More on Bands and Members

I suppose these things are to the forefront partly because I'm reading a biography of Captain Beefheart that includes accounts of the way he treated his musicians! 

I had a very different relationship with the horn players in Helen and the Horns because they are and were session musicians playing on my songs. I paid Musician's Union rates at the time, and sometimes this meant that I didn't pay myself. Oddly, this was rather good for me. I spent the time in between tours writing music for theatre groups and political videos; having minimal living expenses, I found that I could survive OK on that. It's just that I felt a band playing my songs and 80% my arrangements should be paid for doing it. They wrote down the individual parts that I either sang to them, or sang on to cassettes for them to transcribe; if one of the players couldn't do a gig, they'd easily put in a 'dep' because the parts were written down. They contributed extra, too. We did have a very good relationship with each other, because the relationship between us was clearly laid out.

Only problem is that now if we get offered a gig, they are all very busy. People have suggested that I get a reserve squad in particularly for gigs in the north of the UK, but at the moment that doesn't appeal: it's all the more convinced me that mostly playing solo is the easiest way to do it.