Why cover songs exist, and how to play them

When you start or join a band, one thing you need to define right on is whether or not the band is open to playing other people's pre-existing material. And if you are, you also need to establish what kind of mindset you'll have when playing covers.

Some bands make a specialty of covering songs note-for-note with technical precision. Hey, not exactly my thing, but some people get off on that, and more power to them.

Some bands play covers but add their own twist and develop their own sound. This approach was used by Cream, I think, and the Usual Suspects today. That's great; you want to put your own stamp on the song.

Some bands play covers but drastically develop them into something previously unheard. This approach is what the Vanilla Fudge ("Keep Me Hangin' On" and "Ticket to Ride") and Led Zeppelin ("When the Levee Breaks" and "Nobody's Fault but Mine") did with many of their covers, and that works great when you can be inspired enough to treat a song like that. I'm proud to say that the G Tones do a rendition of the Beatles' "Help" that's like this; it's in a reggae rhythm that musically has more in common with Bob Marley than anything Paul, John, George and Ringo.

But now here's the next leap in musicianship, and it has only to do with covers as much as you're influenced by them.

Some bands skip playing covers and just turn their influences into something absolutely new. To use another Led Zeppelin reference, it could be said that anything completely original they wrote was like that. "Trampled Underfoot" and "Sick Again" are prime examples.

It surprised me when the G Tones nearly went down that path at a recent rehearsal.

We were jamming out a part of "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder just to get the groove down. Shortty, our drummer, got off the beat by accident once, and although it was "wrong," it sounded cool to me. I asked him to do it again, and again, and to keep doing it.

He was accenting an off beat. Karlin and I caught on to this thing Shortty was doing, and we adapted to it. Now three of us were accenting the off beat! No longer was this wrong but merely a variation.

So, there are a few things we can do with that.

One, we can keep calling it a mistake and never play it again; we aren't playing a note-for-note rendition of the song as it is, so we haven't gone down that path I see as despicable (recreating note-for-note what somebody else has done before us). But we just ignore that this ever happened before. It was a fluke, and we should just drop it.

Two, we can do it a few times whenever we play that song. I think it sounded cool enough to make that a permanent fixture in our unique interpretation of the song and reprise it whenever the spirit moves. Play it normal before and after verse one but then play the variation every time thereafter. Just a suggestion. One of about 100,000 possibilities.

Three, we can call it a new rhythm and write a new riff over top of it and forget this ever had anything to do with "Superstition" in the first place. Add some remarkable lyrics and a breathtaking melody, throw in a bridge, and we have ourselves a brand new song in its entirety.

I suggested this at the time, and I think some of the guys had something of a revelation right there and then.

I wasn't there when any of the Led Zeppelin songs were written. I wasn't there when Tony and some former bandmates of his decided to put "Help" to a reggae beat. In fact, I've never been in a group setting when an original piece of work developed before my eyes, with contributions from everybody including myself.

If it's anything like how I imagine, I want to be a part of it.

There's a need, I think, to do something over and above playing strictly covers if you want to do something over and above playing strictly parties or something like that. There's a need to progress and start writing some good material.