DRUMMER CAFE

 
I've been rehearsing with a hard rock band for about three months (3-4 hours every second week), and it's only now that things are getting shaped a bit. (Too long, isn't it.) I was practising their songs 1-2 hours a day, but the rehearsals were awful - I expected helpful communication from them while playing (gestures, nodding, anything), but they said I must play the drum part alone with all the breaks and accents and everything because when we get on stage, there is no communication at all. They say this is not a jazz band, where the musicians mind what the others are playing, this is fixed music, where everyone must play their part perfectly even in a dark room with not seeing or hearing the others, and on stage, you'll never know what's gonna happen, so you'd better not count on the others...
I wasn't used to this - I always kept eye contact with bandmates in other bands, and so we always knew where we were in a song, and if someone made a mistake (in tempo or whatever), the whole band could correct it.
But at last I seem to have made it. The last two rehearsals were quite acceptable, and now we're heading for some summer gigs as it was planned. I just don't feel well in this band because I think the joy of playing music together is quite lost in this impersonal, quasi "professional" way. I also play with a blues band, with whom three rehearsals were enough to get quite ready for a show, because there we keep looking at one another all the time and form the song as we like while playing it.

So, what do you think? Should band members be more like machines each playing their own part with no communication with the others, or should they cooperate all the time and help one another to make the best possible performance?
 

Yeah, I told them twice that I was about to quit them, but they were so patient (!!?) and didn't let me go. Now I'm OK with them, they really play well, much better than me, but sure, me and them is two different things - anyway, I'll see what's gonna happen at the first show.
 

Since I've been playing with them, I've watched quite a few concert videos by great bands, and in most of the cases I see there's a lot of contact between the bandmates. OK, everyone is alone in their little part of a large stage, but everyone always looks at the others even at the most professional show. Maybe, strangely enough, Black Sabbath don't do this so often, and my band, apart from their own songs, also has a Sabbath cover programme...
 

They really are.
Nasty or not, I played a little trick on them. There's quite a long break in one of the songs with some rhythmless guitar effect, where the hi-hat is still on, counting the beat, and then you all must come back quite heavy on the first beat of about the third bar of the section. And I left this hi-hat part out, just counting the beat in my head sitting motionless not even looking at them, and I came back on time, but they couldn't. They asked why I left that part out, and I said, 'Just for practising if I could manage without it,' - meaning if you expect me to play without hearing anything, I expect you to play your parts without hearing the drums.
And then things got sort of settled; maybe they're getting a little bit of my point of view of collaboration.