I wanna be a rock-n-roll clone

Cashing in on covers: The enduring popularity of tribute bands

by Chris Kanaracus

The Rage Against the Machine tribute band People of the Sun crowd into the Lucky Dog Music Hall's dank, basement dressing room. Graffiti-scribbled walls and concrete floors are a long way from the Learjets and limos their role models enjoy, but it doesn't dampen their enthusiasm. Though it's quickly apparent People of the Sun express little of the socio-political vitriol their idols famously spew. In fact, they smile more in five minutes than Zack and co. probably do throughout an entire tour. And PC they're not. The first thing heard out of the singer comes not from his mouth, but from his ass. Such contradictory behavior begs the obvious: if People of the Sun are covering a political band, what are their politics? "I'm not intelligent enough to answer that," bassist Mike Mack offers. The others rub their chins quizzically and chuckle.

On stage, though, they aren't indecisive. They rip through "No Shelter" with an aplomb that, with eyes closed, eerily matches the rattlesnake-wrapped-in-velvet crunch that sold 15 million Rage albums. Visually, they don't look the part, but they give it a go. Zack Jr., Brian Sealy, bounces a frantic two-step on the balls of his feet, tilting his head back for extra screaming leverage at the key moments. The effect works, if not a bit more peacock than pedagogue. But Sealy doesn't have the dreads, and that doesn't help.

Yet guitarist Andy Freeman's playing is peerless. He doesn't just re-create Tom Morello's innovative post-metal lines; instead, he's in the pocket, channeling his every idiosyncrasy, from quick, reverse slides at a phrase's end, to seamless transitions into downtuned, flatted-fifth-chord patterns, to snaky, James Jamerson-esque verse motifs. Suh-mokin!

The small crowd looks on with indifference, though. Mostly, it's made up of 20-something guys with their arms folded. They aren't fans; they're members of the opening acts who've arrived early for a sound check.

At least they're passive. But one goateed, pierced fellow sipping a drink at the bar isn't as diplomatic. He moves to the stage and puts his fingers in his ears. Then he removes them to make a din-garbled wisecrack: "These guys suck."

Sure, most folks think tribute acts are leeches, too lazy or too untalented to come up with their own material. It's a charge often leveled by disgruntled original artists who play to seven friends on a Tuesday night, while "Pearl Jam" or "Led Zeppelin" blow the doors off a packed house on Saturdays. After all, familiarity sells, and tribute bands are its well-paid suppliers.

Especially in Worcester, where, certain patrons' opinions notwithstanding, tribute bands get more cheers than jeers. Take the annual Beatlemania concert in Institute Park every summer: it's invariably attended by thousands. And you don't have to wait that long. On any given weekend here, rock's hottest clones pack them in.

It's that sort of success -- using someone else's proven material to make a buck and to soak up some love -- that's brought so many brickbats tribute-bands' way, along with observers who think they're simply pathetic. But they have a ready defense. While on one level tributes are mere thievery; on another, they assert, it's free marketing for the acts they portray.

"We sell records for them [Rage Against the Machine]," says Andy Freeman, with a look of innocent shock. "It's a fact."

He takes it further. "All those guys in other bands that look down on us are in cover bands too. Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin cover bands. Even Rage is a cover band. Just listen to the first album and see which Tony Iommi riff he's [Rage guitarist Tom Morello] ripping off on any given song. All the riffs have been written, and everyone's a thief."

Freeman is on a tear now, rising out of his chair as he expounds on his theory. "Look, even symphony orchestras are tribute bands! They didn't write that stuff! They do Beethoven and Tchaikovsky covers. But no one sends them hate mail like we get."

Though the flow of scornful diatribes and of mysterious, ticking packages in their mailboxes has slowed in recent years, it was scary at first. "People would be writing stuff like, `You don't believe in that music. . . . You're this, you're that, blah blah blah.'

