From my place, the best part of playing drums is creating in the moment. Maybe shift your own gears a bit and take his changes as challenges to the creative spirit. It's a blast to do that live. We used to say (it's written in the sleeve of our last cd) that we played rock with jazz sensibilities. We kept everything in the moment. It challenged our skills and kept our focus razor sharp. Just a thought. Perhaps his ever changing arrangements stem from his lack of spontaneous improvisational creation.
I guess I wouldn't mind the changing of the arrangements if we kept building a song list. Rog, we have been together since May and only have eight songs!!!! We spent three hours on guitar solos for one song!!!
I read what you're saying, and I guess my patience is wearing a bit thin. If I weren't friends and collaborators with him (he co-wrote "Riva" with me, my best love ballad as a solo artist), I would have left this project. I can sense the frustration with the bass player/frontman, but he's the "king's" brother-in-law. He's pretty funny about the situation, which makes it not quite as frustrating.
I did tell the leader that we need to thicken our song list before we even change arrangements on the songs. Frankly, he does improve the songs after he messes with them, but re-learning them is a beeyotch!!!
Maybe I need a cover band I gig with and do this project on the side. I gots to pay for some of this gear!!!!
