How To Play In A Band (From Out Of State)

Maybe you’re moving for work. Maybe you and/or your family need a change of scenery. In any case, moving away from your band can be hard. You’ve made friends, both with your bandmates (one would hope), the other bands you’ve played with, and your fans. You’ve built a following, developed as a musician, put some great music out into the world, and experienced all the other great things that come with this crazy undertaking of ours.

But just because you’re moving doesn’t mean you have to give it up. It’ll be a little more work, sure, but staying connected with your band can be worth it.

I joined Adolla in 2023, when I was stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado. In February 2024, despite my best efforts, I had to move to Oklahoma. Thankfully, I was able to keep in touch with my brothers in the band and stay (relatively) active in the project until I was finally able to move back to Colorado in March 2026.

Here’s how I continued to play in Adolla while living out of state. I hope this helps.

1) Have The Conversation, Is it worth it?

This might be hard, but you should have the conversation up front about whether continuing with the band from out of state will be worth it. This will entirely depend on you and your band’s circumstances.

How long will you be out of state? Is it permanent? How often will you be able to come back to play shows, record new music, do promo, etc.? How much does it cost to come back to play a show? What’s the plan for when you can’t make it to a show?

It’s important to have this conversation to set expectations. In my situation, I had a relatively set timeline for when I’d be out of the military and back in Colorado. How well that timeline held is a different story, but the point is we knew my departure would be temporary, and luckily, flights from Oklahoma to Colorado weren’t too bad when booked far enough in advance.

If staying with the band from out of state is logistically or financially untenable for either party, it may be best to part ways and look for or start another project at your new location.

If you and your bandmates have determined that it makes sense for you to continue, proceed to Step 2.

2) Have a plan for when you can’t make it to a show

Pop quiz: What was the last question I listed above as part of the conversation you should have with your band?

If you answered, “What’s the plan for when you can’t make it to a show?”, congratulations. Have a cookie. (I’m gonna trust you didn’t scroll back up for the answer. Scout’s honor.)

There’s going to be at least one show you won’t be able to make it back for, whether because you can’t get the time off work, can’t afford the flight or gas, or whatever else comes up. You and your band’s solution to that problem depends on your setup.

If you use backing tracks, you can record your parts and include them in the backing tracks. We in Adolla used this method early on when I was away for a month but hadn’t fully moved out of state yet. While this solution is workable, I think you lose out on a lot of the energy that comes from having someone play those parts live.

My preferred solution, and what we in Adolla ended up committing to, is having someone fill in for you. Ideally, it’s someone you and the rest of the band already know and trust. Hell, you and the band may even like your replacement so much that you end up keeping them as a formal member. (We love you, Ryan!)

If you’ve opted for a fill-in member, proceed to Step 3. If you’re going the backing-track route, you can skip to Step 4. (But maybe read Step 3 anyway, just in case.)

3) Be a good steward : set your stand-in up for success

This means tabbing out your parts so your stand-in can learn them. It means opening up your schedule to sit down or video call with them and go over your parts if they need help.

Your stand-in isn’t just playing your parts. They are, in a way, a reflection of how well you know your own parts and how well you can teach them to someone else.

And you want your band to continue building an audience and growing, which means they need to sound good even if you can’t necessarily be there yourself.

I think this is best to do in-person if you can, but whatever you need to do to make it work.

4) Prepping for a show - Practicing without your band

Huzzah! You finally get to come play a show! Now you just have to make sure you can play in sync with the rest of your band without actually getting to practice with them.

This goes deeper than just intimately knowing the songs and your parts. Bottom line, you want to get as close as possible to practicing the way you’ll actually play. If you play with in-ear monitors, practice with in-ear monitors. If you play to a click track, practice to a click track. If you do any stage moves, practice your stage moves (if you can do so safely. Please don’t stage-dive off your roof).

Much of this will depend on the setup and resources you and your band have access to. On my end, I have my own digital audio workstation (DAW) and digital guitar amp modelers that I can program to change settings, so I was able to load our songs into my DAW with our click track, vocal cues, and guitar FX changes and practice along with that.

If you don’t have a DAW, you may just have to kick it old school and play along to the songs from your computer speakers, like the first time you played “Smoke on the Water.”

This will also take some effort from your band. They will have to make sure they’re as tight and locked in as they can be without you at practice. I’m fortunate to be in a band with four other great musicians who knew their parts inside and out, so I could seamlessly slot right back in.

If you can, try to fit in a practice together when you’re back in town before the show. We in Adolla usually run through the set one final time the morning of a show, depending on the timeline and availability. I typically flew in the night before the show so we could get that quick practice in, though we did have one show where I arrived just a few hours before hitting the stage, so don’t bank on always having the chance to practice together.

5) Play the show!

Pretty self-explanatory. You did the work, you made sure you were prepped, you got yourself back to town. Now enjoy yourself!

Now’s your time to reconnect with your band and your fans and really take in why it is we do what we do.

You’ll notice I didn’t go over how to write new music with your band while you’re out of state. That aspect is entirely dependent on the dynamics of your band and has too many variables to cover here. If you have the tools to write and record your own parts and send them back and forth, like we did, power to you.

Bottom line, just because you’re moving doesn’t mean you can’t still be a part of your band. You absolutely can, albeit with a few extra steps. I’m certainly glad I did. We in Adolla have really hit our groove when playing together, and I think we’ve only gotten better since I’ve moved back. 

But we wouldn’t be where we are today, and I wouldn’t have all the amazing friends I have in this crazy scene of ours, if I didn’t make the commitment to keep playing in Adolla from out of state.