How big should a band be?
Back in school that was an easy question to answer. The size of the band consists of the number of friends you have that are musicians plus a singer (oh, I crack myself up).
When you’re a grown up band - particularly when you’re a singer with a backup band - the situation is more difficult. How many people should you have in your band? What instruments do you need to have covered? Do I really need a third sitar player?
Sometimes I wish it could be like football. I could have a whole bench full of specialists. Have one drummer for the slow jazzy stuff, substitute another in for the fast paced stuff. Bring in the special teams for the banjo vs uke showdown. It money weren’t an object, I’d be tempted to do it that way. My immediate reaction is that it would create a lot of bruised egos. I’m sure that happens a lot in sports, but no one seems to care. For some reason, it’s been decreed that a musician’s feelings must never be hurt by questioning their playing.
I’m living in cloud cuckoo land, I know, but it’s interesting to speculate. Ideally, I’d like a bigger band than I have right now. It does restrict the options a little. Some of the parts that I have planned for a studio version have to be dropped at the moment. We could put together a backing tape, but that just seems so cheesy. And there’s no end of things that could go wrong if you take that route.