I'm a musical arsehole.

The singer for my cover band just quit, and that leaves us in an interesting transitional phase with a lot of options:
-we stick it out as a trio for a little while, pocketing more cash (good, but our sound suffers)
-we find a direct replacement - a singer that doesn't play anything (NO is my answer to that)
-we find another bass player and move me over to lead vocals and occasional guitar (sounds fun to me)
-we find essentially another "me" - a multi-instrumentalist who can sing lead - and split the frontman duties

So far, no replies to our well-worded Craigslist ad, and it leads me to ponder the circumstances of the departure of members of this band over the past five months.

Casey quit because it wasn't fun anymore
Patrick quit because it wasn't fun anymore

I have a theory about that. The problem? Me.

I loom over the others in the bands I inhabit, because to me, part of the fun is getting it as close as you can while still maintaining your personality. I believe in dedicating yourself to improving your performance as much as possible. It isn't just a release for me - it's a job, too, and the crowd deserves the best I can give them. That takes work outside of practice. When people don't do homework, well, there's nothing that pisses me off more, because I see it as disrespectful, even if it's simple laziness.

I view being in the band as a part-time job that demands excellence.

I think that's the fundamental difference that led to their departures. It wasn't musical differences, it was two people who, for whatever reason, didn't want to put in the same amount of work as the other members of the band, because to them, it was more a "okay, now let's go play" situation. No outside-the-shed actual work, just show up and expect to be able to pull it off.

That was fine in the old days of the band, (when, honestly, they sucked ass) but if a band wants to grow and be fairly compensated for their time and effort, there has to actually be some effort. Some dedication to the cause, and respect for the others who really want things to get better.

As much as I procrastinate about things sometimes, I'm anything but lazy if work needs to be done on a song. I feel I owe it to the others who are working as hard or harder to get their parts together to show up knowing more than they do.

The mere fact that the two recently-departed members of the band (and I love them both) weren't up for that makes me both sad and angry, not only because I pushed them away from something they found fun, but also because in my view my actions should have inspired them to want to grow instead of just sucking the fun out of it.

Such is the life of the musical asshole...