Stepping Onstage for the First Time: A Guide

Ever wonder what it's like to step on stage for the first time with shaky knees and a guitar in hand? I sure do, and that's exactly what I dive into in our latest podcast. Take a walk with me, Steve, through the trials and laughs of my early music days, from those first awkward moments trying to look cool in front of an audience to the polished poise of later performances. The stage can be unforgiving, but it's also where the magic happens—join me as I share stories of hair swings gone wrong, and the transformative power of playing regularly with a band that turns a group of musicians into a tight-knit family.

It's not all laughs and guitar solos though. This episode is also a treasure trove of advice for musicians aiming to strike the right chord in the industry. I get real about the blend of musicianship and interpersonal skills that can make or break a band, drawing from years of experience to highlight why showing up on time with a good attitude can be just as important as nailing that solo. From the raw energy of the Foo Fighters' stage charisma to the fine line between authenticity and performance, I lay it all out for anyone looking to make a mark with their music. So, plug in, tune up, and get ready for a heart-to-heart on what it really takes to thrive on the music scene.

Tune in now and learn more!

Links:

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus... 
• GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0... 
• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... . 

Check out Steve's Guitar Membership and Courses: https://bit.ly/3rbZ3He

Transcript

Steve: 0:35

Hey, steve here, thank you so much for joining me for this podcast. What I'm going to be doing today is just talk to you a little bit about some of my history. We're going to be talking about the first times that I played on stage and what that was like, because I get asked about that a lot. You know what it's like to play on stage if you haven't played before, or you know how to not be. You know how to look comfortable and that sort of thing, and I can very much remember, you know, when I was a kid, when I was 15, 16, I started jamming with friends, but I hadn't played on stage and I graduated from high school early and went to college early, which was a great experience for me, going to college and meeting everybody that I did, and you know getting into bands there, and that's where I really first started experiencing playing in bands was in college. I went to college when I was 17, just before I was 18. And you know we would play at the various places on campus. That's kind of where that started and I very much remember not really knowing what to do with myself, and I actually have video that I'll probably never show anybody ever of me back in those days. And it's funny because you know you think about learning songs right and how you visualize in your head how the song goes right. So hopefully what you're doing is playing the song and you don't have sheet music or something, because you've memorized, you know how the parts go and kind of the flow of the song, and I'm sure you've heard me talk about that sort of thing a million times. But you get it in your brain and you know you absorb the idea. So when you're playing you're not looking at sheet music or something like that.

Steve: 2:23

Well, when you get on stage, of course, then there's a whole another level of what do you do with your body, like when you're standing there. And for some people they might think, well, I mean, that's just dumb, because you know all you got to do is stand there. But if you want to be entertaining, you know, if you want to look good and entertain an audience, you can't just stand there and stare at your guitar. And I know people do it and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But for me it just felt very awkward to stand. First of all, you know, when you play a lot sitting down and then all of a sudden you got to stand up. It's awkward anyway, but when you get on stage and you stand there, what do you do with yourself?

Steve: 3:02

So I remember making the transition from playing on campus to playing in a band with some friends and we were playing at the local bar and at that time you know you would do your tryouts on Sundays. They'd have you come in on Sunday and and then the you know bar owner or whoever is in the manager would be there and you know they'd watch you and, you know, decide if you're good enough. And if you were good enough then you would play from Wednesday to Saturday. That's what it was back. Then was Wednesday to Saturday. So you'd play Wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, four nights. And you know we went in and played and obviously got the gig and it was all good and I remember playing.

Steve: 3:45

And then you know now now I'm outside the comfort of playing on campus with you know friends and people that you know now you're playing in a bar and I remember playing and just not knowing what to do. How do you stand Like? Do you stand with your feet together or, and I don't know? I'm assuming there's other people that have had this experience. But so you're trying to separate your legs a little bit, trying to find a rock stance right, and you're trying to play the songs and you still don't know what to do with yourself. And I've always had long hair, but so I thought I would try a hair swing for the first time and I still remember that, like what do you do with yourself? And it's just so funny. I wish we all could experience watching videos of people their first time on stage and how cheesy you must look. And I tried that hair swing and I was like, oh okay, well, that was okay, you know, I didn't get dizzy or fall down or anything like that.

