The Rock Bible

by Henry Owings

  6 No playing two keyboards at the same time. Keep your hands on the wheel and shut up.

  7 Never play the keyboard intro to any song unless your band really has the guts to play it.

  8 No song in the history of rock has ever required a keyboardist to drag their hands back across the keys. Ever.

  9 If you’re in a fake country band or a paint-by-number garage rock outfit, quit hiding the digital keyboard in the carcass of a broken-down spinet piano. You’re not in an off-Broadway musical.

  10 There is no upright or grand piano in rock unless it’s played while standing up. It is acceptable to play an electric piano while sitting down.

  11 Never try to show off your classical training by playing anything by Mozart, Bach, or Beethoven. Everybody knows you were forced to take piano lessons as a child.

  12 Jumping around like an idiot can sometimes make anyone look cool … except a keyboard player.

  13 There’s only one person who will look more ridiculous and offensive in leather pants than the lead singer: the keyboard player.

  14 If you play the keyboard with one hand and the tambourine with the other, you are neither a keyboardist nor a tambourine player.

  15 In the dictionary, next to the word “extraneous” there’s a picture of a keyboard.

  16 You play a keyboard. “Keys” are the shiny things in your pocket that start the band’s van.

  17 If you are a keyboard player only, then by no means are you allowed to be in the press photo. You just don’t warrant the space.

  18 The only reason that we are dealing with keyboards in the context of modern rock is that dilettantes in their early to mid-20s still find mainstream ’80s music either amusing or worthy of credible pillage. It is neither.

  19 Unless the keyboard player wrote the song, all keyboards are filler.

  20 Save the ten-minute, masturbatory synth noodling for your bedroom. Except for you, no one wants to hear it on your album.

  21 Any record written by a piano/keyboard player is not nearly as good as the critics say it is.

  N the fifth day, God said, “Let there be a wholeness in the expanse that was created. Let the drums, guitars, bass guitars, vocals, and sometimes keyboards give sound to the earth.” To govern over them, God called the gathering “song.” And God saw it was good, even with creative differences. God saw that this was just another version of the dysfunctional family, which God also saw as good because it would give lazy rock journalists something to write about, and there was an album, and then a double gatefold album, and then there was the bargain bin, which served as the final resting place for all albums, and then there was law school, painting houses, graphic design, IT work, bartending, and other service industry work, all rewarding and non-rewarding final resting places for the people who were in bands. And then there was the reunion, and the reunion was to be the most pathetic form of unneeded expression.

  1 Any musician should own and have listened to at least 1,000 records before ever forming a band. Records are cheap. If all you’ve ever heard is music on the radio or a limited selection of songs from your own generation, you’ll never be capable of writing a decent song.

  2 You can have a rock alias only if your real name is so truly and irrefutably awful that there is no way you would ever be taken seriously.

  3 You can’t have a good band without a good drummer, but the drummer always breaks up the band.

  4 Unless your last name happens to be Hitler or Daterape, you have no excuse to convert your last name to that of your band’s name. Nobody wants to shake hands with Timmy Falsecock.

  5 If you ever get annoyed with someone in the band, it’s most likely the drummer experiencing what is called a “tempo tantrum.”

  6 Being a great musician doesn’t matter if the music you play is boring.

  7 Politics and music don’t mix.

  8 Be polite to your fans or accept the consequences.

  9 No matter how small your band, you will probably have a “super fan” whom you will run into somewhere. Never ever promise to hang out with him or her because he or she will want to pay for everything. More than likely, this small gesture will be something you’ll constantly have to repay as time goes on.

  10 No band members who play guitar with their feet or some other freak-show shenanigans like that.

  11 Never play your drummer’s kit without prior express permission.

  12 If you want to be respected as a real musician, no coming within 50 feet of an open-mic night.

  13 If a bandmate busts out a click track while practicing in the rehearsal space, leave immediately and never look back.

  14 Don’t get a homeless person to play in your band. It’s hard as hell to find him when you want to practice.

  15 Even if you think it will last forever, it won’t.

  16 There is a fine line between “outsider” music and the exploitation of the mentally handicapped.

  17 There is no such thing as too much duct tape.

  18 No matter your state or condition, always remember your fellow bandmates’ names.

  19 Don’t hate your younger fans. They continue giving you their parents’ money and could manage to destroy your income in a few years.

  20 Psychotherapy and rock are mutually exclusive.

  21 If you think people are not taking you seriously enough, you’re right.

  22 If your solo album becomes more successful than your band’s last album, just go ahead and quit the band. Save the lies about “sticking together.” Everybody knows you’re going to ditch your “friends” very soon.

  23 If the only good thing you can come up with to describe a band is that they’re nice guys, you’ll never listen to their record in the privacy of your own house.

