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IS your band a cover?

Are you in a cover namd or original?

  • Cover band

    Votes: 172 63.0%

  • Original

    Votes: 101 37.0%
  • Total voters
    273
#61
OP, you forgot three options no less. The poll should go like this:

- All covers
- Covers with some originals
- Both (almost) equally
- Originals with some covers
-All originals

I chose "cover band" but I'd fall in the second category, 'cause my band's trying to nail a few originals but most of our practice is playing covers.
 
#62
I primarily play cover tunes in the band I'm in now, although we do write a few. I've tried my hand at writing, haven't really found a niche or been able to write much on my own, but I can and have collaborated with others. Lyrics, forget it. I can lay claim to having written all of the music for one tune, way back in 1980, that developed from a riff that I ran across while running my bass through a flanger. The tune was recorded, and I have one of the few copies of the recording, which went exactly nowhere.

I get a lot of enjoyment out of playing covers, and always manage to add my own little twist to the bass line. We like to combine songs, too, and develop little medleys. It keeps things interesting, and takes things to interesting places. We also like to do songs that cover bands don't ordinarily do, just to stand apart a little from the crowd. And, we purposely avoid songs that have been played to death by every other band, like anything by Lynyrd Skynyrd, or Bob Seger.

Link Removed
 
#65
I play covers at the moment, but try to stay away from classic rock, because it is everywhere. We play alot of dance, like Black Eye Peas, MJ, Flo Rida, and alot of 80's dance hits, and the booties do shake. We still do the standards, but only when requested.

As for originals, I am really into extreme heavy stuff like djent (meshuggah, periphery, tesseract) I find it helps to have a wide range of playing styles.
 
#66
chubfarm2001 said:
I play covers at the moment, but try to stay away from classic rock, because it is everywhere. We play alot of dance, like Black Eye Peas, MJ, Flo Rida, and alot of 80's dance hits, and the booties do shake. We still do the standards, but only when requested.

As for originals, I am really into extreme heavy stuff like djent (meshuggah, periphery, tesseract) I find it helps to have a wide range of playing styles.
Click to expand...

Thats a good idea, I wish we could play some dance music, we are only a 3 piece and i think we would need at least a keyboard player for some of the good stuff!
 
#67
I like a 50/50 split. You have to be versatile. We can play a Class of '75 reunion and keep em happy or we can play an hour set in a lineup of bands playing original music for a bunch of other musicians and get our props. Its all about multiplicity.

To the OP, you should have put 50/50 as a choice in your poll. I bet theres a lot of us out there.
 
#72
nojj said:
Join Date............

Might want to get ragged on about starting a new thread when there are so many threads extant about the covers vs originals thing.:D
Click to expand...

Its not just this one, Ive seen probably 5 or 6 of them today. Are they all necro'd by the same person? I guess thats a fair reasoning if they indeed are...

*edit, after looking at a few, it seems they might be.
 
#75
Hi,

Cover band. Mostly current modern country, with classic country, classic rock, pop, and a little hip hop thrown in the mix for the dance venues we play. From Lady Antebellum to Lady Gaga, from Johnny Cash to KE$HA, from Barbara Mandrell to Adele, Journey, Michael Jackson, ABBA, Flo Rida, Eric Church, Zac Brown, Band Perry, Little Big Town, etc.

http://www.kellyraeband.com/

Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff
 
#76
Originals. No knock on cover bands -- the level of musicianship in the average cover band I've seen live is easily higher than the average originals band -- but I have 0% interest in playing in one myself. Songwriting, bassline-writing, and recording is as much or more important than live playing among the reasons why I play.
 
#78
carlthegroover said:
OP, you forgot three options no less. The poll should go like this:

- All covers
- Covers with some originals
- Both (almost) equally
- Originals with some covers
-All originals

I chose "cover band" but I'd fall in the second category, 'cause my band's trying to nail a few originals but most of our practice is playing covers.
Click to expand...
See, in my view, from a gainful employment standpoint, there are really only two categories. Do you play any originals, or do you play no originals.

Because the second the bar manager hears you play a song he doesn't know, and he notices his customers losing interest or leaving, you become an original band fully responsible for your own draw.
 
#80
I just recently quit my covers band, because my originals band is getting more and better gigs, and I no longer have time to do the covers thing justice.

Until a few years ago, I'd never done more than the odd cover (as part of an originals set) in front of an audience. When I started playing music all my favourite bands wrote their own songs, and it never even occurred to me (or the other members of my first band) that we should begin by playing covers. We weren't very good at writing in at first, but it didn't matter because we were young and didn't gig. By the time I joined my next band that did gig I had 5 years of songwriting experience and by then had learnt how create interesting and memorable music.

I got into the covers band mostly by accident. One of the guitarists is an old friend of mine, and their bass player leaving co-incided with me being between bands, so I thought I'd give it a go. It was mostly the songs from my youth that were responsible for turning me on to playing music in the first place and so it should have been great fun...

And playing the music was. However the band politics were as awful as the most dysfunctional originals band I've ever been in. Also they had little idea of stage-craft and couldn't see why they should learn some. Plus I couldn't help but think that the majority of the audiences who came to see us would have been better served by a well-stocked video juke box. I went and checked out the local competition when I first joined and TBH the at best the other bands would give me a hankering to go home and listen to the originals of the songs they were covering but nothing more.

At the same time I lucked into my Link Removed. And it's a blast! It might not be as musically sophisticated as some the covers, but it's much more fun. And by now 3 years on the audiences are getting bigger and far more enthusiastic than any my covers band attracted. For the last 2 years we've been doing mostly paying gigs. Right now they don't pay quite as much as the covers gigs, but we do lots more, so overall after expenses the money is slightly better than I was getting playing covers, and the gig fees we command are getting higher all the time. There is most definitely money available to originals bands. However you have to work hard, ask for it, be worth it, and be prepared to travel to get it.

The common reason I hear from other musicians for playing covers is that they think that originals bands don't have any decent songs - because they don't know how to write them - and that audiences want to hear something they know. Well IME that's mostly bollocks! Song writing is a skill that can be learnt just like the ability to play an instrument. Apart from one or two freaky prodigies I doubt anyone here had great chops the first time they picked up the bass. It's the same with writing songs. You have to learn how to do it and compose some fairly crap ones so that you can figure out how to compose something memorable.

Also IME audiences don't really care what you play so long as you are entertaining. They just want to have a good time. Playing songs that they know works, but it's not the only route to keeping them interested and in the venue. All those well-known songs were new at some point and many of them were also first being performed by bands that were unknown. It's all about the performance and being entertaining. Again IME an entertaining band playing unfamiliar material does better than one that just relies on the familiarity of the songs to pull the audience in.

I doubt I'll ever be playing covers again. It was interesting to do for the experience, but for me ultimately it will never be as satisfying as seeing people up and enjoying my band playing music that we've created ourselves.
 

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