The cover song reward is the chocolate center of the Kickstarter campaign. It is the theme that holds everything together.
Even though I started Zubatto to perform my own music, cover songs have always been a fun part of our performances. The first cover we ever did was “Taxman” by The Beatles, for a gig at the Crocodile on tax day, April 15. If we ever have another show on an April 15, we’ve got that one in the pocket. I initially thought of cover songs as one-shots like that until “Master of Puppets.” We were only going to play that at the record release show for our first album, but it was so much fun (and took so much work) that it became part of our regular set.
The idea for a cover song Kickstarter reward came to me while I was working on the top secret cover suite that we are also recording for the new album. The idea of taking everyone’s favorite songs – probably a ridiculous selection of different things – and turning them into Zubatto material was very powerful, and truly at the heart of what this band is about for me.
To perform a cover song, it takes a ton of time and hard work. I need to transcribe the song, arrange it for the band, we need to rehearse and get it “just so.” We’re still working on getting “Master of Puppets” right! At first, I thought it should be a very high level reward, and toyed with making it a stretch goal or adding it midway during the campaign, but I kept returning to this idea of how cool it would be to do a bunch of different songs, and to do a set of everyone’s songs at the release party. So I ended up pricing it in the mid tier of rewards – probably lower than it should be – but hopefully low enough to encourage more people to respond.
I limited them to 15, which seemed like a good number, but I have no idea what I will do if 15 people sign up for cover songs. Work my ass off this Spring, I guess.
What you as a backer get for the cover song reward is, what I believe, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You get the song or piece of music of your choice performed by a group that is unlike any working today, and made up of some of the finest musicians in the world. I don’t think you’ll find a deal like that anywhere else in the universe.