How to be an indie band
Not music without one of these...
Learn to play some instruments.
Guitar, drums, keyboards – yeah, yeah, that’s fine. But you can’t start an indie band unless you have at least one person on some obscure instrument that they needed to look up on wikipedia. How else will you be distinguished for your sound unless you have a sarangi in the ranks.
Step 2
Choose a name
Be clever, be ironic and be as confusing, pedantic and patronising as possible. These days, a band name can’t be something catchy – or a play on words. No, it must be either a reference to slang vernacular from the 18th century, a nonsensical collection of bohemian buzzwords or a reference some fringe ideology literary work found only in dusty corners of second-hand bookshops (the favourite hang-out of indie-musicians). It also helps to be strict on unconventional use of letter case. The rADischev’s and Rudiger’s Fantastical Emporium of Auralistic Vaudevillism sounds like a proper indie gig bill.
Grandad clothes, beards... got it all
Raid your Grandad’s closet
All indie bands dress in clothes not seen since the great depression. Brown three-piece suits with matching hats, trousers (not pants), knitted sweaters and swede vests with white shirts rolled up to the elbow is de rigueur for indie –bands. Female members must wear sleeved floral blouses buttoned right up to the neck. The puffier the sleeves the better. Oh and suspenders – at least one person must be in suspenders… and intentionally tragic beards all round. The default option on laundry day remains the black skinny jeans.
Step 4
Define your genre
No two bands fall into the same genre categories any more. In fact, after inventing a name, the very next task is to invent a genre. First though, whenever anybody asks, you must be at pains to stress how your music isn’t meant to be pigeon holed, and how your sound is fluid. Then you tell them you define yourselves as alt-shoegaze with major elements of avante-folksy porous-rock. And post-modern, always post-modern.
What rhymes with quarter-strength soy latte?
Write some songs
At one point or another, you’re actually going to have to play music. Thumb through your favourite CD’s (or scroll through your favourite iTunes playlists, thieves) until you find a particularly catchy tune to completely rip off and hide under a wall of distortion. Lyrics then are easy. Take a handful of random adjectives from the labels of your wine (see below), then thrown in occasional allusions to Trotsky and whatever the newest term for masturbating is.
Step 6
Drink lots of red wine
Red wine is the elixir of the indie band member. It’s the right colour to match your clothes and cradling a glass of red, no matter how cheap and nasty, looks far more dignified than clutching a bottle of beer. Plus it’s better for the ‘creative process’; or something.
Yeah we're a band, so what?
Set up a band photo
Sometimes, more important than the music you play, is the faux-arty photo you use for self-promotion. Composition is essential for outsiders to instantly recognise the photo as being of a band. Faces must be generally expressionless, as if to say “I am not enjoying myself.” The singer is always at the front, taking up at least 3/5 of the frame, while the drummer and bass player must be slightly out of focus, looking away from the lens and partially obscured by a prop. Black and white is a must – and the more ironically drab the location the better.
Step 8
Wait for fame
Step 9
…
Step 10
Shave your beard and take up an economics degree.
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