What's So Good About Being A Cover Band?

Cover song singer illustration (Pixabay)

JAKARTA - This question may appear 'flashy' in the minds of some people when watching Indonesian bands perform songs belonging to their idols on stage. Without looking at a case from various sides, they may think that these bands are less creative and do not have their own work. In fact, not necessarily. All depends on the situation and conditions that occur.

From a business perspective, for a cafe / Top 40 band, performing people's songs is an obligation that is 'really good' and profitable. This was revealed by Randy, guitarist for classic rock band, Le-Montea, some time ago.

"For now, [bringing other people's songs] thank God is very helpful in terms of the economy. And as a guitarist, I also get the satisfaction of performing classic rock songs because of the difficulty level of the song itself. The more so we have to play with soul, "he said.

Mahareza Muzanto, a former drummer for The Miracle, has also expressed the same thing about the reason his former band performed songs belonging to the world's progressive metal leader, Dream Theater.

"Actually, it ends in business. If a band wants to exist or not, there must be a job. Well, metal jobs are rare, once one is cheap. Therefore, as a metal band we have to be able to maintain prices, ”he said.

In addition, for a new band whose name has yet to be heard, slipping in a popular song can also be a magnet instead of constantly performing their own song that is unknown to the audience.

"We also have to know the conditions. Because at one Dream Theater Nite event, we performed our own songs. There are some who are enthusiastic, but not a few who don't react because they don't know [the song], "continued Reza, Mahareza's greeting.

However, the assumption that if people sing songs too often will hinder the creative idea of a band is also true. When working on their first album, Them (let him make his choice…) in 2008, Reza et al admitted that even though they tried not to listen to Dream Theater's songs, in the end they were considered similar.

"We have received offers to perform Dream Theater songs from 2007, we ourselves played Dream Theater songs from 2001. Until finally there was an offer from a label to make an album. When we were trying to make an album, we were quarantined and didn't listen to [songs] Dream Theater, but we listened to songs like Breaking Benjamin. In fact, if [keyboardist] Yessy plays like Dream Theater's song, we throw it away and replace it. But still people say song A has Dream Theater, song B has Dream Theater… ”Reza said again.

This is similar - even worse - experienced by another cover version band, Oracle, which often performs Metallica songs in every stage. Due to the frequent performances of James Hetfield cs's songs, they were confused when they performed their own songs.

"For the Metallica song we have memorized several albums, so take it easy. But if we play our own songs sometimes we forget where we entered ourselves, ”said guitarist Jimmy, chuckling. Oracle has released four full albums so far.

If you have this, what can you do? One of the best possible choices is that every musician should have two bands with different line-up arrangements. One is the band's cover version as a field to earn a fortune. Another, the band recording as a field to release all their musical ideas.

Because if you have a different partner, usually this partner will 'put the brakes' on the desire of one of the personnel so as not to be too wild in exploring. Especially if these personnel have been heavily contaminated with music and idol games. What do you think?