Stop With the Fucking Band Bios

If your band is on any number of social media sites (Facebook, MySpace, ReverbNation) you will know that you have to have a bio. Actually, you don't HAVE to have a bio, but the needledicks that run seminars at NXNE always say that you should have something. Personally, if I'm looking at a band, all I need to see is where they're from (if they're from Montreal they GOTTA be good, am I right?) and how long they have been playing together. Really, that's all you need to know. I don't give a fuck about the story of when you and the other founding member of the band met when you were at a Theory of a Deadman concert and immediately hit it off. We've all heard THAT ONE before. Just provide basic information that will give me some context. That's it.

Unfortunately, bands get it in their head that they need to write War and Peace when writing their bios. I can understand this trap for I too have been tasked with writing a bio or two. It usually ends up as trite drivel, as you would imagine. However, unlike some of my colleagues I discovered that the over-descriptive lovefest of a bio sounds like horseshit. Saturating your bio with over-the-top hyperbole just sounds ridiculous. I felt it best to just give listeners/viewers the basic facts and let them formulate their own adjectives for my music. Be confident in your music but don't compare it to Brahms.


The reason I bring this up is because I saw a bio not too long ago of a band called Take Me to the Pilot. They're from Winnipeg and they were formed in 2009. Listen to them. That's all you really need to know. Except someone thought it would be necessary to write a 680-word fanzine styled bio that's so full of shit, I don't know where to start. Reading their bio made me want to punch a small child.

In a fit of rage, I decided not to punch a toddler and move on. I had basically forgotten about the bio until this past weekend, when I saw that Take Me to the Pilot was playing at a local establishment. I went looking for the bio on their Facebook page when I noticed that it had been taken down. The band looked like they had recently been rebranded - new stylized logo, greater use of the acronym TMTTP - and someone with half a clue saw the bio, threw up onto his keyboard, replaced his vomit-clogged computer, and took the bio off.

Strangely, I had to see it again. Why? I guess it's the reason I need to see this over and over again. We are a sick species. Fortunately, for me, the band had not yet taken the bio down from their Sonicbids page! So, without further ado, allow me to take this piece of shit down:

Good things come to those who wait. Patience is a virtue. Success is a journey, not a destination...

What a load of crap.

WOW, look at you guys, just throwing tired, old cliches out the window. You guys are rebels. You don't subscribe to society's "norms".

Soooo, patience isn't a virtue? I don't understand. The writer better get to the reason as to why these fairly harmless and non-controversial cliches are a load of crap, or else I'm gonna throw up on my keyboard.

When forming a band, the last thing any enthusiastic musician wants is to be pummeled by a stream of idioms telling them how it takes time to build merit and value. Artists desire creating with wanton abandon; throwing caution to the wind and reveling in the excesses of creativity, not buckling down with a plan.

Okay, allow me to sift through the sledge of those last two sentences. So, what your saying is, musicians don't want to hear about how they need to earn their chops. They want to be as creative as possible and not have to worry about planning.

Translation: these guys are kids, but don't let their age fool you! If anything, their unabashed innocence is what makes them more creative than bands that stick to a plan like a bunch of L7s. They also don't need someone to tell them to earn their stripes. They're ready to take on the world!

This is exactly why these little shits are the "me first" generation. Of course you have to earn your stripes and be patient. It doesn't mean you can't expect great things. You just can't expect them instantly. Fuckers.

In the case of Winnipeg, Manitoba-based outfit Take Me To The Pilot (TMTTP) however, thanks to sage wisdom, patience and enjoying the venture towards their goal, guitarist/vocalist Mike Bilenki, guitarist Eric Grabowecky, bassist Adam Brown and drummer Jon James have easily asserted just how those axioms can ring painfully true yet yield stellar, incomparable results.

Yeah, so fuck patience and every---WHAAAAA? So the setup of throwing away stupid shit like "merit" and "time" is no longer applicable? Dude was working on a thesis about the institution of music industry seniority and now he's saying that his subjects don't support that thesis? He even says "thanks to sage wisdom, PATIENCE and enjoying the venture towards their goal". Basically everything that this twat called a load of crap in the lead.

Initially just the working title for Bilenki's solo acoustic effort circa early 2009, Take Me To The Pilot has solidified into an enviably dominant and refined unit.

Like I said above, these band bios border on the absurd when it comes to over-the-top hyperbole and mythmaking. Calling your band an "enviably dominant and refined unit" is a little too much, unless you're the world's biggest band, or the world's largest cock and balls.

Refusing to sacrifice integrity and ability for immediate gratification, Bilenki enduringly (sic) crafted Take Me To The Pilot over the course of months, hand-picking members based on ability and drive as well as their congenital passion for uniting pop, punk and bona fide rock.

Oh man. This Bilenki dude grinded and sacrificed for MONTHS. What a warrior. To think, it took Michelangelo 6 years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I guess he didn't know how to toil at Bilenki's rapid pace. SPEED IT UP, BRO. Also, I didn't know that a passion for uniting pop, punk and bona fide rock can be congenital. You should get that checked out. Perhaps Lipitor will help control your pop-punk-bona fide rock heart disease.

Finding those seeds of virtue in Brown, James and Grabowecky, Take Me To The Pilot blossomed beyond an autonomous show into the virile, captivating and fetching experience exemplified on their awe-inspiring, dynamic and virulent independent eponymous debut EP.