Steve: 4:42

And then when you start playing I mean if you play a lot which is kind of the key to this whole thing is, once you start playing, if you play back, then you would play, you know, four, even five nights a week. When you would play, it wasn't just playing on a, you know, doing a one night, or maybe just doing a weekend or something like that. You'd play a lot. And if you got on a circuit with a number of different bars, you'd be playing, you know, every weekend. Or you'd be playing, you know, for us because we had other stuff going on. We would only play a couple of times, like at this one place we'd play five nights because it was in town. But then if you played out of town, of course, then you might only be able to do three nights or something like that. It depended on what kind of job you had and you know whether everybody could get the time off or whether or not you were doing a full time gigging thing. You know, it just depends.

Steve: 5:32

But with playing a lot, of course you dial that in fairly quick because you're playing all the time and you know. The other benefits to playing all the time is that you get to know your band. You know both personally and musically very, very, very well, and so the music that you play gets dialed in constantly. So there's less need to practice offstage because you're playing all the time. So you're dialing things in and dialing it in and dialing it in all the time with each other and you become very tight. That's how a band becomes tight. It's not just you know practicing every Wednesday or something like that, which is great, there's nothing wrong with that either.

Steve: 6:10

But when you're playing on stage a lot, so you start dialing in your music you start dialing in your you're on stage presence and you're doing this with a group of people that are getting comfortable with each other. So maybe there's a certain spot in the song where you do something, or you have a tendency of moving at a certain place in certain songs, or you always have a certain side of the stage, whether you're stage left or stage right, and you get comfortable with having your mic set up that way and the space that's available to you on that side of the stage, you know. So just different kinds of things like that that you get comfortable with when you play with a group of people. And, of course, if you're in a number of bands, like I always was after I got going I was always in multiple bands, you know then you try and dial in that whole thing too, because sometimes you're on stage left in this band but you're on stage right in this band, and for me I try to always kind of keep it consistent. So the bands I was playing and I was always on the same side as much as I could be, just because, you know, I kind of developed a comfort zone in being on a particular side of the stage and having the mic set up and my pedal set up a certain way, and that way it was just more comfortable and of course everybody was cool with that.

Steve: 7:31

But there's a lot to think about with that and and again, I'm not trying to be weird with it, but you know it's kind of like one of those things of how high do you put your guitar with your guitar strap? You know, do you do you drop your guitar fairly low. So you know you look cooler and maybe it's more comfortable. You know, if you're five foot two, like I am, and you drop the guitar really low, you're never gonna reach those higher frets to try and do any soloing right. So and if you put the guitar way too high, then you look like you're playing in the Beatles. And again you know you can say, well, it's just a visual thing, that's just dumb. You know it's about the music, but it's, but it's not.

Steve: 8:09

When you're playing on stage there's more happening. When you're playing by yourself in your, you know, in your room or your studio or something, nobody, nobody sees you anyway. But when you're playing on stage there's, there's a certainly a valid element to that and you can tell when you watch the bands that you like and how they act on stage and what they do on stage. You know, I always think like Dream Theater is a prime example.

Steve: 8:34

You look at John Petrucci and how, in the early days, you know every there's a there's a progression of his guitar getting higher and higher throughout the years. And you know, maybe it's because he's older, maybe it's because the the stuff he's playing has gotten more difficult, maybe it's because you know he started playing six string and then seven string, and then you know now doing eight string stuff. You know who knows it. You know it could be all kinds of different things. But you take someone like John Petrucci versus Steve Ray Vaughn, versus Engevae Malmsteen, versus whoever right, and you look at all of them and their stage present is vastly different from each other, but there's still a level of presence happening. You know, with Petrucci it's more subtle right. With someone like Engevae Malmsteen, certainly back in the day you know he was running all over the stage doing his thing, or Eddie Van Halen, right?

Steve: 9:29

So not everybody has to have the same thing. It's not like everybody has to have long hair and everybody has to have the guitar strap a certain length and everybody has to it isn't that at all, but it's finding a way of being comfortable when you're on stage with what you're doing, and so when people look at you, you you are still engaging. At least there's you know, something visually to be looking at as you're doing your thing, and you know that can go as far as what you're wearing on stage. You know, do you wear the exact same clothes that you just got done with work and you're wearing those same clothes? Maybe you do, maybe you don't, right. It all depends on what it is that you're trying to do, and it doesn't mean you've got to wear you know something outrageous, but maybe you do, right. I mean, everybody's different. That way, my point is is just to talk to you about it, because these are valid things to think about, you know, especially if you've never played on stage and you want to get in a band, and you you know your. Your goal is to someday do something like that.

