JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Your thoughts on tribute bands

LOL Jim! Hayseed Dixie is GREAT! I heard them do "Walk This Way" by Aerosmith in a fast, bluegrass style, lead guitar replaced with violin and banjo...coolest thing ever! The phrasing, everything.

Everyone, whether they do originals now or not, started out doing covers. That's the only way to get really good at what you do. Everyone had an influence. The thing about playing all originals is, unless they're all REALLY GOOD, people get bored in about 10 seconds...hence the huge demand for cover bands. People like to hear good covers of good songs versus mediocre originals that they're not familiar with. Another reason Joe Public prefers cover bands, is because hearing a certain song might bring about a happy feeling or memory that sets a positive mood. That's why I love covering Zeppelin and why people love hearing it. Ever since I heard my first Zeppelin song, I knew I wanted to be a female version of Robert Plant. I'm really good at what I do, and it makes me happy because the music reminds me of a great time in my life.

I've performed a few originals. Only one of them ever got a noticable reaction from the audience. The rest were tolerated. There IS a rush you feel performing originals, especially when they're good, but unless you're a top notch writer and can perform the material in a top notch fashion, your audience will most likely get bored pretty quickly. That's why out of tens of thousands of songwriters/performers only a chosen few make it. You can't just be a good writer, or just be a good performer, you have to have the whole package.

Here in Cincinnati, there are a few good original bands, but a lot of them are mediocre and their songs are easily forgetable (with the exception of our Bob Cushing...HE ROCKS!) Clubs that book original bands book four or five of them a night. The bands play for free, and only friends and family come to see them, in comparison with cover bands, who are alone on the bill, and make a minimum of $100 per person in the band. Why? Because if they're good, they have a big draw outside of friends and family, and the club owner can count on them to make money.

My band tried to pick "B" side covers that were really good songs that got less airplay. My guitar player likes to think of our band as "brain food". We're not a band you'd dance to, we're more one you'd watch for the guitar leads, tricky bass parts, and vocals. I would hope we'd be considered a "musician's band". But performing the songs we've chosen, and doing them well, is in and of itself a talent, because they're not easy. There is a personal satisfaction in doing that.