Is it uncommon for bands to be "friends"?

This may be a dumb q... but I was at a music festival featuring bands that have been around for ages, have a similar fan base, etc., and wondered – do the lead singers say hey to each other backstage? They must know each other, right?

And it struck me that it's kind of rare to see photos of bands "hanging out" together – with notable exceptions, but I feel like it's "notable" when it happens. Sometimes bands mention their contemporaries in interviews, but it never seems like they're necessarily buddies, or particularly "close" even if they do know each other.

Is the club tour lifestyle not conducive to getting to know other bands on the bill (you're loading in gear, not necessarily mixing in the green room, then splitting immediately the after show)? Do bands sort of keep to themselves at festivals? Is there even maybe a degree of tension with other acts who are "competing" for the same bookings?

(This obv. doesn't apply to bands that actually come up together in the same local scene, have maybe shared members, etc.)

I always thought there were lots of photos of punk bands hanging out together, though maybe it was just mostly bands in the same scene as you mention...

The London scene of the mid '60s had plenty of Beatles, Stones, and Who photos in pubs and nightclubs. I took them at their word when they said they were mates and drinking buddies.

Bands shouldn't be friends, they should hate each other and be bitter and resentful about other bands' successes.

Otm

It's not called show friends.

I don't really know why they would necessarily be friends if they're not part of the same scene? Maybe I'm missing something.

They are part of the same national “scene,” just not from the same city.

Jagger, Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy partied together frequently.

That’s true (and is sort of in that “notable exceptions” bucket)… though also is a bit different from what I’m thinking about (as Bowie had a working relationship w/those guys too, etc.)

According to Debbie Harry, Bowie had a habit of randomly whipping his dick out when he was coked up. I suppose that could be considered friendly.

Another example are the folks who were friends w/Cobain – Stipe, Sonic Youth, etc.

I would expect it's not that different from working in any other career. There are people you're around regularly, some of whom are your friends, and other people you come across occasionally in the course of doing your job, e.g. when travelling for gigs (or conferences). You might be friendly with some of them, may occasionally strike a bond with one or two, but they're mostly just acquaintances.

i think there's probably a public vs private dynamic involved. unless you're just "that person" all the time, i can imagine it being difficult to be friendly with another band because you're both sort of doing a public persona as bands and you're "friendly" with everyone but not really "friends"?

also, you are kind of materially competing with each other, as much as you want to pretend otherwise? so being acquaintances or frienemies makes sense to me on that level.

but i'm of the opinion that being friends with someone who shares your profession is just asking for a headache, that it's so much easier to be friends with someone who is outside of your professional milieu, that you wouldn't want to be friends with someone who is in your work world because you don't want to be faced with that world when you're doing friendship stuff.

Yeah, that all makes sense… though there’s often also a “networking” aspect to being friendly with folks in your profession (i.e. they may give, or help you find, work in the future); which may not apply so much between bands, although I’m sure referrals to producers, tour managers, guitar techs, etc. are passed back & forth.

tom d come on you know as well as i do that every rock musician in glasgow has played in every other rock musician's band at least once

ime it's like anything else. do all the actors in boston all know each other? yes pretty much, if they've been doing it long enough

(xp) I know, nauseating isn't it?

I'm sure musicians perceive the halo on top of each other's heads. Just like wizards recognize each other. For example when aspiring musicians seek out established artists for mentoring.

Seriously, I am sure you make plenty of friends in music between the studio, tours, entertainment etc - if only because of all the time spent, and because you'd probably go crazy if you just stick to your band - just not always celebrity with celebrity, quirky genius with quirky genius. There are all those pictures of famous musicians together, but how many were friends, and how many were just put together for the coolness effect. Fame and creativity are great common points, but you also need people to ground you.

Also I can't imagine you can ever become a great artist if you're completely isolated, don't meet people, don't exchange ideas. There needs a good circulation to keep a fertile soil (I'm sure there's an expression for this but I can't find it).

tom d come on you know as well as i do that every rock musician in glasgow has played in every other rock musician's band at least once

ime it's like anything else. do all the actors in boston all know each other? yes pretty much, if they've been doing it long enough

Morrisp was clear that he was not asking about musicians who are part of the same local scene.

It is not uncommon, not really sure how anyone could get the impression otherwise unless they’re talking about hugely popular acts. These days, most musical acts are people who operate on recording, word of mouth, PR, and connections with other bands that occasionally might be parasocial, but seem mostly genuine friendships.

yeah i'm not sure it's so easy to draw a distinction between a local scene and a not-local scene apart from as tabes says the mega-famous who suddenly find themselves living in superworld

I figured that was probably who he was talking about but I may have assumed too much.

ime you cross paths with people over the course of time in various ways -- you open for somebody, somebody opens for you, you share a festival bill and have a conversation in the catering tent, you're working in the same studio complex for a couple of days and have a conversation -- and you form short connections with some of those people that become text or online points of contact. some of them you keep up, some of them become circuits that go dormant until and unless your paths happen to cross again. this question is a good question, in my view, because touring, even at its most social, is a pretty alienating way to live, and its daily reality is genuinely incommunicable to people who don't also do it. so when you form one of these connections, which, importantly to my way of thinking, are work relationships -- the sort of friendships you might form at a 9-5 that make the daily grind a little less grinding -- they feel very inspiring and vital, even though they usually won't be kept up. an anecdote: in 2007, having been doing a lot of touring over the past five years, I was on a festival bill with Mission of Burma. On my way back to my room for my last night's sleep before heading home, I end up sharing a cab & an elevator with Roger Miller. We have a really nice conversation, it's a pleasure, and, in the elevator, I begin the awkward "well this was a very pleasant conversation but probably we never see each other again" goodbye common to these kinds of encounters, and he responds with something I still use to this day: "Ah, yeah -- I'll see you out there." To date, we haven't, but it was a resonant way of acknowledging that touring musicians live half their lives in an outside-of-time "out there," on which concourse they occasionally intersect and renew bonds.

that’s a great story :)

I think it is pretty common for bands to be friends, even (maybe esp) if they don't necessarily share the same aesthetic, becuz being in a band is shared experience. There is a comradery that is created just by being in a band. You play the same places. You've eaten in the same weird restaurants. You end up knowing the same people. You get fucked over by the same promoter.

