How much compromise / is it worth it? (band questions)

PVO_Dave

I joined a covers band earlier in the year, around May time, they played some songs I already knew, audition went well and I was happy enough to make a start on some of the others they had in the list, but had my doubts around some of the more 'obscure' song choices.

I mentioned a couple of times that I wasn't convinced by some of the choices and suggested a few songs which we added in, but some of the odd songs remained on the 'to learn' pile. 

The songs in question aren't just not my taste, but they are pretty much unknown songs, for me the whole point of a covers band is to play songs people want to hear, not songs I or anyone else in the band has a liking to (entertain, not educate). It came to a bit of a head for me, so I voiced this to the band and was also honest that I had no real interest in learning the original songs they have (I've been in an originals band, done my time ). This wasn't all that popular, I was told that 'this is what we've always done' 'we try to not play the most popular songs' etc.. I get not wanting to be the same as every other band, but if you're not playing a bands #1 hit, at least play one that got in the top 10

We had a band evening to try and straighten this out, where we met at the bass players house (a friend of mine that I introduced to the band!) where we talked about new song ideas etc.. I found it incredibly frustrating, 'we' rejected songs, because certain members of the band don't like the band or the singers voice (Oasis was a good example, not my favorite either, but we will be playing in pubs ffs!)

Anyway, I'm now in the position where my wife and I have just had our first baby and I'm struggling to find any motivation at all to prize myself away from my family to go and learn sub par songs, let alone spend hours practicing them with a group and play them to punters. I know about 80% of the tunes in the set (most of which I'm fine with) it's just the dross left over.

Do any of you guys put up with this kind of thing? 

I think I already know what I need to do, given that my heart just isn't in it, the newborn has put what's important into perspective a little too.. The only thing I'm not sure about, is offering to play the gig they have in September, which will either require me to learn the crap songs, or give them the option of trying some of the new numbers suggested that I already know, as practicing them will be a lot easier / quicker than learning a lot of new ones.

Thoughts welcome.

Danny1969

To be honest your generally struggle to get a decent earn playing obscure covers. It might be cool and all but IME your please 10% of punters and piss off the other 90

not_the_dj

I've played in covers bands for years, and been down the "let's try to put some more interesting, not the obvious ones in the set". We've tried, but most die on their arse in front of a pub crowd and get dropped pretty quickly. It soon becomes obvious which tracks send people to the bar and which bring them to the dance floor.

The trick is to find songs that people know, but not songs that every other band plays!....but still mix in the well known crowd pleasers.

Playing in a covers band should either be fun, or pay well....that's it for me.

Can you give examples of the songs they're looking to play?

lustycourtier

What songs? Some we do Ive never heard of but go down a storm at every gig

RocknRollDave

The proof is in the pudding. As @not_the_dj says, obscure songs die on their arse in front of your general pub audience (same goes for wedding guests)..
Your bandmates will soon get fed up of playing songs that don't go down well - I'd say stick with the songs, play them live and THEN you will have a persuasive argument against playing them again.
Either that or the songs will go down well and you can keep them in the set.

There's always songs that go down surprisingly well or surprisingly badly..it's just a case of trial and error.
Prior to joining my current band I never in a million years would have anticipated the reaction that Mr Brightside always gets (and that seems to be echoed by every other band that plays it) but we once played Angels by Robbie Williams and didn't get past the first line as we had cleared the room...  

PVO_Dave

I feel I might have over egged this now, as there are less than I remember, but these are the ones I currently take issue with:

In These Arms – Bon Jovi

Raise Your Glass - Pink

My Life Would Suck Without You – Kelly Clarkson

Beer – Reel Big Fish

Appreciate that 3 of them might not be that obscure, I got the worst offenders on that front removed (one was a song that was only known for being played in Grey Anatomy!) 

The Jovi one for example, as much as I hate Bon Jovi's music, we do 'You give love a bad name' which I'm fine with, surely if I *have* to learn another tune of his, it should be a classic like living on a prayer? If I was drunk in a pub that's what I'd want, not a second rate ballad. 

Pink is terrible full stop, but surely one of her other "I hate my partner, look how tough I am" tracks might be more well known?

Clarkson, again, pick the one even people like me has heard of.

