Guys Who Only Play Covers: What Happened?

[pklima]

Last time somebody asked me why my band doesn't write songs, I told him our singer did write one when she was 16 but she doesn't want to sing it anymore, our guitarist has some other band that writes songs, and my testosterone levels are too high. Really:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1938141
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1778236

He writes songs himself, but he got a good laugh out of that answer. It really is the best reason for not writing music ever.

 

[JimmyM]

I hate threads like this because it assumes that people playing in cover bands don't write songs. When I have a job that requires writing songs, I write them. When I have a job that requires playing covers, I play them. But the songs I write are not right for my cover band.

So there

 

[nemo]

There are a lot of guys on talkbass who only play covers and don't seem to have any interest whatsoever in making their own music. A lot of guys also seem to enter every discussion, whether it's about amps, strings, or basses, with the assumption that the intended use is to play covers.

So my question to you 'cover guys' is, what happened? At what point and why did you give up on making your own music?

I play in two cover bands and two original bands. Loving both. Luckily, the original bands are pulled forward by frontmen who put the energy in their vision.
As for me, I have no intention or ideals of "making it" in the showbiz, after like 25 years in bands.. and due to current situation in the industry. I am not 20 anymore
I like to create my own bass lines in original bands and play covers with MY feel, so it's always putting yourself into the final shape of the music your band play, covers or not. Nothing wrong with playing covers if you give people extraordinary experience and evoke positive emotions in them.

Original music is about setting yourself from the rest, expressing your viewpoint, gaining audience sharing the same views.

Covers are all about the good time for you and audience.

Both address different groups of people.
I would say the age is a factor here..

 

[Febs]

I must say that the level of reading comprehension displayed in this thread has been very disappointing. Half the people who replied didn't even understand the question.

That suggests a problem with the question, rather than the readers.

 

[duff beer]

So my question to you 'cover guys' is, what happened? At what point and why did you give up on making your own music?

Someone has already asked, but you didn't answer. Do you work for a living? If you work for someone else, at what point did you give up on being your own boss and working for yourself??

 

[Gr8tbass]

Have you heard the music of today? They're all covers with a different spin. At this point, everything has been covered.

Anyhow, with production tools and portable recorders, it's actually easier to come up with ideas and record them on the fly.

The bottom line is, music is music no matter of it's original or not

 

[Auguste]

The fact I doubt if I can come up with something as cool as Handy.

Thanks for posting !

 

[alaskaleftybass]

I haven't been in an original band since the 80s and don't miss it. Except back then the music standards were so much higher, I still loved playing the covers. Today's 'covers' I do in my big band act are Tony Bennett, Michael Buble, Harry Connick Jr. etc. who are playing covers of covers!

Playing an acoustic guitar and snivelling about how much life sucks and then fronting a band on said acoustic guitar as pretty boy/sniveller isn't original music. The majority of the "original" songs I hear on the radio are in the same 3 chords and are tired before the first chorus. Probably old 80's rock musicians playing all the real music in the background ... lol...
Some bands who started out with covers:


Billie Holiday
BB King
Elvis Presley
Beatles
Rolling Stones
Deep Purple
The Who
Led Zeppelin
John Mayer
Bob Dylan

Covers is what we cut our teeth on then give them our own spin.
Some of us never started out with any intent of playing originals, we played because we loved the music we heard.

Good luck, don't lose your vision, if you really are living this dream pay for it in blood sweat and tears.

 

[bluewine]

Nothing beats playing original music with your friends, even if it's only in the garage.

I think you mean nothing beats it for you.

Nothing beats playing covers to a packed club,full dance floor, glasses full and getting paid.

Oooops, I forgot to say to me.

Blue

 

[jerry]

It is possible to do both, make a little cash and fulfill your artistic needs.....just saying.

 

[bluewine]

It is possible to do both, make a little cash and fulfill your artistic needs.....just saying.

Agreed

"I fufill my artistic needs by playing covers to a packed club,full dance floor, glasses full and getting paid."

blue

 

[fdeck]

I want to keep participating because there are some very good, very well thought out responses here, and some with very good advice. However, there are a lot of posts by people who either haven't read the thread, misunderstand the premise of the thread, or are simply misinterpreting the original question. There are many assumptions being made here and I don't have the time or the will to address them all.

Then write more clearly in the first place, for instance by stating your opinion as an assertion, rather than implying it through a loaded question. Raising a divisive issue, and then chiding others for how they respond, is a form of trolling.

Let me explain my initial assumption this way:

I've never met a film student whose SOLE career goal was to do remakes of his favorite films. I've never met a sculptor, an illustrator, or a painter, whose SOLE ambition was to learn to recreate the masterpieces, without any desire to create original works. Based on that, and my consideration of music as an art form, I think it's a perfectly reasonable and valid assumption that people who pick up an instrument do it for artistic reasons, or is music not a form of art?

