Should you hire a wedding band or a DJ for your reception? On today’s episode of Wedding Secrets Unveiled!, Kevin O’Brien of Ripcord Music explains why, in his opinion, the answer is simple: a wedding band is the way to go! Kevin offers expert tips and advice for choosing the perfect entertainment to match your reception and your budget. If you’re weighing the pros and cons of live music, this episode is a must-listen!
Meet Kevin.
My name is Kevin O’Brien. I am a musician – a bass player. I also own an entertainment company called Ripcord Music LLC. As far as who we serve, I would say predominantly wedding couples – we’ve performed at a ton of weddings. But we’ve also done corporate parties, fundraisers, and galas. I handle all of the booking and management. For our events, we have three bands under Ripcord. As far as where we land in the wedding market, I would say in the upper levels in terms of caliber, musicianship, and performances. We do destination events all over the country and throughout the Caribbean, but our primary market is New England and the tri-state area.
How long have you been in business for?
About 16 years. I started Ripcord with some friends. Our wedding band began out of another band, just four guys writing music and then we started playing some bar gigs. We got into the cover band scene that way. I was freelancing as a bass player back then, with a couple wedding bands, and began to notice that they weren’t really bands. They were just musicians thrown together for the events. We were all just meeting the day of the wedding to perform. I started to think it might make more sense if we knew each other and took the band of us that worked and moved to the wedding scene. So, I started reaching out to my favorite people and grew a band of people I loved working with from that.
I have to ask you, how did you come up with the name Ripcord?
Yeah, it’s actually a Radiohead song. We were pretty stumped trying to think of something. And that’s just kind of an old trick to come up with names for bands and song titles is to just look through old albums of your favorite artists. One of ours is Radiohead.
For our listeners, Kevin actually did Steve and I’s wedding, and he’s done a lot of our couples’ weddings too. He’s going to be doing my brother’s wedding this spring and my dad’s 80th birthday party. We’ve known him for a long time. I actually heard him play at a restaurant before I got married and I just knew, he was our musician.
Thank you. That’s wildly flattering. Honestly, we’ve been hired by a lot of fellow vendors and musicians and venue owners. The point being that these are people who have attended and worked so many events, so to be the one chosen because you heard or saw something in our performance is special. It’s not just about our sound. It’s about the personalities that are involved and what that brings to the overall experience for our couples. For ourselves and we, again, come from a really organic starting point, as compared to a lot of the like very corporate kind of agencies around where they’re just a ton of random strangers, hired, thrown together and managed by somebody who may as well be selling used cars or something like that. It’s a much different thing.
You can tell when a band’s been playing together for awhile.
I think that that’s what generally people refer to as chemistry. It’s the factor you notice and the energy in the room. I’ve had the pleasure and honor to play with some really, really phenomenal musicians, world class musicians. But when you have these elite level musicians who are also like family it’s very sincerely like my family coming and partying with your family and celebrating with your family. I think that that those relationships, that’s what really builds the energy, and that that chemistry that people feel when we perform well on both sides of the stage and dance floor.
Let’s take our listeners through the process, starting with the decision between a DJ or live band. What’s your perspective of the differences?
Yeah, sure. I think for me, it’s definitely a budget thing. I’m certainly biased being a musician, and I have immense respect for DJs – I think there are some incredibly artistic DJs. But it’s price point to me. If someone’s throwing a really high-end event and wants to yield the most powerful effect, I don’t see why they wouldn’t have a band, unless it’s a financial decision for the primary element of entertainment. What I mean by that is that we generally provide all-inclusive live music services for the entire day. So, we’re performing the ceremony, the cocktail hour and the reception. We have sound engineers that come, and we even have DJs for the after party.
I think the main differences between live and live music and DJs are pretty obvious. A DJ is hitting play on tracks and there is artistry in how they mix the tracks. But there’s also a lot of software that’s out there that helps kind of come up with these things to help match them. For most people, when they go to weddings, they experience a standard sort of DJ performance. And I think that at the end of it, it’s just people trying to fit everything into a spreadsheet of budgeting. I think that a live band doesn’t always fit by the time they get to that line of the budget in the process.
DJ vs. Band for Your Reception
I just don’t think a DJ of any caliber can hold a candle to a really elite band. We have Grammy winning musicians. All three of our bands have these long-standing histories together. But, I think that really, when people come in and energy has been building from the start of the day with the musicians, they grab those drinks and it’s time to party. When you have a really high-level band performing, there’s just a level of energy and air and everything that’s just movement and vibrations that we’re throwing out into the room that I just don’t see any DJs being able to match.
