I'm kinda struggling with my band at the moment and I'm looking for some tips or advice from people who have been in a similar situation.
I'm the guitarist / singer / songwriter in a shoegaze / indie / space rock band.
It's difficult to articulate, but basically, I feel like our band suffers from a lack of dynamics and too much repetition. I realise that as the songwriter, I'm responsible for this,
however, I'm finding that unless I'm playing continuously, our sound sounds really empty and weak. So, I end up playing quite big complex chords to fill up the space.
I find it difficult to write songs to match a three piece because when I'm at home writing, I tend to want to fill up the sound quite alot so I have something to sing with.
For example, I'm a big fan of Swervedriver, and I really love the way their songs twist and change, whilst still being catchy, however I'm finding songs that I tend to write in a similar vein are not that dynamic enough, or suffer from too many "typical" movements, ie - big loud guitars but when vocals come in and everything dies back to leave it room etc.
Our bassist tends to basically play the exact same chords as the guitar and doesn't really add too much in the way of dynamics. However, unless I write the parts myself, which I have for some songs, no variations actually come out of it. He is happy for me to write his parts as he says he "just wants to play bass". So, I'm a bit stumped, as to how to change this up.
Shall I stop trying to write songs at home in a "singer - songwriter" style, and just jam with the band? We're not big fans of jamming.
Sorry for the rant, just feeling super frustrated!