The Lesson<\/u><\/strong>: There\u2019s a fine line you need to draw when managing, or working with, a band.\u00a0 If you saw the movie\u00a0Almost Famous<\/em>, a great piece of advice given to William, the teenage character who went out on the road to interview fictional band Stillwater, by real life writer Lester Bangs was this: \u201cDon\u2019t become friends with the band.\u201d\u00a0 You can guess what happened from there.<\/p>\n

But in the real world, you can be friendly and have respectful relationships with the bands you work with.\u00a0 You can hang out and talk about your lives and commonalities and appear to be buddies.\u00a0 But there always has to be that space.<\/p>\n

There has to be the ability for you, as manager or label person or product manager, to tell it like it is and hurt some feelings or disagree or tell a band member that s\/he is following the wrong path and needs to change.\u00a0 You need, many times, to be more like a parent than a friend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click and read the article.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be glad you did.<\/p>\n