June

Facing the Facts: Hard Lessons for a Young Cover Band

Posted In: Band Management, Career Building, Uncategorized by claybutlermusic

Christina and I are working with a talented but young band. They’ve got about an hour of original material with just a few covers under their belt, and they’re beginning to get some attention by doing local festival shows and “battle of the band” gigs. Since they get a strong response due to their theatrical live performance, they began to get approached by club owners wanting to book them. Obviously, we were all stoked at the idea of the band getting a “real, paying gig”. Then reality set in. Performing club gigs isn’t the same as typical “concert”. After some hard soul searching, we decided that we weren’t ready and that we should postpone our club debut. Here of some harsh realities the band had to come to terms with:

Length of the Gig
First of all, playing a clug gig requires knowing a lot of material. They were under the assumption that going to a club gig was like going to a typical concert-type gig, where the headliner plays a 90-minute set (at most). Jaws hit the floor when I explained that they would have to perform four hour-long sets, or about 40 songs total.

Under the Covers

Second, another shocker to the band was that clubs, generally speaking, shy away from bands that only play their original material. They usually prefer cover bands, for the simple fact that most patrons will know the songs. I told them they could perhaps get away with throwing in their material if they brought enough of their die-hard fans with them (more on this in a moment), but they would still need about 30-40 cover tunes to add to their arsenal. Being a hard rock/metal act, they initially thought that it would be difficult to play enough popular, or at least recognizable, material without having resort to Skynrd (we are in the South). But we quickly realized the value of taking great popular tunes of other genres and giving them a hard rock/metal spin. So far, it’s working out nicely, especially due to the shock value that a metal band is covering, say, a Journey song.

It’s Not About You
Finally, and perhaps the hardest reality they had to face, is that the gig isn’t at all about the band. It’s not about how cool the band is. It’s not about the band’s cool music. It’s about one thing to a club owner: can they make the club money? I had to inform them that the owner’s main concern is that you fill their club and sell a lot of drinks in order to make them a profit for the night. If you can’t do that, rest assured you won’t be playing there again. The same holds true, especially when the band “plays for the door”. If the band makes money solely off of the cover charge, it would greatly behoove them to bring in a couple hundred people!

I remember when I had to face these realities in my younger days, so I could empathize with them on the thrill of being approached by a club, immediately crushed by having to turn down the gig. But, in the long run, it’s far better to be prepared for a gig than to have the wrong expectation going in, thus blowing the gig, and ruining your reputation as a band. I’ve been there too.

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