Many of you assert that you picked up the bass with no intention whatsoever of creating your own music, therefore my assumptions were wrong. I accept that. I personally know several violinists, saxophonists, and pianists who would never attempt to create something in a million years, but I hadn't thought about bassists in that sense before. Bass isn't an instrument you're forced to play at school. It's not an instrument you play because your parents pressure you to. People play bass out of their own enthusiasm. I know that music is an art form whose practitioners study and rehearse for years to improve and maintain their technique with no intention of creating original works, I just didn't believe that Bass Players would start out that way.

Well, it just shows to go that one can always learn something new. Perhaps music is unique, in that the interpretation of composed / arranged works, can be a career in its own right. I don't see anything about the electric bass that makes it unsuited to such a career.

Now, in an attempt to answer your question: There's no "because." My musical life has not been a series of rational choices directed towards achievement of any kind of purpose or goal. I'm driven by curiosity and opportunism. I started playing electric bass because the school jazz band needed a bassist.

As for those other instruments, I suggest exposing yourself to the joy of playing classical music on an instrument that is suited for it. At the very least, talk to some classical musicians. Your comments about being "forced" to play, and your proposed dichotomy between the electric bass and the violin, suggest that you harbor some residual misconceptions.

I fulfill my artistic needs by working a day job where I'm constantly engaged in original, creative activity. When I play music, it's just about playing music -- not "covers" but certainly not music that I have composed myself.

 

[pnut166]

I personally know several violinists, saxophonists, and pianists who would never attempt to create something in a million years, but I hadn't thought about bassists in that sense before.

For the record, I didn't say that, and I don't believe anyone else said that either.

I agree that you didn`t exactly make a generalization. But that statement can certainly be interpreted (maybe wrongly) as implied. Not trying to nitpick, though. So I`ll gladly bow out of this discussion. It`s obviously over my head.

 

[Pilgrim]

Many of you assert that you picked up the bass with no intention whatsoever of creating your own music, therefore my assumptions were wrong. I accept that. I personally know several violinists, saxophonists, and pianists who would never attempt to create something in a million years, but I hadn't thought about bassists in that sense before. Bass isn't an instrument you're forced to play at school. It's not an instrument you play because your parents pressure you to. People play bass out of their own enthusiasm. I know that music is an art form whose practitioners study and rehearse for years to improve and maintain their technique with no intention of creating original works, I just didn't believe that Bass Players would start out that way.

You are of course welcome to think whatever you want.

You are also free to be completely wrong.

1) I started playing violin in Junior High school and switched to bass. I'm 62 now.

2) I have no real desire to play the lead instrument.

3) I have no desire to write music. Never have.

The continuing assumption that YOUR view of how other bass players MUST approach music is the correct one has me shaking my head. It's simply wrong, and your continuing refusal to accept or understand the many differing views posted here is puzzling.

 

[JimmyM]

Ya, I have to agree with that last few posts. A little too much insecurity disguised as self-congratulations going on in the premise of this thread. People get into music playing for different reasons and they're all valid. But even people with minimal ability to play an instrument can write a song, so let's not pretend that the act of songwriting makes you an awesome person so much better than cover band players in and of itself.

 

[Febs]

This thread is a case study in cognitive bias.

 

[drummer5359]

I have a hard time believing that someone who decides to buy an electric bass and learn how to play it does so with the intention of only playing covers.

I can imagine people who want to play the violin, cello, even the piano, with no desire to make their own music, but electric bass guitar? I doubt it. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

There are a lot of guys on talkbass who only play covers and don't seem to have any interest whatsoever in making their own music. A lot of guys also seem to enter every discussion, whether it's about amps, strings, or basses, with the assumption that the intended use is to play covers.

So my question to you 'cover guys' is, what happened? At what point and why did you give up on making your own music?

"(Please correct me if I'm wrong.)"

Um... you are wrong.


My story is that when I was a child in the 1960s we had friends and neighbors who played in cover bands. These were adults, and it sure looked to me like they were having fun. They all had day jobs, but they unwound with their "side-job" as weekend warrior musicians. They got together during the week for practice and to hang out. I looked up to these guys.

One of the neighbors taught my brother his first three chords when he was about ten years old. Three years later when I was about ten He showed me the basics on drums and bass. He had seven children, only one was interested in music. He was my brother's age and played guitar bass and drums, in other words whatever was needed. When the band wasn't practicing, the father would jam with us. If he didn't want to, we would jam by ourselves.

Eventually my brother ended up joining a cover band in his mid teens. These guys were in their twenties. My brother played lead and had a blast. I gravitated more to drums,but always dabbled in bass just a bit. When I was 16 my brother's band needed a drummer. I filled in one night and ended up playing in bands with him on and off for more than thirty years.