It’s understandable, because I feel like for decades, a lot of people have grown up going to these sorts of events or watching videos where you don’t see bands performing. Where I’m going with this is that when people come up and we hit the beginning of the dance party, I just see jaws drop and hit the floor because they’re watching musicians in real time. It’s a different energy.
I guess that’s also another thing that’s a big distinction between a DJ, we can create sections or parts of the songs that show off our musicians. A DJ can’t do that. It really does elevate the dance party a lot. When you’re playing that tune, and you go into this instrumental sort of section, have the solo – it elevates the energy in the room.
So, if you decide to go with a wedding band for your reception, it’s important to choose a band that’s familiar with weddings.
Yeah, that’s something that comes from years of experience, so ensuring that the band you hire has that experience is critical. A lot of couples hire an event planner and a lot of times, they’re able to drive the bus and rein in a band that isn’t quite as experienced. But I’ve heard many horror stories from planners or vendors where the band doesn’t have the experience. They don’t have a good flow and there are so many details that are a part of weddings. Weddings are expensive and if a band doesn’t know how to call songs, time their breaks, or whatever – it’ll play a detrimental role in the overall experience for the couple.
A really experienced bad with incredible musicians still needs wedding experience. There are so many things that can throw you for the loop. From experience, we’ve had pretty catastrophic things happen with other variables that guests don’t even know about, but we figure it out in a seamless way.
Tell us more about that.
I think the fundamental point is just to keep things moving. Things have to shift on the back end sometimes. We’ve had something happening with catering or whatever, and we then have to grab the itinerary and jump around. So, if something’s happening in the kitchen, we might move the toasts up and play a little it longer. It’s just about keeping things efficient, and sometimes there’s really nothing you can do to save the day. We had an event where there was some sort of failure with their fire alarm system and it just kept going off, and the fire department came. We had to evacuate the entire building. The alarm was just going off, and we all went outside and came back in, and we played a little of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” to make light of the situation. Of course, it’s irritating when things like that because events are expensive and stressful. It’s someone’s big day and this alarm just went off so many times. But we got the couple to laugh. They had a blast with them. The whole room started singing this tune.
But that point, I guess is just trying to keep things light and moving – just flowing through the day.
Speaking of different songs, how do you handle requests?
Yeah, that’s a good question. I am pretty sure this varies a fair amount and I don’t know exactly what other companies do. But, I think there’s some companies that are thrown together, they’re going to perform the set that they know – a certain amount of music. They put on a good show and make it sound good. Some companies have different teams that read sheet music and sight read the events. There isn’t really going to be as much interplay. It can be risky. I mean, you certainly can’t just go butcher somebody’s first dance and have somebody playing at the wrong key or playing the wrong arrangements or something like that.
So, to get back to the fundamental question, I think it kind of varies. Some people have a band, and the formal dances might be pre-recorded. Ripcord will include that. We play the songs and we put a lot of time into rehearsing and come up with really good arrangements. We will cut down songs too. Most songs are 4-5 minutes long, and most couples don’t want to dance that long. So, we’ll cut it down to like 90 seconds to 2 minutes.
Adjusting Songs to Fit Your Event
We are very good at removing certain elements of the song and coming up with these abridged versions of the song that feel very full and complete, but are more comfortable in terms of length. As musicians, we nail the tempo, the sounds, and we even with some songs that are more kind of electronic and feel. We use software to lift some of the some of the sounds and the patches off of these records. So, we’re not like playing to the track, but we’ll use what’s on the record to make more authentic sounds that really align with that.
I think a lot of couples are worried that if they pick a song that is more modern, a band may not be able to replicate that. But high-level bands are able to nail it.
What do you do for ceremonies?
The ceremony is, is generally a smaller subset of the band. A lot of times, we’re reducing the music down to just a few musicians. So, you have to focus on the melody and harmony – trying to replicate things as best you can. It’s an artform, and it’s another reason to choose a high-quality band. Look for companies that have all-inclusive options where you get the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception music. They’ll be able to provide you layers of music. Less experienced musicians may not have that full sound. It will sound really stripped down and may not feel as identifiable.
If you have a really talented musician, they can play the keyboard part, but also pull in the melody and pull in these other things. We’ve done a lot of really unique things for ceremonies. We had a couple who were both screenwriters from LA. They were in love with a movie, and there’s a wedding scene with “All You Need is Love” where all the guests turn out to be musicians. They wanted us to recreate that. The last song in the ceremony began. This balcony door swung open and we had six incredible vocalists come out. We already had it wired for sound and everything. It was a six-piece vocal choir, singing and all of our horn players came popping out of the woods and around the corner and everything.
Listen, when someone’s going to spend that kind of money, I would assume that you’re going to level up and have a band that really knows what they’re doing and how to work with each other.