"What we do makes money, sure, but it all started as a celebration of the music." And hundreds of runs through "Bombtrack" later, Freeman insists, it still is -- just like the Boston Pops can't seem to get enough of Wagner or Tchaikovsky each year.

Of course, a good part of the celebrating takes place post-show, at pay time. And bands aren't the only ones who make out.

"Chances are with the tribute acts, you're going to have a good night," says John Maywalt, who used to own the tribute-friendly Tammany Club. "Although I'd like to think they [customers] come more for the club itself."

"You've got your definite hits," agrees Erick Godin of the Lucky Dog Music Hall. Bands like Pearl Jam tribute Itchy Fish and '70s-themed Disco Hell, he adds, "put up numbers you need to run a business."

Even booking agents are in on the act. Springfield-based promoter Ja'nanne Maxwell heads AAA Entertainment Consultants, which boasts the heaviest tribute-band roster around. She's got veteran Zeppelin apers Physical Graffiti, who've sold out Hampton Beach's Casino Ballroom. She's got Doors impresarios Riders on the Storm. Modern rock is covered too, with acts like Wicked Garden (Stone Temple Pilots) and Facelift (Alice in Chains).

Maxwell's personality has allowed her to build up and rule over her ersatz empire, for sure. She can be abrupt and, for a publicity agent, oddly reluctant to supply band-contact numbers, even a five-minute interview.

But according to People of the Sun's drummer, Al Affuso, Maxwell's temperament is less hostile than it is cautious. "At first, she probably thought you were another agent trying to steal her groups. That happens all the time."

Not every tribute act is in high demand, though. Tony Rarus, lead guitarist for Allman Brothers/Lynyrd Skynyrd interpreters Midnight Rider, says business is in flux for his more esoteric band. "What can I say, the bar business is in dire straits. It's hit or miss. A place that always has good entertainment will pack them in regardless. . . . People come because they know they'll be entertained. Other places, you'll play to 10 people playing pool. You're a human jukebox."

In general, though, tribute bands bring in the dinero. And this isn't lost on groups like People of the Sun, who say they command "around four figures" per show, depending on size and how far they travel. Once, they played to more than 600 fans, at the Sting in Hartford.

Even that success pales next to the fortunes of North Attleborough-based Itchy Fish, who play at least 120 shows a year. As lead singer Ziggy points out, "That's a lot more than Pearl Jam has themselves."

Itchy Fish have toured 25 states, and even enjoyed an extended run at a St. Thomas resort. They play to packed houses around the horn (regularly drawing 800-plus to Lupo's, in Providence, for example). In one amazing instance, they performed for more than 5000 fans at Riverside Park in 1997. "We've slowly built up a big list of rooms we regularly play in," Ziggy says. "The crowds seem to get bigger every time."

Channeling Eddie and friends is a full-time gig for all five band members. Indeed, they're an incorporated entity, complete with roadies, a tour bus, and a home office. And during a pre-show chat, they seem happy with their accomplishments, chugging away at a mountain of free beer.

Later that night, they'll make nearly $2000 in exchange for two, one-hour sets of Pearl Jam nuggets like "Black," "Jeremy," and "Even Flow." The show itself is uncannily accurate, a re-creation of Pearl Jam's busy, anthem-rock sound. The jock-heavy, standing-room-only crowd eats it up like a fresh tin of Skoal Long Cut -- mosh pit, crowd surfing, high-fives and all. One dark-haired, slight guy hangs against the wall, his face hidden by shadows, except for the gleam of a bemused grin. Silent for nearly 20 minutes, he leans over after the last bars of "Rats" fade and says, "This is awesome."

His opinion is part of a general consensus that includes the "real" acts themselves. Things, in fact, have become bizarre.

KISS, for one, has an "official" tribute act. When Tony Sabetta, a former guitar tech for the supergroup, saw his original project curdle, it was KISS frontman Paul Stanley who suggested a tribute show, replete with the makeup, platform shoes, and blood spew. Strutter were the result.

