How to Get Your Cover Band Booked More Often and Get Paid More. In this show I discuss the problems all cover bands experience: not getting paid enough, not getting enough quality gigs - and how to overcome those problems.
Props on a great video. I’ve been sharing these ideas with my cover band and there is a ton of insight here. A point I’m looking for help on is ways to make your band sound unique. We plays mostly classic rock and our setup is lead/rhythm/bass/drums with me on keys/trumpet. We have 25 or 6 to 4 down, but want to add more dance tunes/good songs for “A venues” with trumpet. The challenge has been finding songs that work well without keys and horn playing at the same time or a three part harmony of horns. I can have guitar cover the second clav part of superstition, but I don’t know what to do with the main clav part when I go to trumpet. Looking for ideas on that song and any other recommendations.
Good question. I know a couple horn players locally who use harmonizer pedals to get the multi-horn effect. Do you have both a lead and rhythm guitarists? If so, might want to consider swapping the rhythm player out for a keyboardist. As far as song ideas, you're free to check out our song list here: www.revbfunktasticsoul.com/songs-we-play/
Great list. The harmonizer pedal is a good idea, I’m gonna start trying that and see what I can come up with. We need two guitars on a lot of our songs, but I might be able to get our lead player on keys and have our rhythm play lead. Another keyboardist would be great- I would put a keyboard in front of all 3 guitar plays if I could, but I’m working with what I’ve got. I usually follow a “no looping in rock” rule, but I’m wondering if you think it would be okay to run the main clav lick of superstition with a loop pedal for when I switch to trumpet. Just out of curiosity, you have a 3 part horn section and you don’t do any Chicago?
Never used a loop pedal, but I've definitely used tracks (not in this band, but in the one before this one). Either way your drummer would need to play with a click. Playing with tracks opens you up to a whole new world of possibilities, but also limitations (no extended jams, unless it's planned, for example). I'll do a future episode on how we did our tracks. No we don't do any Chicago. Bottom line, I don't like Chicago. LOL. As a bandleader I get to have my pet hangups, and me not liking Chicago is one of them. The horn players bitch about it every now and then, but I just laugh it off. Actually, it's more than that. I consider us to be a funk/R&B/Motown/dance band with a horn section. We're not a "horn band". Same reason we don't play Blood, Sweat & Tears. It ain''t funky enough.
Hey bud, just watched your video and left you a like. Im in a cover band that formed about a year ago and we’ve been changing members out recently and were building our rep list back. How big does the rep need to be to start gigging? Thanks, good video.
The Badass Bandleader Show how many hours of un repeated music should a band have prepare to be able to gig at a bar. Iv played at a pool hall where people dont stay for more than two hours so having two hours of learned rep was all that was needed.
@@williampiland7722 Ah, ok. Most of the venues around here want you to play for 3 or 4 hours. In a 4-hour night we take two 20-25 minute breaks, so we play for approximately 100 minutes. Usually three 15-song sets.
@@williampiland7722 As a rule, no. If you have experienced musicians in your band, between everyone I bet you could come up with enough songs that everyone knows (or could learn quickly) to cover the rest of the time. What type of material are you doing? Is there a theme to your band, or is it a more general set list?