They were always cover bands. Yes, we always did our best, but it was ALWAYS about having fun playing. All of us are in our fifties and sixties now. We all kept in touch, as a matter of fact I bought a bass off of our bassist last week. Everyone I've played with over all of these years had day jobs. For example in that original band the singer/frontman became a lawyer and later a judge. My brother has been a high school teacher all of these years. The bassist is a vice president of a bank. I was an executive at a truck rental company and retired three years ago at age fifty after suffering two strokes.

Since my retirement all I do is music. I had to learn to walk, talk, play the drums and bass after my strokes. Music was a huge part of my physical therapy. While I was at it I dove into hand percussion as well. I don't know what Id do if it wasn't for music.

It's always been a very important part of my life. But never during that time was it about "making it" as a musician. My day job was fulfilling and I did well finacially. I now free to play anytime I want. How cool is that? Music is fun. It always was and it always will be.

Oddly enough, one of the bands that I'm playing in does 50% originals and we have a CD out. It just happened.

But not everyone had the same dream as you. And I never considered playing covers as giving up.

 

[drummer5359]

Interesting thread.

The comparison of music to painting is a false one. Music is one of the performing arts, much closer to dance and theater than painting or sculpture, etc. There's a sharper distinction between the performance of a piece and the creation of one. Just as not every dancer wants to be a choreographer, and not every actor wants to be a writer or director, so too not every instrumentalist wants to be a composer. They are very different aspects of the art, but neither is more or less artistic.

Perfect.

 

[Munjibunga]

I want to play music people want to hear.

 

[boristhespider9]

A lot of defensiveness from guys playing in cover bands here. I understood the meaning of the OPs question and didn't think it was as malicious as you're making it out to be. Yea, we all know that cover bands generally get people on the dance floor (though I've been in plenty of original projects that have too) and usually get paid better. Yea, many of you have never desired to write your own music in your life. Interesting, I guess. (I do actually find that surprising.) But why all the defensiveness about playing covers? It almost seems like self-consciousness.

Also, all guys who play originals don't necessarily have dreams/delusions of "making it" either. They have day jobs too. They simply prefer to write their own music. Or they do both.

Personally, if I could have a bar filled and people rocking while playing original music (a hard thing to accomplish), I'd prefer that much more to having a bar filled and people rocking to only cover tunes (a much easier and less risky thing to accomplish). But, that's just me. YMMV.

Except for the guys who have played in cover bands all of their lives and never tried an original project, I think the best answer to the OP is the following (and maybe it has already been said above). The original music thing is both the most satisfying and frustrating road to take. It's extremely satisfying when you're in a great original project writing great music that you can be proud of and that people get into. It's also extremely frustrating because it's very hard to build a following, especially if you're not "in the van" touring. You end up begging many of the same people to come to show after show and even if you draw very well in your home city, the farther away you get, the less people know who you are. And the reality is, the pool of people who really go out and seek new music from local bands is small. The majority of people want to hear what they know already.

So as time progresses and the band members get older and other parts of life get more complicated (school, jobs, family), it becomes harder and harder to do the original music thing. And as many have mentioned above, there are plenty of gigs where you're playing to only a handful of people even if you're a great original band. As you get older, your friends and "fans" also have more commitments and aren't heading to the bars to see live music very often. It gets hard to justify the strain on the other parts of your life if you're playing to small crowds a high percentage of the time. All this eventually leads to frustration and discontentment and often to the first departure of a member of the band and then the slow (or rapid) disintegration.

So, then these players decide what to do next. Some stop playing in bands altogether, some may go onto other original projects, and many say -- "well, the original thing was great, but I'm at the point where I really just want to do this for pure fun which equals people up and dancing in packed bars." That, of course, almost always equals covers. Often, these players are in their early to mid-30s, or sometimes early 40s, and ready to just have fun on the cover scene.

And, yes, if you've been doing original music for a long time, playing in a cover band can sometimes make you cringe a bit, depending on your repertoire. Tunes you never thought you'd play because they were beaten to death somehow make it on your set list and you grin and bear it. Some guys may, at times, feel like they kind of sold out as a result. I suspect most get over it if the cover band is successful. Others may still keep the original flame burning on the side.

There's a whole thread here on TB about "Old Guys Playing Original Music" which is extremely interesting. It may give you a different perspective than what you've heard here. Many of those guys, unlike some of the posters here, couldn't imagine not playing original music no matter how old they get or even if they're in a cover band. Many of those posters share your innate desire to create original music and not just replicate others' works.

Anyway, before people go off, the progression I described above is just one example and does not apply to everyone obviously. I personally have just seen that cycle a number of times and it may actually answer, from one perspective, the OPs question.