Covers vs Originals

[Muttleybass]

I'm in an original band releasing their fourth CD this coming Friday Oct. 21 (Shameless plug: Roxy Vancouver BC). Hard to believe it's been since 2017.

I'm also in a classic rock trio that plays out about two or three times a month. And a four piece with a female singer that's updated classic rock and dance, that's about to start playing. And a friend of mine has three gigs coming up she's asked me to play...

So, both for me. Originals are awesome because you get to be creative, but there aren't many shows, the shows are short and can be a lot of BS, plus nobody really cares about your lousy CD no matter how good it is and the cost is rarely, if ever, recovered. Covers are great because you make a bit of cash, do a lot more gigs and people dig it. Both have their rewards.

I've never really understood the divide between covers vs originals. I just wanna play.

 

[red_rhino]

I get the sense that the vast majority of post are about covers bands playing the bars/cover friendly festival circuit rather than people in originals bands trying to create a fanbase and playing the Live Music Venue

That’s because the majority of paying gigs involve covers (i.e. songs people want to hear). I’ve done the original thing, many times. It’s harder than it looks, and most people don’t have a clue how the business works or the production sense of how to create good original material. (Just because it’s original, doesn’t mean it’s any good.)

I will say though that the best thing about original music is that nobody can tell you you’re playing it wrong. (And if I can get away with throwing a gratuitous bar of 7/4 into a shuffle and everyone keeps dancing, even better. )

 

[ArtechnikA]

Originals band: I'd die before I play in a covers band...
Covers band: i'd die before i play in a tribute band...
Tribute band: i'll make enough tonight to fund a week in the studio recording my originals...

1) Done at a sufficiently high level, NONE of it is easy, and ALL of it requires talent. And work.
2) I'm a side man. Unless I, personally, wrote the song, there is NO difference. I have to learn a song that Fred the bandleader wrote exactly like I have to learn a song that Paul Simon wrote.

When we talk about 'covers' we're really talking about music that is already familiar to the audience. If the audience has never heard the song before, it is indistinguishable whether Fred or Paul Simon wrote it.

 

[ThinCrappyTone2]

I’m just trying to get a read on whether my impression of this forum’s make up is accurate.

I get the sense that the vast majority of post are about covers bands playing the bars/cover friendly festival circuit rather than people in originals bands trying to create a fanbase and playing the Live Music Venue, Small/Medium/Large Music Festival circuit (in the U.K. I guess that would look like Wildpaths/Latitude/Glastonbury for context of what I mean. I don’t know the American equivalent for Small or Medium but the equivalent for large would be like Burning Man or Lollapalooza).

Obviously both are equally valid I’m just trying to understand if the advice/experiences I’m reading here are substantially more from one camp than the other.

I don’t know if there’s a way of running a poll? (Mods?) but if not perhaps if people just sound off?

For my part, although I have played in covers bands in the past (punk covers, Mod covers, BritPop & Funk bands at various points) I’m now in an indierock/pop band writing, recording & releasing original material, playing small “Live Music Venues” & just starting to get booked into small regional festivals for next summer.

I’m guessing the majority of people on tb who are playing out have done both covers and original projects at some point. No idea though really.

 

[ArtechnikA]

I’m guessing the majority of people on tb who are playing out have done both covers and original projects at some point. No idea though really.

ironically, rather than attracting top-level players, most originals projects seem to be fueled by relative beginners, which may ultimately limit a project's development potential. you need players who are willing to work hard, play for nothing, and only have to learn 7 songs for a 45-minute set with 6 other bands on the bill. [opinion alert, in case it was not clear...]

plenty of exceptions to that, of course.
i am constantly amazed by the number of diverse originals projects Michael Manring somehow manages to perform with. I have no idea how he does it, on many levels...

 

[pbass2]

Many of my acts have combined big shows as original acts and thrown covers into our set.

Which is one of the smartest things an artist can do, IMHO. A couple of unexpected, cleverly re-imagined covers is always a winner (depending on genre of course - doesn't apply to some styles of music).

 

[SteveCS]

I'm in a large UK town, with a fair student population.
...
it is literally a hole in the ground. The business model (as with most of these venues), is ... each band brings all their friends who all pay a very substantial cover charge to see their friends' band then leave.
... that money went to the owner - a well known "supporter of live music" in the area. The sound is terrible, and there's no heating or ventilation. Place is filthy. Drinks are whatever cans the owner bought at the supermarket up the street (and marked up 10x).
...
British "grassroots Live Music Venues" business model is to make money from bands, not from audiences.
...