I almost feel a bit unreasonable now, as there aren't many left, it might just be that I've built this up too much. I guess I just want to play songs people will sing along to, not tap their feet along with.

RocknRollDave

A pub full of drunken revellers...and a song called Raise Your Glass... Could work quite well, IMO!

PVO_Dave

RocknRollDave said:

A pub full of drunken revellers...and a song called Raise Your Glass... Could work quite well, IMO!

You'd have thought with that logic, Cigarettes and Alcohol would be a good choice... 

not_the_dj

Cigarettes and Alcohol never fails round here. I'm not a big Oasis fan, but it is a great song to play live to a packed pub.

I'm guessing that's one the others in the band don't want play?

They will after the nth time some punter comes up and says "do you do any Oasis"

mike_l

Or, if your band *must* do a Pink track, Get the party started would be an obvious choice, and probably quite apt for a pub band....

 

Even big name bands tend to not play their own more obscure tracks.

RocknRollDave

PVO_Dave said:

RocknRollDave said:

A pub full of drunken revellers...and a song called Raise Your Glass... Could work quite well, IMO!

You'd have thought with that logic, Cigarettes and Alcohol would be a good choice... 

Erm...yes. I would, and I do!

John_P

When I've been in that position, that someone in the band really wants to do a song then I'm happy to compromise and try it at a couple of gigs - if the danceflorr clears then that makes the point and you can suggest dropping it.  So long as it farily catchy and upbeat then mixed in with a set of surefire hits it might be ok.   There's definitely been a few times I've been surprised that a song I thought wasn't a big enough hit goes down really well.      Generally though, I just want everyone having a good time and that means playing classic hits.

PVO_Dave

not_the_dj said:

Cigarettes and Alcohol never fails round here. I'm not a big Oasis fan, but it is a great song to play live to a packed pub.

I'm guessing that's one the others in the band don't want play?

They will after the nth time some punter comes up and says "do you do any Oasis"

Yep - Not Oasis fans and don't like his voice. I too think Liam is a tool, but not really sure that's important - Don't forget they've been doing it this way for a while and haven't changed!

mike_l said:

Or, if your band *must* do a Pink track, Get the party started would be an obvious choice, and probably quite apt for a pub band....

 

Even big name bands tend to not play their own more obscure tracks.

This is kind of my point really, not really sure there's anything cool about a covers band playing lesser known hits. I know some great tracks that I love, wouldn't want to try them at a gig though!

RocknRollDave said:

PVO_Dave said:

RocknRollDave said:

A pub full of drunken revellers...and a song called Raise Your Glass... Could work quite well, IMO!

You'd have thought with that logic, Cigarettes and Alcohol would be a good choice... 

Erm...yes. I would, and I do!

Me too Dave, me too.

John_P said:

When I've been in that position, that someone in the band really wants to do a song then I'm happy to compromise and try it at a couple of gigs - if the danceflorr clears then that makes the point and you can suggest dropping it.  So long as it farily catchy and upbeat then mixed in with a set of surefire hits it might be ok.   There's definitely been a few times I've been surprised that a song I thought wasn't a big enough hit goes down really well.      Generally though, I just want everyone having a good time and that means playing classic hits.

I'm fine with some compromise, most of the tracks we do are a compromise for me, but I surprised myself with what a great rendition of a Lady Gaga track we do :S

RocknRollDave

mike_l said:

Even big name bands tend to not play their own more obscure tracks.

This is true..I've seen famous bands try to introduce deeper cuts from their back catalogue with varying degrees of fail.

Also, take Metallica - currently on a "by request.." style tour where fans vote for songs they want to hear. Yes it has thrown up the odd curiosity but Lars went through the statistics of it and they actually ended up playing FEWER songs than usual throughout the tour. The fans who voted just picked the usual suspects (seriously, who the f*** voted for Enter Sandman ?!)

EricTheWeary

I like Reel Big Fish, I'd clap.

I go back and forth on this. As a punter I like hearing something different, but that might put me in a minority.

As a player - what is the point of the band ? Earn money playing to as many folk as possible? Play well known stuff, that's the job, your band mates are wrong. Get yer rocks off playing what you enjoy to a select group of like minded souls? Then play what you like playing.
The problem is it is very hard to be both these things and if you have band members who don't understand that you're stuffed.

