Your band has broken up. Now what?
Unless your name is The Rolling Stones, U2 or Radiohead, your band has a best-before date and is inevitably going to break up. What do you do when the inevitable happens? This story at Bandzoogle offers some advice.
Being in a band is just like being in any other relationship: the beginning is exciting and full of possibility, but at some point, you might realize that you and your bandmates just aren’t on the same page anymore.
Whether it’s a build-up of small annoyances or big creative differences, it can be extremely difficult to come to the decision that it’s best for your band to break up. This is especially true if you’ve been playing together for a long time and have deep personal connections with your bandmates.
When emotions, friendships, and business matters are all tangled together, band breakups can get messy. That’s why it’s so important to have a band agreement in writing from the get-go. It’s much easier to make fair, rational decisions when things are good, rather than trying to figure out who deserves what in the middle of a heated argument.
If your band has just broken up and you don’t have a written agreement in place, take some time to think through all of the considerations below, and bring them up with your bandmates as soon as possible.
The longer you wait, the harder these issues will be to resolve — particularly if there’s money involved. If opinions differ on how a certain situation should be handled, keep an open mind and try to come to a fair compromise.
