How Does Your Band Decide Who Plays Fills When?

[Robert Simms]

Depends on how many leads you have, but the basic formula most people use is just a trade off rotation, unless it's a super popular song everyone knows with signature backup licks like Amarillo By Morning, Let's say you have a steel, fiddle, and tele player. If you kick the song off on steel, fiddle might take backups for the verse, then guitar would have backup over the chorus. For the solo it would kick to the fiddle who hasn't played since the first verse. After that steel would fill the second verse, and so on. Much easier with two instruments, but I digress. Eye contact definitely, but most good musicians will know how the basic formula works. I have played with people that never stop playing and it gets annoying. I played with a fiddle player a few times that never stops. Got to the point I put the bar down and gave up. We're all guilty of overplaying from time to time, but some people take it to another level.