What have you had on repeat this month?

Ask about listening rather than influences and you get the honest answer. People name respectable influences in an audition and then play what they actually listen to, so the recent playlist predicts their parts better than their list of heroes.

Which band do you want us to sound like, and which comparison would annoy you?

The second half is the useful half. Two players can agree on the reference band and still be aiming at opposite ends of it, and the comparison someone flinches at tells you which direction they will push every arrangement.

What were you in before this, and how did it end?

Everyone has a previous band. Listen to how they describe the split: if every past project ended because the others were lazy or unserious, you are hearing the pattern you will be part of next.

Realistically, how many hours a week can you give this?

Ask for a number, not an attitude. Enthusiasm is free and calendars are not, and the person with a night shift and a toddler is telling you something more reliable than the person who says they are all in.

Which nights are you free to rehearse, and how far will you travel to get there?

Bands rarely die of artistic differences. They die because three people can do Tuesdays and one cannot, and the drive is forty minutes each way. Settle the standing night now or you will renegotiate it every week.

Social & Fun

Questions to Ask Band Members

Questions for the conversation before a lineup becomes a band, covering influences and availability, how songs get written, who does the unglamorous work, how money and credit get split, and what each person would quit over.

20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide

Open any question to see why it works.

1
What have you had on repeat this month?
Ask about listening rather than influences and you get the honest answer. People name respectable influences in an audition and then play what they actually listen to, so the recent playlist predicts their parts better than their list of heroes.
2
Which band do you want us to sound like, and which comparison would annoy you?
The second half is the useful half. Two players can agree on the reference band and still be aiming at opposite ends of it, and the comparison someone flinches at tells you which direction they will push every arrangement.
3
What were you in before this, and how did it end?
Everyone has a previous band. Listen to how they describe the split: if every past project ended because the others were lazy or unserious, you are hearing the pattern you will be part of next.
4
Realistically, how many hours a week can you give this?
Ask for a number, not an attitude. Enthusiasm is free and calendars are not, and the person with a night shift and a toddler is telling you something more reliable than the person who says they are all in.
5
Which nights are you free to rehearse, and how far will you travel to get there?
Bands rarely die of artistic differences. They die because three people can do Tuesdays and one cannot, and the drive is forty minutes each way. Settle the standing night now or you will renegotiate it every week.
6
What gear do you have, and what would we be sharing or renting?
Gear gaps become money arguments later. Find out who owns a PA, who has an amp that can hold a room, and whether anyone has a vehicle that fits a drum kit, because that person will quietly become the band's transport.
7
What does your work situation allow: could you take unpaid days for a run of shows?
Touring, even four days of it, is where availability actually breaks. Someone with fixed shifts and no leave is not less committed, but you need to know before you book anything that requires a Thursday.
8
Do you want this to make money, or is that not the point for you?
A band containing one person paying rent from gigs and one person doing it for fun will fight about which shows to accept. Neither answer is wrong, but a mismatch decides whether you play the badly paid show that is good for you.
9
How do you want songs to come together: someone brings a finished thing, or we build it in the room?
This is the most common unspoken disagreement in a new band. A songwriter who arrives with demos and a group that jams ideas into shape will each experience the other as disrespectful, and nobody says so out loud for months.
10
If you write your own part on someone else's song, do you expect a writing credit?
Ask this while everyone still likes each other and nothing is worth anything. Answers vary honestly, from the writer takes it all to everything splits evenly, and the argument is unrecoverable once there is a royalty attached to it.
11
How should we split money from a gig, from streaming, and from merch?
These three usually need different rules, since merch often involves someone fronting cash for the print run and gig money often has to cover petrol first. Decide the order of payment: costs, then people.
12
Who owns the name if half of us leave?
It sounds paranoid until it happens. Agree now whether the name follows the songwriter, needs a majority, or dies with the lineup, because a name with a following attached is the one asset a small band actually has.
13
What do you want to be doing with this in two years?
Ask for a picture, not an ambition. A monthly local show, a recorded album, or leaving your job are three different bands, and the person imagining the smallest version is the one who will feel pushed by everyone else's plans.
14
How much do you want to play live, and what kind of rooms?
Some players want to gig constantly and some find it exhausting. Pin down a number of shows a month and whether they will play a half empty bar on a Tuesday, since that is most of what is available early on.
15
How do you like to be told that a part is not working?
Every band has to say this weekly and most avoid it until it comes out badly. Someone who wants it flat and direct and someone who needs it framed gently will each take offence at the wrong approach, so ask before you need to.
16
When two of us want different things for a song, how do we settle it?
You need a rule chosen while calm: majority vote, the writer decides, or whoever has to play the part decides. Bands without a rule default to whoever is most stubborn, and that person is not always right.
17
What is your relationship with drinking at rehearsals and shows?
Ask plainly, without a joke attached. This ends more bands than any musical disagreement, and it matters practically: who is driving, who can be relied on at load-in, and whether anyone needs the rider to be different.
18
Who is going to do the booking, the emails, the socials, and the driving?
The admin is real work and it lands on one person by default, usually the one who cares most. Name it now and split it, or you will lose that person to resentment about a job nobody thanked them for.
19
What would make you walk away from this?
People know their own limits and rarely announce them. A run of missed rehearsals, a show that costs them money, a member who never learns the parts: whatever they name is the thing you should watch for.
20
If this stops being fun for you, how will you tell us?
Most people leave a band by slowly becoming unavailable rather than saying anything. Agreeing on a way to raise it, even a phrase, makes it survivable and gives you a chance to fix the fixable version.

