Originally Posted by: maggiorUnderstood that your ultimate goal is to write and perform your own music - no problem with that. Doing covers to start with though gets you moving and learning other skills, like playing and communicating with other musicians.

Dream Theater, Primus, and Queensryche all have done covers...quite good ones!! All 3 of these bands are very progressive (or were at one point) and have developed their own unique sound.

I think you are on the right path.

Apparently, so did Deep Purple on their first albums, before "In Rock" transformed their sound into the sound they're known for. Plenty of other good bands started with covers too, and still keep them in their setlists. Slash has "Immigrant Song" in some of his gigs before "Paradise City", GNR started with covers and still plays plenty of covers during their shows, Pretty Maids (a Danish Hair Metal band who never quite reached the success they aimed for, yet have still released more than 10 albums) did Thin Lizzy's "Please Don't Leave Me" and during their opening set for Aerosmith, they threw in "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2". And that's just off the top of my head. Deep Purple are also a great example of the two different kinds of covers. "Come Together" sounds pretty close to the original, while "Help" is a slowed-down, almost sad-sounding cover of the original up-beat song. All in all, lots of good bands have played covers and still do. And after all, there are some songs I think could be fun to play covers of, so if I start with those and move ahead from there, I might just pick up a couple of tricks along the way. I'm not too keen on learning to play solos exactly as on the recording. The recognizable parts, yes, but whole solos? Not really...