JW and Kramer...
There is nothing wrong with cover bands.
There is nothing wrong with original bands.
Either one often involves some percentage of both.
Many cover bands will throw in a few originals.
Many original bands will do a few covers.
What is required is deciding what you want out of music.
While there are more venues that are covers venues (because there are lots of small bars where people can play) There are also venues where you will hear almost nothing but originals.
There is no limitations on musicians either. You can always find musicians that are used to being in cover bands and know plenty of covers, and you can always find guys that want to be part of original bands, where they get to create their parts or use their own songs.
There are pros and cons to both, and you just have to decide where you are going with music, and what you want out of it.
COVER BANDS:
PROS: It is easier to get paying gigs as an unknown cover band. People don't have to "learn" your music. They are singing along right away. Covers are easier to learn faster, and there is no shortage of cover songs.
CONS: There is no creativity involved in doing covers. For creative tyoes, this is not very satisfying. You are basically a jukebox, and people are screaming for other people's music, and requesting other people's music.
ORIGINAL BANDS:
PROS: If you believe in your music and creativity, this is the only way to go. Cover bands will always be cover bands. Original bands playing their own music have a shot at success, as far as making it, or even just having your stuff played on local radio stations. When people scream for you, they are screaming for YOUR music, not because they recognize the first four bars of Freebird. Playing originals is the only thing that allows a band to develop their own sound. By default, being a cover band forces you to sound like other bands.
CONS: You will be poor for awhile. A club doesn't care what you play, in all honesty. All that is required to get paid, is to prove that you are a consistent draw, bringing paying customers into the bar every time you play. There is a growing period involved in this, as you build a fan base large enough, that you know when you play, 50 to 100 people will come to see you (in addition to their regular clientelle) and give the bar a good revenue that night.
As far as playing primarily originals being a cop-out, that is a bunch of bullsh*t! Cover bands can learn 10 new songs a week maybe, cause chances are many of the guys in the band have played them at some time or another or at least are already familiar with the songs, and you are merely mimicking a song and arrangement that has already been written. That is FAR EASIER than actually writing the material yourself, creating the arrangement, and the band developing their own parts. It requires crafting and lots of work to create "good" songs from scratch.
Of course, if your musicians suck, that is another story. But if your musicians suck you have no business playing out yet, whether covers or originals. Practice some more, and play your friend's parties in the meantime.
My band is an originals oriented band, where we do maybe 90% originals to 10% covers. Some covers we do as if the radio is playing them, but it is more fun for us, when doing covers, to tweak them or put our own spin on them. We do an old Christopher Cross song "Ride Like The Wind" for example, that rocks out. That song always sounded like it was written more as a rocking song anyway, so we do it that way. Keeping the essence of the song, so that everyone recognizes it, but we rock the hell out of it. I think our version is better.
We're also doing a "Mischiefied" version of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" , at our next gig, where we do a similar thing. It's got the funky clav-toned bass line underneath as the meat of the song, just like the original, but since we don't have wind instruments in the band, the choice is to play them on keys, or for us, better yet, to play them on wailing guitars, with some mischievous lead guitar solos.
But we also do Journey's "Fathfully" and Motley Crue's "Home Sweet Home" and Nickelback's "If Everyone Cared" and other songs, that sound pretty much like the records.
Some songs just shouldn't be screwed with, cause you will not always improve on the original.
