Stage presence in YOUR band(s)

Larry

"Uncle Larry"
So, is your band the kind where the players just stand there staring at their guitar necks or whatever with little interaction between members? Or is there plenty of band interaction? That's a big part of stage presence, that interaction that I like to see. I don't like seeing bands where the guitar players are like "look at me, I'm so cool with my stance and snarl"...To me I wanna see them get like way past that and mix it up with the others, instead of 4 or 5 seperate entities. My bands def lean to the former "seperate" roles. There are times where we interact, maybe 10%. Just curious to see what everyone elses bands are like.
 
As far as I've experienced, my guitarist is probably one of the former types. Hopefully I can somehow fix that if it's true.

I always think that if a band does interact with each other, then it's a good thing, but there are instances when the players aren't required to be together all the time. For instance, could you say that having fun on stage while not completely ignoring the other players is okay? Shavo Odadjian(bassist for System Of A Down) used to be literally everywhere on the stage(more than once he could be found on top of the gigantic PA systems at some of the venues the played at). But I guess that's more like antics.
 
my band is over the top, overcaffeinated for sure. Our guitar player is 6'5" with hair down to his ass and he's always flying all over the place, headbanging, generally just goofing around. I would say the worst thing he does is just palm mute on open strings and use his left hand to drink coffee, steal peoples drinks (as a joke) pretend to untune the bass guitar when the bass player is singing, etc. I think its' funny but it's annoying trying to play along to that when he's not even actually playing chords. We have a fiddle player and he does pretty good at jumping around on the big stages, but he does hold back if there isn't a big crowd, or it isn't one of his songs.

I do what I can from the drums, stick twirl, play standing up, dance around, get people to clap during parts where I don't play, or i'm just laying 4 on the floor.


here is a pretty good example of us doing our thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnEE3rmLDo8

especially when we play these festivals we have to turn on the style like this. you should see some of these bands that just play these festival circuits. we are just a bar band pretending to be good! These other bands that do this thing fulltime wipe the floor with us. they all have like 5 people who can sing, good looking girls, most of them can dance for real too, it's insane.
 
Mcbike....your guitar player is doing what a guitar player should do. I appreciate that. In my band I stress to play around on the stage and "get into it". Our guitar player mostly stands there..................our bass player gets into it much more as does our sax player. Our key player rocks out with hand and head gestures and basically kicks a$$ on the stage and lets people know "I am having FUN...please join me". They should ALL come over to me (more) and jam along. I like that. Some people want to look cool and they think by being stiff on stage they are. Not so. Move yourself! Anyway, we are starting rehearsal in 15 mins so I gotta go.
 
I've noticed that a lot of musicians equate stage presence with physical movement and espouse the idea that the more a musician moves, the more presence he or she has. I think that's only partially true. Stage presence is not something that can be rehearsed; it's something that happens on stage and must be refined there over the course of a band's career. Take Pete Townshend, for example; at the 2009 Super Bowl performance, he used the same signature "windmill" move that he used in 1970, but the music just wasn't as vital as it was back in the old days. The visual experession he used couldn't make up for that lack of vitality.
When my band gets on stage and plays for people, we'll approach certain parts of the music differently than we did in rehearsal, whether it was intended or not; it's very much a subconscious thing. However, one must always make certain that style does not overpower the substance of the music. I saw a drummer once who was (no joke) flipping his sticks around on almost every single backbeat. Not only did he look ridiculous, his timing left a lot to be desired.
 
the current band i'm in has'nt played live yet, just recording demos, but apart from the singer, they seem really detatched. Not too much movement, some eye contact though. But then again, we play blues and soul covers, the singer is the only one who really need a good presence. my dubstep regaee band should be coming together soon....that should be a good show though!!!
 
The cover band I'm in has pretty awesome stage presence. Hot female singer who dresses down a bit, so to speak, and runs around dancing with a wireless mic. When she goes out into the crowd they go nuts. Our lead guitarist/male lead vocalist moves around a ton while he plays, and also takes off the guitar and grabs the wireless for a song or two. I come out from behind the kit and sing a lead at least once a night, and will also sometimes wander the crowd while doing it. Many of us play secondary instruments and we swap around between them, which people love. It's all become very natural for us, although we did have to practice it. Crowds love us, though, and really get into it. It also helps that our number one rule in all the stage presence stuff is that we refuse to sacrifice musicality.
 
thanks for the compliments on the video guys!

It is true that you can't really practice stage presence. My bad will discuss it though in the van, not like hey lets do this cheezy rock move over here during this song, but more like hey lets step it up tonight and put on a good show. We kind of challenge each other to do more to add to the show.

It also helps to tape your shows you will see and hear the good and the bad.
 
A lot of it boils down to personality. I play guitar and sing lead vocals in a band with a second guitarist, a bassist, and drummer. I, and the guitarist, are extremely extroverted. When we play shows, we're incredibly intense, always come out sweating like crazy, hair plastered to our faces, voices hoarse, etc. The bassist is very laid-back, he tends to sit back and just groove along. We have some parts that are semi-choreographed (every once in a while, I'll do a roll over the bassist or the guitarist, or they'll do it over each other; we also flip our guitars a lot). The drummer is an absolute maniac. He had to invest in a pair of gloves and back-up cymbals for our shows because he just beats the shit out of everything. He's an incredibly loud person in real life, while the bassist is quiet, and the guitarist and myself are also very extroverted.

