When it comes right down to it, there's only two kinds of music to play - - your music and other people's. I play both!

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Lets see some examples of big acts (and I mean international) who didn't start out doing covers.

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No no and no

And who cares? I'm sure there were and are. And with today's technology and the internet, it's even a little easier. Even Segovia did covers. The chances of being a big national act are pretty slim. Being a local original musician and paying the bills is a bigger possibility. If you want to play originals what's the problem. I know lots of people who make a living at playing original music. Are they national acts, nope, but some live a little better than I do and there just local Philly bands.

We all learned but playing covers whether it's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Eruption. It's a learning process. I usually don't go to clubs to see cover bands. I want something new, fresh and original. I know musicians who have been in cover band for 30 years and are bored to death and they look it when they perform. They may as well just stayed playing in their bedrooms.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

When I formed my current band (the Screamin' Armadillos), I had just left a band that did 90% covers. Not only was I bored to tears, so was the audience (outside of the ten very loud sychophants of the leader of the group).

When we started putting together a set list (consisting of 35-40 songs, meaning to play four sets a night), I wrote down all the cover songs that I enjoyed playing that the audience seemed to respond well to...and that got me 15 songs...of those 15, eight were obscure songs that only someone very old or very well-versed in Texas and/or blues music would be familiar with, so we had seven easily recognizable covers.

So we went into playing gigs with 33 songs that were either original or so obscure that the audience thought they were original...and we put our own stamp on the 7 easily recognizable covers.

Everybody else in my new band was sick of playing covers, too, so they were eager to try my experiment. I'm not so arrogant to think that all my/our originals were accepted whole-heartedly, and some of them were dropped from the list in favor of a song that the audience responded favorably to. As I wrote new songs, we would drop the less popular (with our audience) songs...but not all of the covers worked, either.

Also, after we cut our first disc (all originals), some people were able to become familiar with more of our originals and started requesting those songs. We have two more discs in the can and expect to have them pressed/released early next year.

Having said that, I was playing for an audience that was accepting of anything that was good--so if a song worked, it worked...if it didn't, we didn't force it down their throats. We play a form of music called Texas Roadhouse (combine blues + classic rock + outlaw country in uneven portions, and you get Texas Roadhouse...someone described us as ZZ Top and the Fabulous Thunderbirds playing with Waylon Jennings), and there are a goodly number of musicians and songwriters in our normal audience, so they appreciate original music. We would not work for a crowd expecting to hear pop or dance music (even though you can dance to our music).

One young guy in our audience was so inspired he immediately broke away from his band and formed a group that plays 95% originals. His style is nothing like mine (he's more into bands like At The Drive In, Pixies, Fleet Foxes and stuff like that), but he told me that it was cool to listen to an entire gig and not say, "Oh, THAT song again..." We trade music; I give him old stuff and he gives me new stuff--not everything has been great or even good, but it's expanded both of our musical horizons.

So my idea is this--play to your audience, don't be too precious with your originals if they don't work live, and enjoy yourself...your audience will pick up on your enthusiasm and it just might work...it did for us.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

REM
The B-52's
Johnny Cash
the Arc Angels
Storyville
Joe Ely


Roy Orbison (as a solo act, he rarely did covers, but he didn't write everything he recorded)

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

And those people at no point in their career's played covers?

I really doubt that.

Supro the point is that you cannot develop a following without first making a point of contact with a audience.

How do you do that?

Only have friends and girlfriends come and see you? Not at all satisfying.

Play covers on your first gigs then mix the ratio of covers to originals as you become more established? Thats how any band that has ever enjoyed any degree of success started.

To completely boycott covers because of some false sense of honour is nothing more than stupid and self defeating.

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No no and no

You don't need to do covers to get a following. We didn't have wives and girlfriends even come to the shows. They had things to do. I guess it may be a bit different where I live. Big cities offer wider variety. There are tons of original bands. I've been playing for over 40 years and a lot of it was in original bands, some better than others till I just got tired and family obligations took over. I made money just doing sessions for other original bands as well. More often than not the songs did better than the bands did. The Hooters were a huge Philly band that I never saw do covers but had decent commercial success. Cyndi Lauper covered "Time After Time", Robert Hazzard also had commercial success in the Phila area. Philadelphia is a serious music and arts town.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

i play songs i like to listen to. my original music sucks. period. my favorite thing to do is play 80's metal in a country format and vice versa.
don't get me wrong, i still record riffs and always will. i just lack the talent to put it together and make it sound good.

i recently heard 5 finger death punch cover a bad co. tune. i freakin' loved it. i could make a long list of my favorites.

Come on man,Johnny Cash didn't do covers?
I know for a fact he did and will just name one song,written by a friend of mine,Billy Ray Reynolds,"It Will Be Her,Loving Me".......
Billy Ray told me at one time the song had been covered by 22 artists.
And Johnny sang it as his new single on one of the big awards shows in the 70's,and he was a very established artist then.....
okay,one more,"Sunday Morning Coming Down",by Kristofferson.

It is a business after all !!!

Your job in a band is to bring in clients to the venue, failing to do so will in most instances not get you booked again, however the audience wants to hear familiarity, yet at the same time they require that the song sounds fresh.
That is a tight rope for any band.

Where do you draw the line in injecting your own (the band's) personality to the tune where it is instantly recognizable to an audience but does not become so jaded a performance that proceeding becomes pointless.

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

I guess a better way of saying it would be "these artists played more original stuff than covers, even in their early days"...I don't know of a single artist (even one who is well-established) who has never playued covers. I thought you meant who wasn't a 'cover band' per se.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Yeah exactly I dunno about playing in just one place, but when your four hundred miles from home, or on foreign shores. You need to make contact with your audience. Covers are a ideal way of doing that, just the same as it is for a new band or artist. Not that you should stay doing those, their a tool there to be used. If you refuse to ever use that tool simply on principle you're not objective enough to operate in a band.


Good enough for Lennon, Mcartney and the Stones, good enough for me. Where would the precious blues genre be now without covers? Would led zeplin still have 3/4 of their catalogue if covers had never been invented?

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No no and no

Here are two bands I have seen in concert who aren't above throwing in the occasional cover:

Queen - "The Immigrant Song"

Jethro Tull - "Kashmir"

Both are Led Zep songs, curiously enough. But the point is this: if they can do covers, it can't be all bad.

Oh, and don't forget the greatest cover band of all time: The Beatles - "Twist and Shout"

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

johnny cash did a ton of covers. i dont know about how he started but he barely wrote any of his songs. i love johhny cash but he wasnt really a songwriter, but his covers are some of my favorite songs: desperado(eagles) in my life(the beatles) hurt (nine inch nails) and the list continues

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I like my tone like my women. Full round bottom, sweet and clean but can get as dirty as I desire.

Audience aside, bands need to start with covers so they can learn each other. With originals, people tend to play things differently. With a song that's been established, you have a concrete example that all band members can relate to and allow themselves to get a feel for one another.

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#EndMonsanto