5 Reasons EVERY Woman Should Fall In Love With A Guy In A Band

It takes a special kind of person to fall in love with someone in a band. I mean, let's face it: even the mere mention that you're dating one raises the eyebrows of your family and friends. Co-workers snicker; your exes smile smugly. There's validity there, no doubt.

Traditionally speaking, there's little to argue when it comes to falling in love with a lead guitarist or (God forbid!) a bass player. Truth is, guys and girls in bands are often pretty poor (understatement!) and live the dreamer's life, right? Honestly, we all know people in bands but how many of them have had much success? By the time you turn 25 or so the real world insists you have more to show for yourself than maybe a few great songs or looking good up on some crummy club stage.

If you ask most realistic people they'll all say the same thing when you tell them you've fallen hard for the singer of a five-piece indie rock group: Think long and hard about what you're doing. They'll try and nudge you back toward the common sense you've obviously abandoned. They'll look you deep in your eyeballs and tell you they really care about you and they don't want to see you end up with the wrong person ... again.

But f*ck those people! I'm 44 now;, practically as old as rock-n-roll itself. (Hell, I was in college when Nirvana came out.) But unlike a lot of people in this world of overachievers and planned-out lives, I've played in a band for a long, long time.  And you know what? I'm always rooting for the people who fall in love with starving artists — because I've lived it. And I wouldn't change a goddamn thing. Here's why you should fall in love with a guy in a band.

1. He's passionate.

People take passion for granted these days. It used to be that big dreamers had a romantic air about them. We looked at artists and musicians and poets and actors with a kind of envious respect. Sure, they might have chosen drastically different life paths than your average door-to-door salesman/housewife/teacher/cop, but we all kind of dug it in a sexy way.

Nowadays, we're all bogged down in the idea of success and the notion of carving our proverbial career path out by the time we're in our early 20s. We tend to see the arts as a waste of time. We tend to look at young people who say they want to be musicians or painters or novelists the same way we look at Santa Claus at the mall.

That sh*t ain't real. People who play in bands fight wars against that new, improved mindset. They want to eat creativity because without it they will die. I'm not saying these artsy types don't bring their own set of challenges to the altar, but so what? So do millionaire douchebag CEOs. It just comes down to what kind of brain and heart you're made of.

2. He can offer perspective.

You might think you have a pretty unique way of looking at the world, at breaking down art and politics and culture and all of it, and I'm sure you do. But then again, maybe you don't. Maybe you've let your proverbial eyes shut over the past few years while you've been busy setting up the next 50 or 60 years of your life. It happens.

But it doesn't happen as often to people in bands. Because musicians, even the most unsuccessful ones in the history of the world, SEE things. They still have that touch of that magic that kids have when it comes to watching life go down. Band people, young or old, still possess a lot of the same fire they had when they were six or seven.

They still have a unique way of watching movies and listening to tunes and talking about books that so many working stiffs lose by the time they're 35. Even people like me: older guys who still play in bands just because we love it. We maintain this connection to something primal and beautiful by playing music in little clubs and that keeps a certain sparkle in our eyes.

3. He can write a romantic song about you.

No, not some fratboy cheap acoustic guitar Creed bullsh*t attempt at getting in your pants. I'm talking about a song. About you. Played for real. By a band. 

If you could fast-forward through your life your death bed and remember a song that a certain special someone wrote for you and played live for you in front of a small crowd of people who knew it was about you — that'd be a pretty epic memory to have before you leave this Earth.

4. He can pass on his ambition to your kids.

Want tp know how it feels when my three kids dance around my living room to one of my band's songs that I pulled up on YouTube? It makes me feel like the most magnificent man who ever lived. I don't have much in the way of material stuff; my vacation home tally is still hovering around zero. I'm a humble dude; I feast on the good corn chips when I feel like celebrating something.

But I'll be damned if watching my own kids bounce around to a song that my brother and I recorded with our band once upon a time doesn't make me feel utterly invincible. Not because I accomplished something a lot of people will probably never ever accomplish but because my kids will grow up knowing if they ever want to be in a band themselves — or chase any kind of art down their own street, no matter how crazy it might seem to the rest of the world —I'll be like, "Yes! You go for it!"

5. He's looks sexy as f*ck while playing.

I don't care who you are or where you're from — if you tell me you don't feel a little heat flare up in your downtown now and then when you watch certain men play guitar, you're a liar. If you've never wanted to kiss a woman simply because of the way she could strut across a stage with a microphone in her hand, you're a better man than me. (Or a way worse one, probably.)

It's not rocket science: People in bands are simply sexier than people who aren't in bands. Human nature tends to sort these things out. The meathead quarterbacks end up with the mean girl cheerleaders. The guitarists and drummers end up with the coolest people on Earth. The end.