When you say verile, do the band members come out on stage with boners?  Because that would be gross. And when you say "Brown, James" do you mean THE James Brown? Because he's one of the most verile men who ever lived. However, including him in your show would prove problematic because he's dead. That being said, the corpse of James Brown is still a 1,000,000,000,000 times more verile than these guys:

Just sayin'.

Diligent, passionate and pointed, Take Me To The Pilot is an effort which not only further amalgamates the worlds of pop-influenced punk and addictive barb-filled rock but overtake it completely.

This sentence just gave me a brain aneurysm. So, the band simultaneously amalgamates and overtakes the worlds of pop-punk and rock? In other words, they're a pop-punk band. Nothing new to see here, be on your way. Instead, the author decides to write an incredibly verbose sentence in an attempt to make the reader believe that the band is on the cutting edge of some avant-garde musical genre when all they're playing is Blink-182 covers.

Assuring the quartet is making nothing less than incredible moves, the works that comprise TMTTP's EP—created under the supervision of Dale Penner’s Paradise Alley Productions (Nickelback, Holly McNarland) who works with the band in a development/management capacity—are amassing a host of achievements despite their ephemeral existence.

This EP assures that the band will be making nothing less than "incredible moves".  Like, dance moves? In that case, get James Brown's corpse up there. Also, bragging about being managed by a guy who's claim to fame is NOT managing, but producing albums from the 90s by Nickelback and Holly McNarland doesn't instill much credibility.

SIDE STORY: This entire bio sounds like the writing of this guy I went to school with.  Everywhere he went, this fucker thought he was the smartest man in the room. He always had stacks of literature in his room on display (which I am certain he didn't read) and he would belittle people and arrogantly assert himself in conversations. In reality, he was full of shit.  The whole thing was a charade to get people to like him and hide his insecurities. The irony of it all was that most people that spent more than 20 minutes with the guy detested him.

I had the opportunity to read some of his essays. They were so incredibly verbose and constipated that I wanted to projectile vomit in his face. I am certain that he would write his essay, then comb through it with the thesaurus feature in Word and change all of the verbs and adjectives so he would sound smart. The problem with doing this is that you mostly end up sounding stupid. Some words that are displayed in the Thesaurus aren't necessarily direct synonyms of the word that you had originally written.

For example, the word "ephemeral" - defined as "lasting a very short time". When used in the above sentence, it looks like it makes sense, right? Except that "ephemeral" is normally applied to instances where something is around for a short period of time and then dies or disappears (i.e. fleeting, temporary). Like dayflies, or fashion, or "Gangnam Style". In actuality, when used in a musical or pop culture context it's somewhat of a pejorative term (i.e. "Hey, remember TMTTP? That shit was as ephemeral as 'Gangnam Style'!). The moral of the story? Use your Thesaurus wisely.

While Take Me To The Pilot perfectly encapsulates TMTTP's inherent ability and indelible drive, the band is adamant that their music offers more than the mindlessly pedestrian entertainment most pop settles on. To that extent, Bilenki reveals humility and gratitude at Take Me To The Pilot's strength, ability and dedicated following, good fortune he recognizes could only have come about with the grace of that aforementioned patience.

I love when bands talk about how their music is so much better than current popular music. "We play pop-punk, but our version of pop-punk is on a different level than the usual dreck that you hear on the radio". I understand that they want to set themselves apart from other mundane pop music, but let's be honest here - TMTTP is just like all other mundane pop music. Just because you play guitars doesn't make you any less of a pop act than Justin Bieber.

Can't forget that aforementioned patience, the very virtue the author rejected at the beginning of the piece.

“We don’t just want people to listen. We want them to care,” Bilenki asserts. “Anybody can hear a song but if it can affect you on a level where it stirs something up, that's when it's truly powerful. 50 people will listen to one song and hear a million different things. If the song connects with all of them on any level, then through that song, those 50 people ultimately become the same person. Moments like that are why we do what we do and that's what Take Me To The Pilot is all about. I dare you to find four guys who are more stoked about doing what we do.”

I'm not really sure what the fuck this guy is talking about here. How do those 50 people ultimately become the same person if they hear a million different things? I don't even want to try to figure this out at this point. Dude's writing was so convoluted and over the top that by the time you get to analyzing actual quotes from a band member they sound like they're a motivational speaker on acid. And whatever you do Bilenki, if that is your REAL name, don't dare me to find four guys who are more "stoked" about doing what you do, because I will find them. They're basically four members of ANY BAND, ANYWHERE.

So, what did we learn from all of this? If you're going to write a bio for your band, here are some pointers:

1) Be concise - Name. (maybe a little story about why your name is your name) Home city. Length of time as a band.
2) Let the music speak for itself. Don't try to describe your music like it's a work of modern art because you'll come across as a complete douche. Maybe mention your biggest influences. People will know what you'll potentially sound like right away.
3) Give a few career highlights to let those industry tools know that you're not complete wanks. But make sure that they're actually worth mentioning. For example, playing Bookie's Nu Music Night at the Horseshoe is not an accomplishment.

It should be about 300-400 words. That's it.

Whatever you do, don't write a bio like the one above. No one in your band may have written it, but it certainly makes you look bad. The fact that TMTTP appears to have taken this drivel off all of their web pages leads me to believe that they agreed with my assessment. Band bios shouldn't be treated like someone's failed attempt at a VH1 Behind the Music monologue.

I'll keep my eye out for more of these to take down. Until then, put your goddamn thesaurus away.