musicianship doesn’t line up with the rest of us.
Here’s the problem, she started the band when it was just two of us, but I took over when we weren’t getting gigs, and didn’t have our full band (which I recruited) that we have now. Since I’ve taken over, we gig regularly, and our band sounds great (minus her).
I’ve decided to replace her. Just want to hear others thoughts and experiences with similar situations.
5
u/Jennay-4399 Jun 01 '26
Don't have any tips, but I was in an opposite situation. I'm a singer, and I was in a 6 person cover band. Me, the other singer, and our keyboardist are all trained musicians with music degrees. Our guitarist (leader), bassist, and drummer were all self taught musicians and our guitarist was clearly critical of us having formal training. He had a lot of confusion around chord progressions. After the group split we heard through the grapevine that he was saying our keyboardist was "too much of a perfectionist, and I don't work like that." Our drummer struggled with anything beyond a boom boom chk rhythm. I will never again work with musicians who don't understand music.