Don't Go Burning Bridges...
I was lucky enough to record Joe Meyer (Craig Campbell, Nikki Hill, Erin Bode) on drums at Sawhorse Studios the other night. It was for a project by Hello Ground and Jon Heisserer (Building Rome, Asthmatic Records) and Joe made my life easy by playing phenomenally and getting great sounds.
We hadn’t seen each other in a while, so it was great to catch up. Throughout the night, the three of us talked about gigs, life, and whatever else came up. The common thread of the night seemed to be how often some people burn bridges. There may be 7 billion people in this world, but there are only several hundred thousand in St. Louis. You never know who may be able to help you in the future, and this goes for our careers and also our personal lives.
I don’t really have anything profound to add to the subject, but there are a couple of pitfalls that come to mind:
Don't air your dirty laundry. If something goes wrong, do everything you can to keep it between the parties involved. You will rarely come out clean even if you were in the right.
Do what you say you'll do. Don't back out without ample reason.
Don't agree to do something you can't (or don't want to) do. You'll end up procrastinating, phoning it in, or being passive aggressive.
Don't poach co-workers or clients. They may just come to you organically if you're good at your job.
Don't make a scene. Duh.
These should mostly be pretty obvious, but I'm sure there are a ton more you can think of. Treat others with respect and maybe you won't have to worry about some ex-bandmate getting a major gig and not wanting to use you. Plus, it's just cool not to be a jerk.