Steve: 10:28

Obviously, the first and foremost is your abilities on the instrument that you play, whether you're a singer, whether you're a drummer, bass player, guitar player, whatever, you know that's what's going to land you the gig is your ability, you know. Do you have to be the best musician in town. I don't know, that's up to you, but most of the time no. You know you just have to fit whatever the situation is, but that situation is going to require certain elements of your musical ability. So that's step number one.

Steve: 10:58

Step number two is your ability to get along with people. You know your ability to be responsible, to show up on time for practices and rehearsals, and you know gigs and meetings or whatever it is that you need to do and have the right attitude to be able to get along with the people that you're playing with, which is huge. You know, I've always been blessed to be able to play along with. You know even bands that where I didn't know the people, but once I got into the band we became friends. You know, I can't imagine being in a band where you know everybody just doesn't get along and you know that's got to be tough, especially if you're on the road together. That's got to be really tough and I've never had to deal with that. I've been in a lot of bands. But I think part of that is my personality and being able to connect to people and try and be friendly and, you know, try and make friend connections with people and it's always worked out, which is great. But I think that's really important is not just your ability, because if you can play, really great but you're an asshole, that's going to be a problem, you know, and so you want to enter that situation, that musical situation, with the ability of being able to collaborate and connect and all of those sorts of things too. So it's not just your ability to play.

Steve: 12:22

And the other thing to think about too is it's not just your ability to play. You know a certain style, or you know you're always working on how to solo or something, and you don't know how to memorize songs. Or you know you can play songs but you don't know how to do. You know you couldn't improvise if you needed to, or something like that. And of course, everybody's got their role and that's okay. But the more well-rounded you are, the more people are going to be interested in, oftentimes hiring you because you can do multiple things. You know even as far as being able to sing. You know even harmonize. You know maybe you're not the lead singer or anything like that, but to be able to throw harmony in when it's needed in songs, which means you have to be able to play and sing at the same time to some capacity. Those things are really important. So just think about those things a little bit.

Steve: 13:13

You know, as you prepare to play in a band or play in your next band or whatever it is, have something to offer, and those things would be your personality, right, your abilities, whatever those things are, and to be accommodating that sort of thing. And then, like for me, going back to that, that's kind of where the whole thing started with me was once I started dialing in my comfort zone because I could already play guitar. I just wasn't comfortable with being on stage and I knew, growing up I was born in 1970, so growing up in the 80s, for me playing on stage wasn't just going to be standing there staring at my guitar. That isn't really what I thought of. I didn't want to be fake, I didn't want to act in a fake way, I just wanted to feel the music and be me. And that's the most important thing is figuring out how to find a natural thing on stage.

Steve: 14:15

And again, I call it professionalism, because that's what all that stuff is is when you go again, if you go see the Foo Fighters or you go see whatever band, you could put anybody in there, but it doesn't have to be just this crazy on-stage antique thing like Slipknot or something like that. But if you look at the Foo Fighters, they're comfortable, they're all doing their thing in a comfortable manner and it's not outrageous or it's not whatever. It's just feeling the music and doing your thing and they're not dressed so different, right, but there's still a cohesive look to all of them and those are just little things to kind of think about as you're doing your thing, trying to figure out this band thing. So hopefully that makes sense to you.

Steve: 15:05

I'm going to do a few of these podcasts where I just talk about the reality of playing, the reality of writing, the reality of playing in bands and all that kind of stuff, and so I thought this would be a really good one to talk about. It's just the whole stage thing and then being in a band and what that's like and trying to kind of figure the whole thing out. So anyway, thank you so much for joining me. Take care, make sure you subscribe, if you haven't already, and you can always check out my videos on social media channels whatever those are, there's all kinds of them and certainly head over to guitarsoomcom and check out the guitar courses and the membership stuff that we have to offer and that sort of thing. So take care, stay positive, and I'll talk to you soon, ok,