How to Deal with Creative Differences

Video Transcript

"I'm here to talk to you about working out creative differences in your band. Now, any group of creative people are going to have creative differences. It is only natural and if there is never any disagreements, then you are probably having a different kind of problem. So don't be upset about having a disagreement, think of it as an opportunity. Any type of disagreement that you have is a chance to have a creative solution where you solve the problem by coming up with a new idea. Compromise isn't always a bad thing. I think of compromise as being the mother of invention, it is a way where you are forced to try out a new idea that you might otherwise not end up to consider. In the end you can have something that you really like that you otherwise never would of had. Not so long ago I was working with my band on a song where the drummer didn't like the way something was played and rather than forcing it on him, we asked him to come up with a new approach and he did. The combination of his idea and the our original idea was actually really good and it made the song that much better than if we had stuck with the original plan. In the end, band harmony is much more important than winning a fight. Whatever kind of disagreement you are having, it is not nearly as important as the band staying together. So if there is a song that no one can agree on, sometimes the best thing to do is just to let it go, don't play that song, it is not the end of the world if you don't play a song and that will be the kind of thing that keeps your band together."