  1 No shorts. No baseball hats. No playing the bass with your fingers. And no smiling.

  2 Never, under any circumstances, wear your own band’s merchandise.

  3 You don’t get paid to play in front of people. You get paid to sit in a smelly bus or van with your bandmates’ collective body funks, listen to your bandmates snore in hotel rooms, eat at Waffle Houses and Mexican joints, load-unload-setup-and-teardown equipment, sit in studios waiting for the guitarists to finally get it right, drink free cheap beer, and drive all night long to get back home to go to work the next day. It’s a privilege to play in front of people.

  24 If a member of your band is considering being on a reality television show, offer to drive him to the audition and kick him out of the band along the way.

  25 Never get caught reading your own band’s press.

  26 No one wins a battle of the bands.

  27 Nothing will make you less cool than asking your friends/fans to vote for you in a battle of the bands.

  28 If you have ever been nominated for an Academy Award, you are not allowed to be in a band.

  29 Musicians may not act or model.

  30 Models may not sing, play music, or act.

  31 Athletic equipment of any kind has no place in rock and roll.

  32 If you ever went to Julliard or another world-renowned music school, you must hide this fact from the moment you graduate until the day you die.

  33 No matter how bad it gets, just remember that the service industry is always hiring.

  34 Never refer to any town’s music scene as the next hot spot. Nothing will make it colder quicker.

  35 Musicians that move from one musical hotspot to another are as shallow as their own music reflects.

  36 No matter how many times you move, your band will always be from the city it started in.

  37 The only music style that you can reference the genre in the name is “ska,” and everyone knows that all (white) ska bands should be set on fire.

  38 If you’re considering forming a ska band and you are white, consider forming a polka band instead.

  39 If you appear on NPR in any way, you don’t rock. Not even a little.

  40 If your band has an online-networking page, it’s not a band. It�
��s a pedophile.

  41 The amount of friends you have on MySpace should be proportionate to the number of records you actually sell.

  42 Hair metal clichés stopped being funny in the late ’80s.

  43 “Conservative punk” is an oxymoron. If you describe yourself as one, you are just a moron.

  44 There is not a more pathetic attempt at career invigoration than performing live with an orchestra. Clear them off the stage and save it for the studio.

  45 Next time you sing about “being on fire” or “Jesus,” bust out the ol’ thesaurus.

  46 Surf bands should always have a gimmick, even if it’s just crazy outfits. If you are a newer surf band (and not a group of older fat guys who play surf music at parties), your best stage gimmick would be onstage suicide.

  47 No matter how much they really like what you do in the band, band members’ siblings are not groupies.

  48 No bands with siblings, ever. Your family already hates your guts.

  49 If you’re in a band with your wife/girlfriend, you’re not allowed to pretend that she’s your sister.

  50 You can’t hand your band’s CD to a successful musician and say, “We’re much better than this now.”

  51 Never hand-deliver your record to the local alt weekly. Doing so merely doubles your chance of not getting it reviewed.

  52 Never make an appearance on a local music radio show unless you’re absolutely sure it’s not the worst program ever.

  53 Exceptional players are never born through correspondence courses.

  54 Don’t ever “know a guy in Nashville,” ever.

  55 Never be a guy “in Nashville.”

  56 Never call your band your “music thang.”

  57 Don’t ever use the word “jam” unless referring to backstage rider preservatives.

  58 Never have more than one fat member in the band. However, let it be known that one really fat member is a fantastic idea.

  59 If your clever band T-shirt concept is to steal the logo of a seminal, underrated/neglected, incredibly hip, long broken-up band, understand that women will not understand it, other guys will ignore it so as not to feed your ego (re: your amazing frame of reference), and general ham ’n’ eggers will ask a lot of nagging questions about it.

  60 Never describe your new T-shirts as being “pretty cool.” They’re not.

  61 If you’re going to be in a death metal band, you must (at the very least) have video footage of your group digging up a coffin. Bonus points are issued if the coffin contains a former member of the band.

  62 No practicing at a rent-by-the-hour rehearsal space.

  63 Don’t ever submit anything to a big music magazine’s “Year-End Wrap-Up” because they’ll just end up screwing you and then making everyone else laugh at your expense.

  64 Parodying Sgt. Pepper’s has actually been done a couple times already.

  65 Remember, the lead singer will eventually become an asshole.

  1 Do not name your band after another current band’s song or album. Come to think of it, don’t name your band after any song or album. Nobody cares about your “good” taste.

  2 Never name your band after your personal first and last name and then add an “s” on the end to pretend like you’re a group and everyone involved likes the idea.

  3 It’s always good to name yourself after a large corporate company (preferably an “evil” one) in the hopes that they will sue you later and give you lots of publicity in return.

  4 There are no more scary animals, real or fictitious, for bands to name themselves after.

  5 Nobody has ever been impressed with really long band names. They’re just hard to remember. They assert a quasi-cleverness that will eventually result in most people hating you.

  6 When naming your band, think about using adjective-subject, subject, verb, or even adverb-verb. Do not form a complete sentence and do not stick a number in there.