Which large UK town is this? Just so that I know to avoid it

 

[hrodbert696]

A cover band is liked because of what someone did'. An originals band is liked because of what they did for themselves. The covers they play wouldn't have been written, if not for original artists.

Partly. As I posted earlier, there's a distinction between composition and performance. A popular hit can get played on a jukebox, by a DJ, or by a cover band. There are certainly people who seek out venues with cover bands on Saturday nights. Why not just listen to the recording through earbuds, or from a DJ? Apparently there's something in live performance that's over and above just the song as recorded. Performance is an art in itself; and it's sometimes the case that a cover or tribute band performs a song better than the people who composed it can. Crowds will cheer for their favorite celebrity artist because people love celebrities, but musicians in the crowd can hear when it's sloppy (not to mention mimed to a backing track - Earth Wind and Fire, Kiss, etc.). At any rate, there seems to me to be something terribly self-indulgent about writing a song with the intention that no one but yourself could ever play it.

But here's the other aspect; it's true that someone has to compose songs before cover artists can perform them. But it's almost always ALSO the case that people have to "cover" songs before they can become decent composers. I don't know of anyone anywhere who magically started writing great music without first having learned to play great music that others had written. The great 60s British Invasion bands were all covering African-American blues, and often their distinctive sounds developed because of their inability to imitate their idols, as much as anything.

The point of all of which is, while one can distinguish originals and covers, that ultimately just means distinguishing whether a performance is by the people who wrote it or someone else. Both composition and performance are arts. Some do more of one, some of the other. The energy people put into arguing the superiority or priority of one over the other, as though there is supposed to be some kind of rivalry, is rather absurd.

I'd like also state something that I think we often forget. There was a time when most originals that you would hear on the radio used to be "covers" in the sense that the way music was produced was that songwriters would craft a song that publishers would shop around to artists and managers in the form of either sheet music or, later, recorded demos.

In those days, almost everything you heard on the radio was written by someone else and the demo versions were then fleshed-out by those artists and produced and printed for labels.

The line between covers and originals is pretty weak in many cases. What we don't think so much about is the different ways creativity and interpretation comes into play when crafting and producing music of any sort, regardless of who wrote it. Arrangement is a big piece of what we appreciate when we listen to music, and the same song can sound radically different in different hands. This is much more readily evident in jazz, but it's not exclusive to that.

What does this have to do with the OP? Not sure except to suggest that looking for clear lines of demarcation in some cases might miss important things to consider.

Absolutely great points.

 

[pbass2]

I started out as a teen in a cover band. We did the hits of the day, played all the local parties and events. I'm glad I did that before I started focusing on my original material. I learned a TON playing a lot of music I might not have otherwise (for example, even though I was a progger, we played everything from the Doobies to Mott the Hoople to Fleetwood Mac--somehow at a young age we were smart enough to go for a real crowd-pleasing repertoire). Haven't been in a cover band since high school. Spent many years being the bassist/frontman/songwriter in original bands trying to become rock stars, and then just totally changed gears and went for being a session player/hired gun for other artists. The change came when I started making a good living at composing and I separated my writing from the bass playing.
Hats off to anyone who can be committed to one original band and make a living at it. For me it would not support my lifestyle!

 

[2saddleslab]

My band plays originals and an eclectic mix of covers ranging from Johnny Cash, Bob Marley, Frank Sinatra, to Alice in Chains.

1st longterm band recorded 5 CD's, 90% originals. My 2nd [current] longterm band has recorded [and released] one full length CD and heading back to the studio shortly.

 

[51PRI]

I'd like also state something that I think we often forget. There was a time when most originals that you would hear on the radio used to be "covers" in the sense that the way music was produced was that songwriters would craft a song that publishers would shop around to artists and managers in the form of either sheet music or, later, recorded demos....

Those aren't "covers", though, at least not in the sense that we're discussing, and not in any sense that I have ever heard anyone describe them. Songwriters wrote and singers sang used to be the standard. The songs Elvis did in his movies, even though he didn't write them, weren't covers.

Let's not go down this rabbit hole or this thread will surely get shut down.....

Why would this thread get shut down?

Often at jazz combo gigs someone will make a request like: "Can you play something by Sinatra?"