Ten years later, now known as Hotter Than Hell, Sabetta and friends have enjoyed their quasi-celebrity status and even served as stand-ins for the real KISS in last year's Detroit Rock City.

Aerosmith clones Draw the Line and Metallica dopplegängers Battery both got the official nod after members of their respective namesakes caught them in concert.

And, as the case of former Boston lead singer Brad Delp proves, you don't have to be a nobody to work the tribute-band circuit. Delp, who headed the '70s and '80s supergroup for a decade, used to sell out seven Centrum dates at once. Now he plies his trade at the Point Breezes of the world, belting out Beatles covers in a band aptly named Beatlejuice.

But nothing tops what happened in 1995, when venerable metal warriors Judas Priest kidnapped Tim "Ripper" Owens from the Akron, Ohio-based Priest tribute, British Steel, and then placed him on stages worldwide as a replacement for departed howler Rob Halford. The event shook the tribute world and beyond, garnering extensive mainstream "can you believe it" coverage.

Though Ziggy of Itchy Fish didn't get quite that far, he did manage to meet Eddie Vedder backstage at Great Woods during a Pearl Jam concert. "I was just back there, walking around with an Itchy Fish shirt on and, all of a sudden, there he was. He was cool. I told him I was in a PJ tribute and he said, `Good luck.'" Ziggy refers to his encounter detachedly; to him, it seems, their meeting was less a sycophant supplicating his idol than a cordial greeting between two peers.

He might not be off-base, either. Ziggy claims that many popular musicians, such as the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl, sport Itchy Fish stickers on their guitar cases; their official Web site (www.itchyfish.com) is packed with images of Itchy Fish partying with rock luminaries from Creed to Fuel.

Tribute mania began, of course, with the King himself: Mr. Elvis Presley. The earliest takes on His Corpulence showed up in the early '70s, right when his belly rolls, not his hips, were getting all shook up. And it's this incarnation, in full sequined-jumpsuit glory, after which most impersonators pattern themselves.

By the late '70s, tribute acts of all stripes burst onto the scene. And the genre's golden rule had taken form: you must take your name from a famous album or song title. It just wouldn't have that all-important combination of cheese and easy recognition if you didn't. Henceforth were born Power Windows (Rush), Physical Graffiti (Led Zeppelin), Blushing Brides (Rolling Stones), Killer Queen (guess), and the Atomic Punks (Van Halen). And they've been at it ever since.

While '70s rock acts are popular for tribute bands -- attesting to the music's lasting power (or its easily caricatured nature) -- almost every style and period of modern pop can be found if you look hard enough.

Talent, however, is a quality not all tribute bands can claim. Indeed, tributes come in three flavors. There's the good -- jaw-dropping, near-perfect re-creations of sound and appearance, such as Soft Parade, a Jersey-based Doors tribute, who hit the Tammany about every three months. There's the bad, which needs no explanation. Then there's probably the most odious (and, truth be told, the rarest): the ironists.

A classic example of an ironist tribute act comes from San Diego's Charo Trick, a group who may do a Zeppelin show one week, an Elvis the next, but invariably have a Charo impersonator (yes, Charo!) as their lead singer.

Then there's LA's "Mexican Elvis." El Vez, a youngish guy with a coveted pompadour, makes the most of his roots. "In the Ghetto" becomes "En El Barrio," and flamenco dancers flank the would-be icon.

What makes such fun concepts so irksome to some is that said groups are, in a sense, chickenshit, ducking the tribute-band catcalls under a guise of kitsch-savvy cool, while still enjoying the benefits of being a tribute act -- bigger crowds, bigger paychecks, and less brain-strain from trying to write original tunes.

Thankfully, most tribute acts have no shame. And, in some cases, they've existed longer than their source material. Take Hendrix impersonator Randy Hansen, who's toured the world with his incendiary revival act for 20-plus years. ABBA clones Bjorn Again not only perform to festival-size audiences bigger than their forefathers', but also have released three albums of re-recorded ABBA favorites.

