1. The only local shows you go to are your own.
2. You cover over other bands’ concert posters with your own.
3. The next band on the bill has to wait forever for you to get off stage.
4. You constantly spam your social media followers and expect them to buy your music, like your Facebook page, etc.
5. You berate a fellow bandmate on stage.
6. Every conversation is about you and your music.
7. You leave before the other bands have finished playing.
8. People keep quitting your band.
9. You won’t turn down your amp, even when the soundman asks you too.
10. Your eyes are always searching the room for someone more important.
11. You don’t socialize with the other bands on the bill.
12. You’re always talking $#!% about other local musicians.
13. You play a longer set than your allotted time.
14. You never offer to backline your gear.
15. You don’t show appreciation to the fans, friends, and family that help you along the way.
16. You never reciprocate on a gig-swap when a popular band in another town lets you open for them.
17. You insist on taking the spotlight in every song.
18. You don’t play benefit shows.
19. You’ve made a habit of being antagonistic towards your audience.
20. You don’t pay your players, producers, or graphic designers on time… or at all.
21. You expect people to give you special attention, or even sleep with you, just because you’re in a band.
22. You never consider anyone’s critical feedback and you never let your bandmates, engineers, or producers offer any collaborative ideas. In fact, you think THEY’RE the jerk!
23. You expect your music will sell itself without you putting work into promotion.
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If you’re trying to build a local fanbase, your reputation is everything. Don’t be a jerk.
What do you think makes a musician look like a jerk? Let us know in the comments below.
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[Picture of angry musician from Shutterstock.]
Chris Robley is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and award-winning poet from Maine.
His Beatlesque indie-pop and milltown Americana songs have been praised by The Associated Press, No Depression, KCRW, The LA Times, Boston Globe, NPR, American Songwriter, and others.
His poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Review, and more.
Robley has received a Maine Literary Award in Poetry, Boulevard’s Emerging Writers Prize for Poetry, and in 2016 was selected by former US-poet laureate Robert Pinsky as a finalist for the Dorset Prize.