Well, Sinatra didn't write any of his own tunes. The band needs to have a couple tunes in reserve, that Sinatra made a popular recording of.

And writing those tunes was a good profession in its own right. I know a couple of people who do that today. They write tune after tune, that get shopped around by publishers. One of them got his tune used as the jingle for a major brand, and he made enough money to buy a modest house.

Right. Sinatra didn't write "Three Coins in the Fountain" but when he sang it he wasn't "covering" it. OTOH Elvis sand "Hound Dog" and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" they WERE covers because they had already been recorded and had success by others.

...When we talk about 'covers' we're really talking about music that is already familiar to the audience. If the audience has never heard the song before, it is indistinguishable whether Fred or Paul Simon wrote it.

True. And I've been in bands that had that conversation. One guy wants to only do "cool" covers or the "not the hits" covers or not the "overdone covers" as in "Lets not do "Gimme Three Steps" but lets do "That Smell" instead."

 

[Nebadon2000]

The rush of playing original music to a packed house that knows the lyrics to your song, IMO, can't be beat. Its a natural high that to me compares to nothing else.

 

[Tim Skaggs]

I’m just trying to get a read on whether my impression of this forum’s make up is accurate.

I get the sense that the vast majority of post are about covers bands playing the bars/cover friendly festival circuit rather than people in originals bands trying to create a fanbase and playing the Live Music Venue, Small/Medium/Large Music Festival circuit (in the U.K. I guess that would look like Wildpaths/Latitude/Glastonbury for context of what I mean. I don’t know the American equivalent for Small or Medium but the equivalent for large would be like Burning Man or Lollapalooza).

Obviously both are equally valid I’m just trying to understand if the advice/experiences I’m reading here are substantially more from one camp than the other.

I don’t know if there’s a way of running a poll? (Mods?) but if not perhaps if people just sound off?

For my part, although I have played in covers bands in the past (punk covers, Mod covers, BritPop & Funk bands at various points) I’m now in an indierock/pop band writing, recording & releasing original material, playing small “Live Music Venues” & just starting to get booked into small regional festivals for next summer.

I would expect the numbers of each type of band (cover vs original) would correlate very closely with the number of venues available for each type of band to play. Any area where I’ve been for any length of time seems to have a vast majority of venues that hire cover bands and very few or none that hire bands that play originals. I have seen a few venues that alternate, and I’m sure some areas are a lot more balanced than I’ve seen in my travels, but I think your sense about posts here on TB is accurate.

 

[Lostgallifreyan]

British "grassroots Live Music Venues" business model is to make money from bands, not from audiences. Most aren't as bad as this place, but across the road is a regular pub that is pleasant (if unexciting) has good/cheep beer and food, puts bands cover bands on regularly and pays them well (from the bar take - no cover charge).

Nice comparison, and it points the way to a business model that works a lot better. The open-mic night at a pub. It's small scale, but it can be scaled up. Instead of making money out of bands (who generally may not be paid but may get direct access to people who they may be able to work with, which is likely worth more than the pay for any one gig!), the price of a beer is good, there's decent access to toilets, etc. So long as the entertainment is good, people stay, they buy drinks, and the pub keeps going.

From what I saw recently, new works are less likely to be easily accepted than familiar ones, but given that if people know they're going to an open-mic night to have drinks with friends, they are already prepared for surprises. It may be one of the most open-minded situations to try.

One other thing... there is a kind of near-perfect inverse of the pub/covers situation, one I neglected when a guy called Kev Steel told me about it in the 1980's. The 'music library'. I couldn't think of anything much less enticing to me at the time, but it's a perennially useful way to use new content if there seems to be no other more obvious way to use it. If the rights are retained by the writer, then if something from their contribution to a library got used in a famous production, they may suddenly have a ready-made market for their own live performances of it.

 

[Lostgallifreyan]

I've never really understood the divide between covers vs originals. I just wanna play.

Definitely nothing wrong with that, because if you enjoy it, you increase the chance that other people will, whatever it is.

 

[shawshank72]

Been in original bands my whole life until COVID.
Only times I went cover was through a paying gig from someone needing me to fill a spot.
I don't like being in a cover band, my personal reasons are it's mundane as hell with no creativity behind it.
Which is why I went originals route.
Times of my life I made good money doing it and always had a great time if not.

 

[Killing Floor]

No carrots, no poll. Oh, wait, no poll!