Turning a lineup into a band

Practical guidance for the conversation itself.

The conversation before the first rehearsal

Talk logistics before you talk music

Rehearsal night, travel distance, gear, and how many hours a week each person has. These are the things that end bands, and they are much easier to discuss before anyone is emotionally invested in the songs.

Agree a trial period out loud

Say that the first six or eight rehearsals are a try-out for everybody, in both directions. It gives you a clean way to end things that does not require anyone to be told they are not good enough.

Write down what you decide

A shared note with the splits, the name rule, and who handles booking is not a contract, but it settles the argument about what was agreed. Every band remembers these conversations differently a year later.

Money and credit, decided early

Decide the order money moves in: costs out first, then whatever is left splits. Vagueness here is how one person ends up permanently out of pocket for strings and petrol.
Separate songwriting credit from recording credit. Someone can write an outstanding bassline on a song they did not write, and both facts can be true in the paperwork.
Keep receipts in one shared place from the first month. A band that starts this at the point of the first real cheque never reconstructs the earlier spending accurately.
Decide who holds the band's money and whether it lives in its own account. Cash sitting in one member's personal account creates suspicion nobody intends.
Agree what happens to recordings if someone leaves: can they use the tracks, and does their playing stay on the release?

What to notice in the first month

Turns up without having learned the material, twice. The second time is the signal, not the first.
Cannot take a note about a part without the room going tense for twenty minutes.
Talks about every previous band as a group of people who let them down.
Says yes to every commitment and then renegotiates it by text the day before.
Wants a decision on the name, the artwork and the socials before you have three songs.
Treats one member's ideas as automatically the default without anyone having agreed that.

The questions

What have you had on repeat this month?

Which band do you want us to sound like, and which comparison would annoy you?

What were you in before this, and how did it end?

Realistically, how many hours a week can you give this?

Which nights are you free to rehearse, and how far will you travel to get there?

What gear do you have, and what would we be sharing or renting?

What does your work situation allow: could you take unpaid days for a run of shows?

Do you want this to make money, or is that not the point for you?

How do you want songs to come together: someone brings a finished thing, or we build it in the room?

If you write your own part on someone else's song, do you expect a writing credit?

How should we split money from a gig, from streaming, and from merch?

Who owns the name if half of us leave?

What do you want to be doing with this in two years?

How much do you want to play live, and what kind of rooms?

How do you like to be told that a part is not working?

When two of us want different things for a song, how do we settle it?

What is your relationship with drinking at rehearsals and shows?

Who is going to do the booking, the emails, the socials, and the driving?

What would make you walk away from this?

If this stops being fun for you, how will you tell us?