How to deal with band drama

Hello Prox Jox.

When bedraggled podcast spouse Kyle is not mixing Proxy for free, he’s a music guy. He produces records and he’s played in bands his whole life. Which means I’ve been hearing about bands and their drama for years, because where there is a band, there is band drama.

Last year, I got it in my head that this would be an interesting space to explore, a way to look at navigating any creative collaboration or project with friends. As my friend (and one of this ep’s special guests) Chris Baglivo says: “It’s like a relationship where you have all of the fights, and none of the make up sex. So you just carry it with you everyday.”

This week on the pod, the case of Chris and Evan, best friends who love playing music together. But after their band The Superweaks suffers a terrible tragedy, they can’t figure out how to get their momentum back.

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This week, our proxy Ryan Dusick, an original member of Maroon 5 and a registered therapist, offered a bunch of advice that’s helpful for anyone working on a group project. Here’s some of the takeaways.

Finding my role was very much a humbling process. Because early on, being the Type A personality, I wanted to be the leader. I was the oldest guy in the band. I was 16. I had a car, a hand-me-down, a Jeep Wagoneer that was falling apart. And all the guys would jump in the back of my car. I had all the gear, I was the one doing the mailing list. I got the little Tascam four track cassette recorder to make our first demo. I was Mr. Proactive. I was also writing a lot of the music early on. …

But a year into it, it started to become clear to me that Adam [Levine] and Jesse [Carmichael] had this melodic sensibility that I didn't have, that they were able to come up with melodies and harmonies and that their skills as guitarists were just going beyond anything I could compose on a guitar. And it was a place of humility and swallowing my pride and recognizing like, I can be the facilitator. I can be the one that makes sure we get stuff done. But I'm not going to be able to compete as the creative force. The best I can do is be part of the arrangement team. I'm not the one writing the melody and lyrics as much as I wanted to be that.

So I needed to accept at a certain point that my role in this band was going to be consistent with my skillset, what I could bring that was unique to me. And that was unique within the band, what the band needed to operate.

You know, it's like my frustrations with Adam had a lot, not just to do with him and his flightiness, it had to do with me and the extent to which I allowed that to be a problem for me because I was expecting things of him that he was not capable of delivering. And I was taking it personally that he was not meeting me where I wanted him to meet me. Because he's somebody that from day one, it was very clear, you can't necessarily predict what's going to happen day to day or even minute to minute. Like we'd have a plan and it would change.

And for me, that was maddening to no end, but I kept expecting that to change. I kept expecting him to show up one day being fully considerate of my needs … and he kept disappointing me. And so I was getting more and more resentful until I realized like, I'm doing this to myself. I'm expecting something that's not going to happen. And expectations are just resentments in the making, right?

It was a place of humility and swallowing my pride and recognizing like, I can be the facilitator. I can be the one that makes sure we get stuff done. But I'm not going to be able to compete as the creative force.

One of my biggest regrets is just not reaching out for help more [when I started losing the ability to play the drums]. At the time I just figured that they wouldn't understand and that I needed to just figure this out for myself and figure out a way to get through it. I mean, they would notice as my drumming was suffering and point out like, what happened there? Why did you miss that beat? But they were more expressing it kind of with curiosity and concern. And I wasn't really willing or able to open up and talk about it vulnerably at that point. Maybe it wouldn't have made a big difference in terms of what I was dealing with, but at least I would've had an outlet, feeling that I wasn't alone.

I work with couples a lot. Often you see people come into the therapy room and … they're just pointing fingers at each other. Like, well, you always do this and you always do that. He's the problem. She's the problem. And the reality is neither person is the problem. It's the system. That's the problem, right? It's the fact that you haven't clearly delineated how this system is going to function in the healthiest way.

And oftentimes the differences that people have in a relationship that cause conflict are the things that drew you together in the first place. Opposites attract and it can be complimentary and those things can grate on you because it's so foreign to you and it's so opposite from the way that you function. But that's because you may be operating from the standpoint of I'm expecting you to become like me, as opposed to what does this person bring to the table that actually helps me? And can I utilize that without expecting the other things that might not be their strong suits to change?

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On the episode, I go deeper with Ryan Dusick to look back at his 12-year run with Maroon 5, this time with his therapist hat on. He talks about what worked and what didn’t in their group dynamics. We also talk about what he would have done differently to try to avoid the injuries that led to him having to leave the band. Listen here.

And if you’re not a Patreon member yet, consider supporting our emotional investigative journalism™️ starting at just $5/month. You’ll get access to our library of exclusive Patreon episodes (10 and counting!) and all the future ones, plus main feed episodes without ads, extremely cute desktop and mobile background art from the Gold Star (Layoff Song) music video, and more.

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I’ve been getting so many emails, dms, and feedback from listeners. It’s incredible to see the show growing and reaching more people. Keep it coming! Please keep writing in, sharing episodes with friends, commenting, rating and reviewing on Apple Podcasts. Proxy is a grassroots operation and whatever you’re doing is working and literally fueling my late nights on ProTools!

For instance, this comment on Patreon about our episode Aparna and the Self-Loathing Introvert made me hopeful for future introverts:

My child is very introverted and it has been interesting to see their personality develop with my and my partner’s complete acceptance of who they are. Since we haven’t been self conscious about how they should or shouldn’t be acting socially, my child isn’t self conscious about their introversion. They have a confidence about them when they do and when they don’t want to engage. Their confidence in their introversion often intimidates the hell out of the most confidently extroverted kids we meet. It is weird how many adults worry about my child’s shyness and project onto them that they must be nervous or fearful, which couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re often asked what we are going to do to help them get over it and people are shocked when we say we aren’t going to do anything to coax or coach or try to change who they are or make them “open up more.” It’s not a problem that needs to be fixed. And the more we are confident in that, the less of my own social anxiety has been passed on to my child.

If you’re looking for a deep cut, you can hear me stumbling into this week’s case on this episode of the Superweaks Superweekly Supercast. Last month, our friends at 10% Happier graciously ran our episode Mic Chooses the Wrong Life. And I got to talk about the not-embarrassing-at-all Gold Star trophy I made for myself post-layoff on 10 Thousand Things and They Call Us Bruce.

Your emotional investigative journalist,

Yowei

Edited by Juliana Feliciano Reyes.