The Rules of Cover Songs

Cover songs can be tough for bands; it's tempting to pull out your bitchin' version of More Than A Feeling, but if you don't do it right, you can really hurt your band's set and put the audience to sleep (or worse, send them out the door). Here are some tips all bands need to follow when choosing and executing a killer cover song.

1. No ironic cover songs. It's been way, way overdone. If you can genuinely do an awesome sounding cover of Kelly Clarkson's "Since You've Been Gone," then go ahead and do it, but if you're a punk band and you just want to make a joke about a punk band doing a pop song, just shut the hell up and go play your power chords somewhere else. Cover songs should always be more about the music than some joke or gimmick.

2. Don't cover an artist you already sound like. It'll draw too much of a comparison, and you should be working away from sounding like that artist, anyway, not embracing your similarities. Unless, of course, you want to start a cover band. Believe me, you really don't want to start a cover band, unless you really enjoy playing at Bar Mitzvahs and weddings.

3. Work within your means. If you can't handle the guitar solo in Zeppelin's Heartbreaker, maaayyybe you ought not to play it in the first place. Make sure that you're doing a song that you're able to play naturally and professionally, and make sure that the vision you've got for the tune is within your musical ability. Of course, if it isn't, you can always do what the greats do: practice, you lazy bastard.

4. Avoid the cliches. No Stairway to Heaven, Free Bird, Sweet Home Alabama (come to think of it, no Skynyrd at all), or anything else that's been played on the radio and in cover versions about 40 million times. Yeah, yeah, we get it, this bird will not change, that's enough. I'd rather hear a six hour loop of my own belches.

5. Make sure you're adding something to the song. Ideally, it should sound like something you wrote, in your style and with your own spin. Good bands can cover a song and make it sound completely original. Of course, you've still got to work with the same melody, but try changing up some chords, the tempo, time signature, etc. until you've got the thing at the point where it's breathing it's own air.