keeping a steady tempo in the band

our band consists of a fiddle, banjo, guitar & mandolin....no bass (we're still looking)....we have a tendency during a song to get faster & faster, and everyone thinks it's the other one....if you have a band ...when rehersing do you have any methods, techniques or exercises you use to learn how to keep an even band tempo?

Great question...I wish I had the answer and look forward to replies

I'm pretty much a beginner, but I think I found a professional's answer to your question.
I hope it helps:

http://www.drbanjo.com/askdrb-145betterbandrhythm.php

The answer on Pete Wernick's site is definitely the right one (there's a lot of good advice about playing with other people on his site). If you've read any of our 'top tips' (on the news page over the last couple of months), most of our instructors recommend practicing with a metronome. There are several advantages to this: we all naturally slow down for 'difficult bits' in what we're playing (however slightly), and then when we play with other people who don't slow down with us, we fall apart. We can gradually set the metronome faster and faster by such small increments (a beat or two at a time) that we don't really notice - and then the whole piece gets good at the same rate. And we can force ourselves to practice faster than we really need to so that slowing down to the 'right speed' feels very relaxed. I can tell you though that I've produced some of the best drummers around, and even with a click track hammering in their ears they'll speed up into a chorus and slow down into a verse (almost imperceptibly); remember that music has a natural push and pull, and really metronomic performances don't sound any more 'right' than ones that veer drunkenly from one speed to another!

It takes discipline, concentration, and lots of practice. I'd say that the priciple cause of accelerating tempo in a band is because the members aren't familiar enough with their part and/or their role to be able to play in a relaxed manner and frame of mind. Somebody slips a little in their passage and everyone shuffles a little to get back in time with everyone else and it invariably leads to upping the tempo a bit. Do this a few times inside a piece and you're playing twice as fast as when you started.

Since you don't have either percussion or a bass then your rhythm section is going to be the guitar when he isn't taking a lead and the mando chopping the backbeat. These guys need to be your anchor.