A few years ago, I used to be in a band.

Mostly, there were four of us in the band, although it started with just two and at one point, there was only three of us because our bass player stopped answering our emails all of a sudden – which was a bit weird.

Anyway.

I very much liked being in the band – specifically the bit where I got to sing on stage and sing under the bright lights for 45 minutes in front of a clapping audience and then drink red wine afterwards and stroke my big, fat ego.

What I didn’t like at all about being in a band, however, was Everything Else.

Everything Else looked like rehearsing a chorus, or two lines of a bridge over and over and over in a mouldy and smelly, windowless room under the arches of a London train station for 5 hours on a Sunday. Everything Else looked like driving my Mini Cooper, passenger seat folded flat with the cumbersome weight of a piano, to a gig and having to lug it up the stairs of a dingy bar. Everything Else looked like late nights and group decisions and hanging out in each other’s living rooms, tinkering around with chords and GarageBand and wondering if we were actually any good.

Everything Else was boring and frustrating and hard and absolutely necessary. Because it led to the stage, the bit I liked.

And yet I didn’t want to to do it.

So I left the band.

 

There’s a message or two in all of this, isn’t there?

 

If you want to sing on stage, are you prepared for Everything Else?