Here is the reason why you can’t sit in with us:

We had a dream to play and sing music. So, we bought instruments. And then we took lessons to learn to sing and play these instruments. We practiced for hours on end, day after day, week in, week out, month after month, for years. While you were out playing football and baseball and chasing girls, we rehearsed together as a band. We learned tunes. We learned how to sing and play together. We want you to enjoy the music we make as much as we enjoy making it.

We bought all this sound gear and learned how to hook it up and operate it. We do without nice cars so we can haul this gear around in junky old vans and pickup trucks. We haul this gear and our instruments into clubs and set it up. Believe me, it’s heavy! We put it in place and hook it all up. We test everything to make sure it works. If it doesn’t work, we fix it ourselves or pay someone to repair it. We buy new strings, picks, drumsticks, drumheads, batteries and whatever else we need. We tune our instruments to make sure they sound good with each other. We love playing music; that’s why we go through all this trouble.

We did all this so that we could be here tonight to make music. And now you want to sing a song or two with us. Well, every song that we let you sing means there is one less song for us to sing. Our engagement only lasts so long, and there are a limited number of songs that we can play in the time allotted. After going to all that trouble, do you think we really ought to give up our song and stay on stage and back you up so that you can impress some guy or gal? Well, we sure don’t! If you really want to play in a band, why not start one? As you can see from the above, there is a lot of work involved.