There are various flash points that break up bands. Whether its five or six of you or just you and your guitar. Finding a rehearsal space is one - having a comfortable space consistently available, and which imposes no restrictions or compromises, is worth at least a few months - if not years - to a bands life expectancy. Somewhere you can take your ideas and try them out, somewhere that songs come together and arrangements blossom. Somewhere there is someone you can bounce ideas off and get feedback from. That life expectancy though can be brutally cut short by recording. For every communication breakdown in the rehearsal room expect five in the studio. Yet, if you have the rehearsal thing cracked, you have pre-production cracked - and you will know exactly what you want to achieve in the studio. It’ll all change anyway, but at least you’ll have started out on the front foot and all singing from the same hymn sheet, to use a cliché or two. Recording is expensive, and recording is daunting - the time for experimenting is in pre-production, not on studio-time. Yes, there are those times - Sergeant Pepper, Queen at Rockfield, just about everything Bran Wilson did… that are exceptions, genius will generally come through, but these were exceptions. If you have a big record company fronting for you, you can charge exceptions to expenses, tax deductible.
Now, find somewhere that you can practice, create, experiment, try out ideas, pre-produce and build arrangements, trying them as you go - and then - in the same space - switch to production mode and get recording… that’s got to be worth a year or two in a band’s life.
It’s the small details that make the picture. Still looking? Talk to Ginger.