Boy thats a tough one! Personality conflicts are the death of most bands. How bout start your own U2 tribute band hire everyone from the old band except the singer and find a replacement for him.

Yeah... I hear you guys.

I went out to take a walk and it helped me straighten out how I feel about this. Playing drums make me happy and I need to do it with people that I'll get along with. I don't need to put up with someone else's crap.

I'm starting out fresh, perhaps with another U2 tribute band is that's possible.

Thanks for your advice. Happy new year from Montréal ;-) Ben

Well, the bass player started the band and he's the one who get 98% of the gigs. The singer is what I would call a typical big-mouth... He has a lot of communication skills and he's using them to his advantage. He has a very good income and he owns most of the gear (PA, keypoard, guitar amps). Also, he sounds like Bono so I guess the bass player (the leader) thought that it's easier, in a U2 tribute band, to replace a drummer than a guy who sounds like just Bono. There are 3 covers we recorded on their site (www.joshua2.net), if you want to hear what it sounds like.

In the first days after I was hired, I remember the bass player telling me he wasn't sure if he wanted to keep the singer or not. He said he wasn't sure if his singing skills were good enough for the original songs they were planning to do. Then, the U2 thing started and the venues we played kept asking us to come back again and again. So, all that left no time to work on originals (which I wanted the most) because we were booked a lot with the U2 tribute. When I left, I was unhappy because I wanted to spend more time working on original. At the time, we had one song finished and another one that was also finished, but the singer wanted to redo the vocals harmony because he wasn't happy with them. When I express them that I though we should slack down the gigs with the U2 tribute to work on originals, I always got into arguments with the singer, telling me that he wouldn't consider at any consideration doing less gigs. The guy likes to be Bono and takes it very seriously. He's got a big ego thing going on...

To answer your question about the lack of leadership of the bass player, I will say that the guy likes the security and doesn't want to take any risks with his band. I'd say that he's leading the band in a kind of "wimpy" way! Right before I left, I told him that I wanted the singer out of the band. I explained to him all the reasons we needed to do so... All this was done thinking of the band as an original act, because I felt that the singer didn't have a professionnal attitude, not to my standards anyways.

Nine months later, they still have only two original songs done and they're fully booked with the U2 tribute... Not much have changed since.

You know, the more I think about this, I'll be way better making a new start with some fellow musicians that share the same vision as I do.

Thanks ;-) Ben

Yep, he does sound like Bono...not that I care for that.  This reminds me, did anyone watch the World Idol show last night?  I think the fella who won, Norway's Kurt Nilsen, sounds a bit like Bono as well.

Dude I see what you mean. It gets kinda hard when you have to deal with people who either think they are right all the time, dont take things as seriously, and think they are better than you. My band once had a Singer like that. Lucky I started the band with the lead guitarist and we agree on alot of things since we have been friends for ever. My friend, our bassist, me and the singer all got together and talked about how we wanted to take our band to the next step aside from the occasional gig and 3 time a month practice. We told the singer who was lazy, headstrong, controlling that he either shape his act up or leave. Or the next step was to kick him. Listen man it comes to this either you call a meeting with ur 2 buds to see if u can make a second band with them and have them just stop showing up to there U2 tribute band or start all over unless you see a band needs a good solid drummer experience then u should probably check that out. But I think the best way to play is with ur best friends. I dunno i'm still young and im not in ur place but id call ur buds up and see if theyd like to do something on the side.
By the way we kicked the singer and now the lead guitarist and i sing we rock even more since we have more practice time together.
Brian