Do You Need A Band Agreement?

In the ideal case, band members would all have the same dreams, goals, commitment and mutual respect. In reality, this is seldom the case.

When bands are first starting out, band members are usually enthused about creating music together.  Once the initial efforts start to gel, however, there are many areas where different approaches and different assumptions about the band can lead to conflicts, major and minor.

The best way is to spell out the questions and answers to potential problems before they happen.  That’s where a band agreement come in.

You want to break up a band? Try getting them to sign a band agreement.

Why do you need a band agreement? To answer the following questions:

• What’s your organizational structure? LLC? Partnership? Inc.?
• Who owns the name?
• Who owns the songs?
• Who owns the recordings?
• Who collects what money and how is it divided?
• Who’s responsible for what?

Most bands don’t get far enough in their commitment to need to answer these questions, and since they are very hard questions to answer and can lead to hurt feelings, they can even break up bands. It’s all about friends till it’s not, unfortunately.

Use your band agreement to unite your band, not divide it. Once you reach a certain level of success, and lawyers enter your lives, you will find yourselves addressing issues like this. It’s business. It’s not hard and it’s not bad. It’s creative and necessary. It lets you build a career out of what you create and others create. There is such a thing as the art of business and when you can apply that art to your art you will complete the circle of motion, movement, and progress.