Oh, we wanted to clarify – you mentioned the idea of a rolodex of your band members. What did you mean by that?
That’s the term that I use because it’s like the old fashioned roll of numbers and names and stuff. Other companies are basically placement agencies. When you go to their site and provide your details, they’re pulling from a database of musicians and throwing together people at random for those dates. I would assume they prioritize certain people, but the appeal for the musicians is that there’s very little commitment. The company can always send someone else if it doesn’t work for them. So on the day of, you’re getting this random group of people that just thrown together by this computer system or booking agent. Many of these people don’t have an extensive background in music or maybe they’re DJs or something like that.
But for us, it’s not just a matter of someone who plays the instrument. I want to know what their strong suits are and whether or not they have the experience to play that repertoire.
Part of this question was: is that necessarily a bad thing, and are there situations in which that might make sense? And much like a DJ, I think that, yeah, there are moments where this is going to make the most sense. It’s never going to yield the same effect as a band of musicians who plays together all the time.
Coming from a photographer who’s at weddings every weekend and seeing different entertainment, the positive is that they’re getting live performers. But you can definitely tell the difference between someone who plays together and knows the flow of a wedding and someone who doesn’t have that experience.
So Kevin, tell me more about how song selection is tackled.
So with us, we include a certain number of custom requests. We always want to make sure that those formal dances (the first dance and parent dances) are covered and included – really whatever the couple likes. We’ve actually played original music that people have written for those moments and helped with custom arrangements or augmented arrangements. That’s pretty atypical. There aren’t a lot of bands who would do that kind of high-level customization.
Then, as far as the overall playlist that’s performed through the night, we invite people to look at the songs we have and send a wish list of what they really like. Then we’ll choose from that list. We’ll adjust and call tunes by reading the room, and that speaks to our experience, too. There’s a way to call songs that keeps the energy moving. We’re a super diverse band, and we play all styles of music. That variety has always proven the most effective to us, given that there’s all sorts of people in the room.
So backing up to the original question: we ask couples to send us a bunch of material that they like, maybe prioritize some stuff that they especially love. If there are a few things that they absolutely cannot stand then we avoid those. Then in the event, we call the tunes. There is an ebb and flow to these events and we’re going to play the tunes when we’re told, but there’s definitely wiggle room. Like 3 toasts that turn out to be 25 minutes instead of 15. So, we improvise and shuffle around the set list. The reason I’m reiterating this is that going in with a very specific set list just isn’t going to work.
Choosing Songs for Your Wedding Playlist
At the risk of sounding arrogant, we’re really very good at what we do. We’ve been doing it for a really long time. From a couple’s perspective, hire someone that you’re comfortable with – them and their energy. You want to have confidence in whoever you hire. Part of that is calling tunes and knowing which songs and when to call them. And I think if you hire people who are very good at what they do, in this particular case, being entertainment, then couples shouldn’t really need to stress out about exactly what songs they’re going to play and when, because you’ve done the due diligence of hiring people who are very good at what they do and it should pay off.
On the flip side, if you hire an inexperienced band of thrown together people, they’re going to show up and play the 40 songs they were given. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t like. A lot of times, couples are really worried about what songs they don’t want to hear. And like I said, if there are some things that you really, really hate, then of course, nobody wants to hear it. But some couples get a bit overzealous in that department. Then they’ve effectively blocked out a bunch of songs. We’re there to make sure everyone’s having a blast dancing and singing. Some of those songs are what people will want to hear.
I think part of that is a skill in terms of trying to balance what the playlist of the couple has sent, and honoring things that they really dislike, but also managing expectations for your guests – and targeting priorities,
Wrap Up Question
What are some key points that couples should be asking a band when they are inquiring to make sure that they are working with a professional company to ensure that their day is an absolute perfect event?
I think the starting point would be availability and pricing, trying to make sure that people are getting a realistic idea of whether or not certain bands are a good fit for them in terms of what they’re looking to spend. Remember that continuous playing will impact the pricing. It’s not really common around here to have non-stop music with live events, but in some areas it is.
It’s very important to determine how a band is constructed. Who is in the band? Are they thrown together?
Find out how many requests are included, how the formal dances are approached, and how the overall playlist works.
What We Discussed
Meet Kevin (2:17)
Formation and Evolution of Ripcord Music (3:44)
Personal Connections and Band Dynamics (6:34)
Differences Between Live Bands and DJs (9:36)
Importance of Experience and Adaptability (19:45)
Song Selection and Custom Requests (20:00)
Managing Client Expectations and Communication (59:09)
Wrap-Up Question (1:05:25)
Links Mentioned in the Episode
Find Ripcord Music: Website | Instagram | Facebook
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