Sometimes after you've been in a foxhole the only other people you can talk to are people who have also been a foxhole, even if there were on the "other side"

Of course some people are just dicks and you can't be friends with them no matter what.

Thanks, these are some great responses

Instagram happened to serve up this post for me just now

Yes, good discussion. Don't know how many times it's been said already, since nowadays I mainly read threads from the bottom up#onethread, but it's difficult to conclude how friendly famous musicians really are with one another just because they are in photos together. Perhaps they are just basking in each other's celebrity. Local scenester friendship is another Gaslight Cafekettle of fish, frequently lots of hanging around and hanging about, often with a passive-aggressive slacker version of The Fights Are Sp Vicious Because The Stakes Are So Small of academia, or so I observed in my brief stints in those worlds.

There used to be some famousers that posted here back in the day, that could have answered the question.

Now, all we can do is guess...

Um...

.. (there may still be some, in heavy disguise, I don't know)

xpost lol

So here’s an example of “same scene, shared a bill, not really friends”:

AVC: I recall Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux saying a few years back on social media that she wasn’t a Pavement fan, and Bob (Nastanovich) responded that he was fine with that. I get the impression all of you guys were. You loved them even if they weren’t into your music.

MI: Yeah, we were Royal Trux fans, and they played some great shows. But I’ve got a funny story about them touring with us. There was one time they’d had a tough show in a small town, maybe Norman, Oklahoma, and they were playing to a young audience who probably barely knew Pavement, and there were some dumb dumbs yelling at them, and they were bothered by it. So Bob was doing whatever pre-show stuff he does during their set, pacing and drinking. I’d been watching and it was tough. I was kind of grimacing. So shortly after their set ended, Jennifer came into the dressing room not feeling so great, and Bob walked right up to her and said “Great set, Jennifer,” and gave her a big bear hug, and walked away before she could say anything. (Laughs) The next day our tour manager wanted to talk to us, and Neil from Royal Trux had said to him that they didn’t want to hear any comments about their shows from anyone in Pavement again. Everybody looked at one another and said, “What?” Except for me. I’d seen what had happened and explained what had gone down. (Laughs)

Jennifer probably thought he was being sarcastic, and he may very well have been given the description of the objectively terrible set they just played, which could have been perceived as an asshole move

It’s interesting cuz I’ve never thought of Trux as being particularly thin-skinned (if anything, the opposite), but I guess they could be.

I begin the awkward "well this was a very pleasant conversation but probably we never see each other again" goodbye common to these kinds of encounters, and he responds with something I still use to this day: "Ah, yeah -- I'll see you out there." To date, we haven't, but it was a resonant way of acknowledging that touring musicians live half their lives in an outside-of-time "out there," on which concourse they occasionally intersect and renew bonds.

This is so great. I love that: "see you out there."

A friend of a friend shared a car with Robert Plant once and had a similar rapport with him as you describe with Roger Miller. No psychic vampire fanboy stuff, just a nice, cordial encounter. At the end, Plant said, very sincerely, "Have a good life, man." Which for some reason just makes me feel very warm and fuzzy every time I think about it. As in, "the chances of us meeting again are very, very slim, so why beat around the bush with insincere pleasantries?"

For what it's worth, I've heard a number of second-and-third hand stories from people who've dealt with Plant (apparently the guy still really likes going to record stores), and in every one, the guy comes off like a real mensch. The exception that proves the rockstar rule, maybe.

I seem to remember someone from Pavement talking about how when they showed up in NYC they felt very much like outsiders/squares in a scene dominated by groups like SY and Pussy Galore.

i decided to ask geoff from age of chance re this as i thought it was an interesting question,
and they were very well connected to the leeds scene at the time of their adventures.
and his reponse : no
apparently - too much competitiveness between bands made such long lasting connections difficult.

ooops, possibly need to clarify : "no" = no friends.

even keeping a sense of camaraderie within a band is often impossible

I think many of those 90s bands especially the ones that were a bit 'edgy' kind of reveled in being pretty dickish off stage in the clubs.

KM otm.

But then there are of course the exceptions I latched onto when I was coming up, when I was a nipper, such as The Monkees, The Beatles and The Band. Oh wait.

And what about the Ramones? They liked each other so much they all took the same last name!

Lol!!!

Each one of the exclamation points represents a baseball bat. Guess I should have added at least one more.

Lorde and Taylor Swift seem to have a genuine friendship, which goes beyond seeing each other on the red carpet.

Then there are the family and brother acts: The Kinks, The Everly and Louvin Brothers, The Beach Boys, The Cowsills, The Kendalls etc.

Which set of brothers hate each other more: The Davies, The Everlys, or The Gallaghers?

The Windsor's.