Originally posted by Zeppelin
Take it easy man!!!
it's hard to make a good band, but i just like the whole idea of a band... you can be a guitar hero but jamming with other people or rehearsing with a band can make you much better... i think i became twice better than i was since i'm in band, altough i have the same problem with my band like you... they want to take it to places that i dont want...

Sometimes going places you don't wanna go can be beneficial if you go in with the right attitude (whatever that is :)).

I spent years just jamming with friends playing Black Sabbath, Rush, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers, Blue Oyster Cult, Led Zeppelin etc. There was no real band but we often played at little parties (10-30+ ppl). Different band members almost each time. There were basically 2 groups of ppl that I played with. One was Heavy Metal/Hard Rock. The other was Southern Rock/Hard Rock/Folk and bits of classical pieces.
The one day, my roommate brought over this mexican guy (he was really from mexico so this is not a racial generalization). His name was Tony. Tony said he was a drummer in a band and they were looking for a new guitar player. He asked me if I wanted to try out for the band. I didn't ask what kind of music they played, but I figured sure, why not give it a shot. When I showed up for the try out, I found out that the music they played was called "Cumbias" (50's style rock) and "Rancheros" (sort of a Tex-Mex country style and general "old" style country).
When I found that out, I thought, "What the hell did I get myself into?". Well, I tried out, passed thier muster and they asked me to join. We jammed for several hours in that tryout and I had alot of fun doing that. So I took them up on thier offer. I ended up playing with them for almost 3 years.

So whats my point in this babbling?
Being in that band had a tremedous influence on my playing.
Most of the cover tunes we played I had never heard before.
And most of the solos in these tunes were done by some wind instrument. There were no tabs, or sheet music around for any of them (that we could find anyway). I had to learn all the solos by ear, something I was never that great at before then. I generally had no problem learning guitar solos when the original one was done on a guitar, but not a horn. Learning how to do solos originally done in another instrument greatly improved my ear for learning other solos done on guitar. This made my style that much more unique.
This also improved my own style by being able to pick up on the style of others much more easily.

I would suggest playing with a few bands before you go out on your own with your own band that you control fully.