I have played mostly original but have also done covers. No hate for a good cover band. Covers better money and less travel unless you can get over a pretty big hump as an original artist.

 

[BatBasstard]

Don't get too excited. I'm in a large UK town, with a fair student population. yes there are multiple "grassroots Live Music Venues". A new one opened only a few months ago... it is literally a hole in the ground. The business model (as with most of these venues), is to put as many bands on as possible per evening, so each band brings all their friends who all pay a very substantial cover charge to see their friends' band then leave. Having spoken to friends who have played there, they weren't promised any payment, (though they might have got something at the end) so that money went to the owner - a well known "supporter of live music" in the area. The sound is terrible, and there's no heating or ventilation. Place is filthy. Drinks are whatever cans the owner bought at the supermarket up the street (and marked up 10x). A glass of water (just from tap - not bottled) costs more than a beer in the nice clean pub next door.

British "grassroots Live Music Venues" business model is to make money from bands, not from audiences. Most aren't as bad as this place, but across the road is a regular pub that is pleasant (if unexciting) has good/cheep beer and food, puts bands cover bands on regularly and pays them well (from the bar take - no cover charge).

If I sound negative, then its directed towards the venues, and the business model. All bands (original or covers or "other") deserve better than "grassroots live music venues".

I think only the most naive of originals bands would view grassroots venues as any other than to, at best, break even while trying out songs and performance technique in front of an audience.

The most we’ve ever walked away with is £110 and a booking for a small festival that pays £200.
The latter is a chance to gain some fans & sell some merch.

If you want to make something approaching decent money form a function band.
If you want to maybe not lose money form a covers band.

 

[HolmeBass]

As a moderator, please could you tell me how I could start a poll asking if the contributors to this forum are writing about a covers band, functions band or originals band projects (to use three broad categories) when they post?

You need more categories in your poll. My two most successful bands I play with both play originals and covers, with very nearly a 50-50 split. One of them extensively re-arranges most of the covers it plays. We’ll favor one or the other depending on the gig/venue/crowd.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

I’m just trying to get a read on whether my impression of this forum’s make up is accurate.

I get the sense that the vast majority of post are about covers bands playing the bars/cover friendly festival circuit rather than people in originals bands trying to create a fanbase and playing the Live Music Venue, Small/Medium/Large Music Festival circuit (in the U.K. I guess that would look like Wildpaths/Latitude/Glastonbury for context of what I mean. I don’t know the American equivalent for Small or Medium but the equivalent for large would be like Burning Man or Lollapalooza).

Obviously both are equally valid I’m just trying to understand if the advice/experiences I’m reading here are substantially more from one camp than the other.

I don’t know if there’s a way of running a poll? (Mods?) but if not perhaps if people just sound off?

For my part, although I have played in covers bands in the past (punk covers, Mod covers, BritPop & Funk bands at various points) I’m now in an indierock/pop band writing, recording & releasing original material, playing small “Live Music Venues” & just starting to get booked into small regional festivals for next summer.

Primarily have played covers forever although the groups I've played with were not "tribute bands" which try to play every note exactly like the recording. Rather they use the identifiable bits that make the song recognizable but allow for some improvisation or perhaps personalization is a better word for it. Sometimes that's done by arrangement, sometimes by instrumentation, and sometimes by vocals including harmonies.

Back in the early 70's when I was touring with a nightclub group playing 5-nights a week, 50-weeks a year, for 3-years, we did work some original songs into the mix. We tried playing 1 per set and then playing 3 or 4 in one set (based on four 45-minute sets) and ended up hyping that set 3 would have some of our original material. But that's as close as that got. With another group, "The LA Smogg" in about 75 we recorded 3 original songs for ATCO (at their request) and although we had two good lead vocalists, the guy who wrote them sang them...big mistake...don't follow in my footsteps because I stepped in something.

I've never played strictly with an all originals band, although I did score an audition appointment with Loggins and Messina back in 1974. Their bass player was quitting and I managed to get an audition scheduled...and then the bass player didn't quit and my audition was cancelled. Would have been fun, but Originals-Only groups that actually make money seem few and very far between. Actually got asked to play with an originals group recently but then the vocalist/guitarist got Covid and before we could get back together the other guitarist and the drummer got other projects.

So still seems like the biggest market for groups is covers and original music venues are very hard nuts to crack. If you have the opportunity to play only your original music at venues, go for it!!