Whether they're new, old, successful, or struggling, tribute bands insist it's all about the music, man. "It's a celebration of it, really," says People of the Sun's Freeman. "We've been growing up on this stuff since we were little kids," adds Tony Rarus.

For some tribute bands, however, such warm sentiment can chill. For though they ostensibly exist to celebrate a cherished artist or band, one can't forget that many tributes were born out of creative frustration and financial necessity. Or, as with Jimi Hendrix revivalists Wild Blue Angels, simple anger.

"It all started about five years ago, at the Onset Bay Music Festival," says drummer Keith "Mitchell" Pike. "We were playing as the Electric Blue Flames, our blues band, and we were told by the promoter that we'd be going on second to last."

Things changed when the group arrived at the concert for their load-in. "We got screwed. . . . He turned around and told us we were second of the day. No one was even going to get there by the time we went on. We were pretty pissed."

EBF's guitarist, Johnny Edwards, had always been a Hendrix fan, and bore a striking resemblance to him. Combined with the promoter's untimely blow-off, Pike ended up hatching a risky plan.

"I said, `Guys, I'll be right back.' And I went down to the nearest pawnshop, got a cheapo $50 Hondo guitar, a can of lighter fluid, and a book of matches. I brought the stuff back to the show, and I said, `Johnny, we're going to do all Hendrix tonight. And I want you to burn this guitar. Burn it to the ground.'"

The gamble paid off. "Out of nowhere, all these people showed up. We had 500 people in front of that stage . . . bikers, little kids, parents. One guy came up to us and said he was at Monterey [a landmark 1967 rock festival], and watching us made him think he was back there again. At the end of the set, I looked out at everybody, and I thought, `Hey! We're on to something!'"

On that festival stage, Pike says, the Blue Flames were snuffed out and the Wild Blue Angels were born. Since then, the three have hit the road for as many as 15 dates per month. They get around, too, from Philadelphia to New Hampshire and Maine.

A regular stop for the Angels is Worcester's Tammany Club. It was here, on a warm, November night, where we got our first taste.

Well, it wasn't exactly the first. After all, who hasn't heard Hendrix chestnuts like "Fire," "Purple Haze," and "All Along the Watchtower" a million times?

Yet we'd be hard-pressed to say that what the Angels pulled off didn't make those songs work all over again. Though the bass player was nondescript, and the neo-paunchy, 40-something Pike's only concession to Mitch Mitchell was a dime-store fright wig, Johnny Edwards as The Man was a sight to behold.

Decked in an untucked orange shirt, slim-fit black pants, pointy cowboy boots, and a floppy, wide-brim hat, the mocha-skinned, mustachioed Edwards didn't have to crank a single whammy bar to make folks believe they were witnessing Jimi in the flesh.

But crank away he most certainly did (left-handed, just like Jimi), first with a 15-minute, draining workout of the bluesy "Red House." "Crosstown Traffic," "Foxy Lady," and 20 more classics followed. All were solid, enthusiastic (if undanceable) replicas. If you were feeling nostalgic, you could call it Monterey revisited, save for the fact that only 70 people, not 70,000, were watching.

The band were so good it was frustrating. You had to ask yourself: are they happy playing the same 30-year-old songs over and over again?

As it turns out, if there's one link between tribute acts, it's that inside each of them is an original artist waiting to break out.

They'll let you know it, too, sometimes at the sake of pumping up their paying gig. "We're not a typical tribute act," says Al Affuso. "This is just something we do. We just come out and have a good time. . . . Our original album is coming together, though."

Affuso is a father of two and holds a full-time job. Sealy's a workingman too, and he says he's "always working on solo stuff," acoustic, James Taylor-esque ballads. Freeman splits time between People of the Sun and another band in New York City called the Amazing Whiplash Family.

The boys in Itchy Fish have their original album in the can as well, and say they'll release it soon. When that might be, however, is a point on which they're vague. "Hey, we're just hoping we get half the people for the original stuff that we do for the Pearl Jam show," says Ziggy. But you get the sense they're not quite ready to quit their night jobs.