  7 Never name your band after a geographical landmark in the city you’re from.

  8 Don’t name a band something you’ll get sick of explaining for the rest of the band’s existence.

  9 Avoid using more than one animal reference in any band name or song title.

  10 If you want to name your band something that will be mispronounced by everyone, don’t get upset about it when they do. Even your band thinks this is lame.

  11 Band or song names should not refer to an instrument in the band. It demystifies the experience, which should be about some zany visual, not a literal, interpretation.

  12 There has never been anything “good,” “great,” “excellent,” or “killer” about a band with these words in their name.

  13 If you discover that a band in another town also uses your same name, don’t hire an attorney. Instead, challenge them to a fight for the name, with a winner-gets-to-rename-the-loser outcome.

  14 The only band names worthy of abbreviation are Zeppelin, Sabbath, Halen, Maiden, Priest, and Cruë. Period.

  15 Band names taken from children’s movies, television shows, or pop culture are forbidden.

  16 Never name your band after a food unless you’re morbidly obese and it’s an integral part of your gimmick.

  17 Name your band something so completely preposterous that your music will have to fight an uphill battle against it to convince fans that it’s not such a mediocre band name after all. Another plus: It immediately (but temporarily) hides the mediocrity of your music.

  18 Adjective–plural noun band names are always most certainly representative of the worst bands. This is compounded if the adjective is followed by a noun that is an animal or a color.

  19 All true bluesmen should have “Blind” before their name.

  20 No having “youth” in your band name after your 18th birthday.

  21 Unless the band is homosexual, the word “fabulous” should not be in a band name.

  22 No band names that correspond to weapons from Dungeons & Dragons.

  23 Never put punctuation inside a band’s name.

  24 If you name your band after a person (real or fictional) who is not a member of the band, you are not allowed to complain when people ask which one of you is that person.

  25 If your band’s name is plucked from some obscure book that only nerdy English majors would know, you have no right to get irritated when asked to explain what it means. Acting uppity because nobody knows the obscure early novels of some French degenerate isn’t the correct response.

  26 If you name your band after a drug or alcohol, you’d damn well better use that drug or alcohol.

  27 Repetitious “word word” or “word word word” combinations are tiresome, and only excessive “word word word word word word word” combinations are acceptable.

  28 If you can’t fit your band name on a standard-issue nametag, it’s too long.

  29 You may never name your band after any day of the week, any month or season of the year, any fruit, any adverb, any proper name, numbers that don’t signify the number of people in the band, numbers that do signify the number of people in the band, gerunds, any standard color, any plural ending in “z,” or any intentional misspelling of a proper word.

  66 Unless you’re an expert at disguising your voice, never call your radio station’s local show to request your own band.

  67 Never say, “When I grow up, I want to be in a rock band.” Why? Because you can’t do both!

  68 Stating that you’re “big in Europe” means absolutely nothing in the States.

  69 Only bands that are not from L.A. say, “We’re from L.A.!”

  70 No L.A. tour managers who wear their hair in a ponytail, unless you plan on scalping them.

  71 Never take anything you do seriously.

  72 If you say, “My friend Neil is in that band. I’ve always wanted to go see them,” Neil is not actually your friend.

  73 Do not tell people from your day job about your band. They won’t like it.

  74 “Main” songwriters are the reason everybod
y else in the band will be working as a dishwasher when the band breaks up. They overvalue themselves and surround themselves with genuinely talented musicians, bring in two chords, and then take all the credit for the entire song.

  75 No one cares whom you’ve opened for, and no one cares whom you’ve recorded with.

  76 Make sure everyone shows up to band practice well fed. Widely ranging blood sugar levels make for the worst possible practice.

  77 If you’re now in your early twenties and in a band that people seem to care about, consider the complete opposite of that situation and apply it to your late twenties.

  78 If what you have to say is currently being said by all the other bands in the press, stop saying it.

  79 Find out something that your drummer likes and make sure he gets it regularly. Yes, drummers are poorly evolved creatures, but if you don’t have a good drummer who’s happy, you’re screwed.

  80 If you can have a conversation with your fellow band members about something other than your own music, then it’s probably worth pursuing.

  81 Reclusive artists should always remain that way. Coming out of obscurity ultimately destroys your mystique and shows your few fans that you, indeed, are a horrible performer.

  82 Your personal phone can never have a ring tone that is your own band’s song. That is identical to going into a restaurant and playing your own song on the jukebox for all to hear.

  83 There is no artful way to put skateboarding into a music video.

  84 Never have a serious conversation about music unless you are being paid to stand behind the counter at a record store.

  85 No eye contact. You’re in the rock business. The last thing you need is someone to look you in the eyes and see just exactly how devoid of talent and personality you really are.

  86 Don’t say you’re an original band when most of your set consists of unintentional covers.

  87 If your band breaks up, stay broken up.