Creative differences?!
Question: Alright, well, I really enjoy playing and writing music with my friends, but some of them (ok, ALL of them) have a big difference in taste when it comes to music. Should I just be flexible and just write/play pure rock (with them) and country on my own time? They really don't like my alt country music.
Answers: Alright, well, I really enjoy playing and writing music with my friends, but some of them (ok, ALL of them) have a big difference in taste when it comes to music. Should I just be flexible and just write/play pure rock (with them) and country on my own time? They really don't like my alt country music.
Depends. Does writing/playing rock with your friends interest you ? If so, continue. If not, focus on your alt. country music & seek out other musicians who share your interest.
While it may be fun to jam with your friends, it might take you nowhere & the window for opportunity/success for today's musicians is ever shrinking.
If you are the only one in the band that wants to do the style of music you mentioned... You may be playing with the wrong band. Although, if the chemistry is good and you and your band write great songs, stick with them and do your own thing on the side. At least, that's my advice on it.
Suggestion. Have all of the band members come up with a song in the style that they like and try them all out. There may be some that fall flat but you might just find one or two that fall into the style that the band actually plays and just haven't realised yet or can be "tweaked" to fit. As in the previous answer maybe you should keep your Steve Earle stuff to yourself or maybe just do a number once in a while "for a laugh" (remember the Blues Brothers and Rawhide).
I seem to remember a guy awhile ago who had that problem. Always writing stuff that nobody liked or understood. Kind of strange looking and not a particularly good voice. But he managed to squeak out a couple of tunes that got peoples' attention. Once that happened, people started to listen. Then everyone wanted to play with him, but he decided to go solo. He did for a long time and acheived incredible success. That was over forty years ago, and he still writes songs and is regarded as the greatest songwriter of all time by many. You might remember one of the first ones.
"The Times They Are A Changin'" by Bob Dylan.
There is so much crapola out there in music today that it sometimes takes someone with a different vision to turn things around. It takes gonads to cut against the grain. All of these new "avante guarde" bands I'm hearing flat out stink. And one is always trying to sound as bad as the other. Crappy bands are a dime a dozen. So if you've got something new that everybody seems to hate, you may be onto something. Stick with what you know.
I hope this helped.