There's also a lot of open communication. When there are cues during solos, or even transitions, we'll look at each other, lift our guitars, the drummer nods his head, etc. A lot of the time, we play off each other, the solos often reflecting ideas that other musicians have played before.

A lot of the stage presence just comes from being comfortable with each other as people and musicians. I play drums in a band where we haven't rehearsed together as a whole too much, and our on stage show is very quiet. We watch the band leader/singer for cues when to come in and out, etc, just because we haven't played the material together often enough.

The kind of music plays a role as well. In a folk band, you wouldn't really see guys jumping all over the place, smashing amps, flipping guitars, and just going mental on stage, right? My band is a power pop band (think boys like girls meets paramore if hayley williams was a dude). We're just animals. If we played more relaxed music, I don't think we'd put on the same stage show.
 
before the break up of our band a few months ago, we had a great singer who would draw a crowd.
well, by that, if you let him he would basically stand on stage and talk to the audience the whole time untill he got the idea we were starting a new song...

guitarist could play well, just didnt move in his darn solos or show any expression...
 
We had a girl who sang with us but luckily for us she quit on us a few weeks back. We played out only a couple of times and I knew that she did not have much of a stage presence but later a friend asked me "you don't care that girl is up there TEXTING when she is not singing?" I brought this up to the other guys because with her back turned I did not see her texting. The other guys said that they knew it and couldn't believe it. But the situation took care of itself as she quit before we got together for the next practice.

Yeah...so much for our stage presence.
 
I totally disagree that you can't practice stage presence. In the band I mentioned earlier in here, we worked hard on it. Val (the female singer) started doing "Flirty Girl Fitness," which is a way to get in shape (not that she needed that) while learning stuff like strip-teases, chair dances, etc. She doesn't use those moves directly, but it taught her a lot about how to move her body in a bunch of great ways on stage. When I first started singing lead, I wouldn't move at all, but at practices I started finding moves that looked good, and now I run around like a fat Mick Jagger some nights. You can practice that stuff, it's just harder without the crowd energy...but that also means that the same stuff is easier to do when you DO get in front of a crowd and get that energy.
 
Stage presence is important.

People come to see a show. If they JUST want to hear music, they could stay home and listen to the radio.

All the great swing bands understood the show. Just watch old clips of Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa and Papa Jo Jones.

In the bands I was in, we noticed as the shows became more visual, the crowds increased, and when the crowds increase, the record company people took more notice of us.

One band, from ten years ago now, went way over the top, to the point it became a 3 ring circus, a little too much perhaps, but man, people noticed us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvavU6C32Z4&feature=player_embedded
 
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I try to infuse as much stage presence in my drumming as I possibly can. I love having a good time on stage, as well as entertaining and exciting people. I know I shouldn't, but I make a point of stealing the show.
 
I recently had rehearsal with one of my bands, and I found a pattern that might be obvious, but I made the observation anyway:

The more confident one is in their playing, the more easily they'll loosen up and have fun. Thus, putting more practice towards the music will theoretically lead to better stage presence.

What do you guys think of this?
 
The more confident one is in their playing, the more easily they'll loosen up and have fun. Thus, putting more practice towards the music will theoretically lead to better stage presence.

What do you guys think of this?

Definitely part of it. If you're not dead confident about your execution then you'll be focusing so hard on your playing that your excitement factor will be zero ... like my band lol

However, it's also a matter of personality. Some people are naturally quiet and unassuming and others are way out there. Look at DrumEatDrum's band that he linked to below - this is NOT a group of introverts :) And they put on a wild show.

I used to love seeing Jimmy and The Boys in the 80s. Their stage act was off the hook. The keys player was a crazed drag queen and Iggy the vocalist was a wild contortionist. I once saw him smash a watermelon over his head during their cover of Zappa's I'm the Slime at the Stagedoor Tavern (during the solo after his vocal duties were done in the track) ... all this snot and goo was dribbling down his face ... ridiculous and insane but definitely entertaining :) A more mature Iggy today now refers to this stage of his life as "an aberration".

Here's a clip of them being very sedate by their standards ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2VqDy4hAIA. Good musos too - they played some crazy tight stuff.

That's another time-honoured approach, where you have one or two entertainers who carry the show while the other musos take care of business.
 
I've noticed that a lot of musicians equate stage presence with physical movement and espouse the idea that the more a musician moves, the more presence he or she has. I think that's only partially true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw3FTiWRXF8

You don't need to risk breaking someone's bass drum when jumping off of it to make a stage presence...

...the guitar player has his hair down over his face and focuses on the guitar neck, not much more could be said about the bass player, but...Maynard has one of the strongest stage presences...

...this kind of stuff sends chills down my spine...

...it is showing something live that is something more than what can be recorded in a sound studio.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw3FTiWRXF8

You don't need to risk breaking someone's bass drum when jumping off of it to make a stage presence...

...the guitar player has his hair down over his face and focuses on the guitar neck, not much more could be said about the bass player, but...Maynard has one of the strongest stage presences...

...this kind of stuff sends chills down my spine...

...it is showing something live that is something more than what can be recorded in a sound studio.

Danny is a stage act all by himself. I've wondered about their beginnings and imagined people going to see this new, unknown act called Tool (funny name, eh?) at a local venue ... and walking into the visual and aural assault of a talented giant of a man pounding the absolute tripe out of the kit with total control. The others could have stood there like manikins and it still would have been a blast.
 
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