"Too many bands want to 'skip' the local band phase," says former Woe, Is Me vocalist

Former Woe, Is Me vocalist Hance Alligood wrote a blog post addressing today's lack of thriving local music scenes. In the post, Alligood says that a lot of new bands don't even try for local success, and, as a result, the bands who do want to work for local success have no strong local scene to turn to for support.

You can read the full blog post from Alligood below. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments.

“Are the days of the local scene over?

My theory is this: too many bands want to “skip” the local band phase and go straight to touring.

Speaking from experience, there are circumstances in which a band gets picked up by a label, management, booking agent, etc., simply from spending the money to record at a reputable studio, without any real experience or hard work put in other than writing a couple of songs. I can name at least 4 bands from my own state that fall under this category.

They “skipped” the local band phase. In some situations, one or more members of this new band were in previous acts, whether they were just a local band or a band that had done a few tours and had been picked up by someone, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes it’s just a band funded by kids with wealthy parents.

Well nowadays, it seems like everyone who decides to form a band doesn’t even try to put in work and gain any sort of success locally. And any bands who really wanna work to build up a local following can’t even do that anymore because there isn’t enough support to have a thriving local scene.

Local venues everywhere are shutting down or getting close to it because everyone is too focused on making it out of their hometown to even gain the interest or support from their hometown.

I know there are definitely other factors involved. But it seems to me like this is undoubtedly a huge part of why there really aren’t any thriving local scenes anymore. At least, it’s not the way it used to be.”