PVO_Dave

EricTheWeary said:

I like Reel Big Fish, I'd clap.

I go back and forth on this. As a punter I like hearing something different, but that might put me in a minority.

As a player - what is the point of the band ? Earn money playing to as many folk as possible? Play well known stuff, that's the job, your band mates are wrong. Get yer rocks off playing what you enjoy to a select group of like minded souls? Then play what you like playing.
The problem is it is very hard to be both these things and if you have band members who don't understand that you're stuffed.

I can not stand the Reel Big Fish one, not only is it pretty much unknown, it's terrible lol

The money thing is less important to me than having a good time playing songs people want to hear.

mike_l

RocknRollDave said:

mike_l said:

Even big name bands tend to not play their own more obscure tracks.

This is true..I've seen famous bands try to introduce deeper cuts from their back catalogue with varying degrees of fail.

 (seriously, who the f*** voted for Enter Sandman ?!)

Exactly my point, I mean when was the last time Maiden played "Invaders" or  "To Tame a land" or "Prodigal son" live?

And I voted for Sandman, knowing I wasn't going to see them this time round....

Danny1969

TBH In these arms by Jovi is a common one, it's in 2 of by bands list. Goes down well  .....just  not as well as Living on a prayer

There's soooo many songs you could do though that reaching agreement shouldn't be impossible 

stickyfiddle

My last lot had a buch of obscure stuff when I joined.

"You Overdid It, Doll" by whichever bland indie band did it. Not a terrible song but the set fell on its arse every time we played it. Got dumped after a few outings.

It's all very well trying to play things outside the "usual" covers but only if it works with a crowd.

Things like Jesse's Girl or Charmless Man are a bit rarer in covers sets but always work.

PolarityMan

I think this sounds like a clash of goals here. The fact the band are doing originals and more obscure covers really makes me thing that they have a different set of priorities.

Personally I'm more on the side of your band mates. My originals band is a hobby that will never make as much as my day job so when we play covers it's going to damn well be the covers we enjoy playing. We only do the covers to get more exposure for our originals anyway.

Other people don't care about the songs so much and just want the vibe from the crowd when you play really popular material. I think in the long term they are probably not compatible outlooks(barring side projects etc).

PVO_Dave

Danny1969 said:

TBH In these arms by Jovi is a common one, it's in 2 of by bands list. Goes down well  .....just  not as well as Living on a prayer

There's soooo many songs you could do though that reaching agreement shouldn't be impossible 

It's one hell of a dull tune, but if it works it works I guess. I've listened to it a handful of times from YouTube, but it's fairly forgettable. I'm sure there will be a tonne of tunes we could agree on, but just feels like a bit of a battle to get them to think about it from the audience point of view.

stickyfiddle said:

My last lot had a buch of obscure stuff when I joined.

"You Overdid It, Doll" by whichever bland indie band did it. Not a terrible song but the set fell on its arse every time we played it. Got dumped after a few outings.

It's all very well trying to play things outside the "usual" covers but only if it works with a crowd.

Things like Jesse's Girl or Charmless Man are a bit rarer in covers sets but always work.

Both of the below covers I could imagine working really well, that's kinda what I think about when people say that they don't just want to play the usual tracks

PolarityMan said:

I think this sounds like a clash of goals here. The fact the band are doing originals and more obscure covers really makes me thing that they have a different set of priorities.

Personally I'm more on the side of your band mates. My originals band is a hobby that will never make as much as my day job so when we play covers it's going to damn well be the covers we enjoy playing. We only do the covers to get more exposure for our originals anyway.

Other people don't care about the songs so much and just want the vibe from the crowd when you play really popular material. I think in the long term they are probably not compatible outlooks(barring side projects etc).

I'd be inclined to agree with you, IF they actually knew what they wanted (as a group). From what I can gather from talking to them individually, the male singer / rhythm guitarist is the only one bothered about the originals, because he wrote them, I know the female singer isn't interested in playing them as it alienates the crowd a bit (the songs are nice enough, but they don't fit with the covers and no one knows them).

Their goal is to also play 'better' venues than just pubs, so more of a function band type thing, working mens clubs etc.. which I really don't think will work with the slightly odder songs and definitely not the originals.