Tony Rarus, who is in his mid-40s, doesn't have the luxury of choice. He'd love to go original, and has in the past, but wouldn't be able to live. For him, unlike People of the Sun, Midnight Rider pays rent. And for that to remain possible, Rarus says, the group are set to change their name to Catfish, and to shift their musical focus from strict Allman Brothers material to everyone from Derek Trucks to the Grateful Dead.

And as for the Angels? They're on hiatus right now, Pike says, but they've been working on original stuff, and they hope to revive the Electric Blue Flames sometime this year.

But for many veteran tribute bands, their own dreams are dead. It's easier, and more lucrative, to ride on the coattails of a Hendrix or a Page. In this light, the obvious criticisms aren't as easy to apply because, for the overwhelming majority, life as a professional musician isn't very flush. It makes it hard to begrudge talented veterans like Rarus for making a decent living at it.

Especially when the best acts do what they do so well.

It's warm, dimly lit, and quite cozy inside the Tammany Club, where the on-stage trappings, partially obscured by a mysterious pink bedsheet, promise a different experience than that provided by People of the Sun.

After all, Pink Floyd are playing -- well, the Wall are. Much like POTS, the guys don't resemble Gilmour or Waters. But at least they've taken some endearingly gauche steps toward capturing the scope of a Floyd-style stadium show.

Behind the drum riser and at the foot of the stage are cardboard bricks (the Wall. Get it?). A limp, cloth dummy slumps over one monitor, in a reference that escapes us but is probably profound. There's a tiny TV to the left, where footage shows people hacking at the Berlin Wall, and other grandiose rock/news convergences play on continuous loops, too.

There are a laser projector and something that looks vaguely (hopefully) like a dry-ice machine. In the audience, the sight of this clutter results in a low, anxious hum: Foxboro 1994 en miniature, if you will.

The Wall's first set ends quickly, with a rousing charge through "Learning To Fly." The keyboardist hurriedly replaces the bedsheet, and the band slip through a small door backstage.

Around the room, the crowd seems in a state of mild shock. Cottony remnants of ice gas linger around ceiling lights. Except for the clink of glasses, it's silent in here.

Silent, that is, until some wag behind the bar hits a button and shatters the post-Floyd calm with a rowdy Bob Seger tune piped in over the stage monitors.

That's all it takes to ruin the magic delivered by Mike "Gilmour" Fitzgerald and company. These guys have honed their craft to a razor's edge. Most of the audience, of about 80, came for the band, not the beer -- beat-up Dark Side of the Moon shirts and stonewashed jeans dominate the fashion template. One slightly balding guy in his early 20s stands with arms folded, cocked back on his rear leg at the stage's front. His look is impassive or maybe appraising. When the set breaks, he goes to the bar and chats with his buddies. When it starts again, he reclaims his spot at the front.

Halfway through "Comfortably Numb," Fitzgerald kicks into the song's famous guitar solo. At first, it sounds exactly as the record does -- Fitzgerald even purses his lips like Gilmour did when squeezing a high one. Even he can't keep it up for long; Fitzgerald drops the front and lets it fly. The other band members don't break stride, holding down the song's warm, improv-friendly chords with subdued precision, nodding at each other occasionally.

By the end, Fitzgerald's made the solo his own without changing a thing. The tone, the pace, and most notes were identical to the original. But those details didn't matter. This was a tribute show, an event where pesky details about who wrote what don't matter much when you realize someone was inspired enough to learn and then perform them. Just because it's not Gilmour/Jimi/Zack/Van Zant up there doesn't mean these aren't great songs that can make almost anyone, even the stage-front guy, crack a hell of a smile.

But Fitzgerald doesn't see him or anybody else in the crowd. He's hunched over his axe, eyes shut and head rocking, finishing his solo. It's two minutes of music that, for him and everybody here, doesn't ever get old. A fitting tribute to his generation, and ours.