💡✍️ADN #148: Are you game?

Bands break up.

Egos.
Addictions.
Money.
Momentum.

Or lack thereof.

But the one ingredient that ends every promising career?

Picking the wrong people to build with.

There’s one word that separates the lifers from the liabilities:

Game.

Are they game?

Your bassist’s flight gets canceled in Denver:
Are they game to rent a car and drive all night to make the next gig?

Your manager?
Game means they’ll walk into the label meeting and say the thing that needs to be said, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Your merch guy?
Being game means finding the local print shop in the next city to reprint shirts after having the best merch night of your life, and you need more tomorrow.

Being game is being ready.

Ready for anything.
Up for the challenge.
Down for the cause.

When Tom Petty left Gainesville for LA to knock on record label doors, his band packed their bags and went with him.
If they weren’t game, there’d be no Heartbreakers.

Just Tom Petty.

When Rick Rubin launched Def Jam from a dorm room, he was game to give everything, sleeping on couches, learning as he went.

Careers aren’t straight lines.
They zig.
They crash.
They restart.

Most bail.
The game?

They double down.

So when you’re choosing a bandmate, manager, agent, or label, here’s the #1 filter you need:

When the wheels fall off, when the money dries up, when it seems stupid to drive another mile…

Are they still game?

If yes, you’ve got a game changer.
If not, game over.

See you next Sunday,

Neil