A Quote by Glenn Danzig

My idea of covers is that you should never cover a song and do it exactly like the artist because everyone's always going to compare it to the way the original artists did it, and they're just going to go, 'Oh I like the original better.'
The purpose of this is not show that I can do it better, because I think Superman is perfect. The original creation of Superman nobody could have done that better and I think Batman is pretty much a perfect character... The same with all of them. I'm just going to try to find a way to say, "If that wasn't the original idea, what would be another way to do it that would be more in my style?".
I always go into listening to a new record by Gord Downie solo or The Tragically Hip and think, "Well, I know what this is going to be, lyrically." Every song starts and then I think, "Oh, I have no idea where that comes from." He has this entirely original voice, both literal and metaphorical.
You never want to have a movie be derivative, because that's the worst if you ask me. I always want to be in original material, or an original idea, or an original vision, rather than a rehash of some other movie.
We didn't say, 'Hey, we're gonna pick a bunch of cover songs,' or, 'We're gonna write an original song that has to sound like this, because we're a metal band, so we're gonna cover some metal songs.' We did the opposite. We just said, 'We're gonna have fun with these songs, and we're gonna try different things.'
My original idea for the cover was better - decapitate Paul - but he wouldn't go along with it.
In terms of covers, it's always nice to do ones that aren't actually getting played by the original artist anymore. I just love the song; I love that band, and it's nice to be able to play it.
I've only covered a few songs because I feel that if you're not going to go beyond the original artist in some way, then don't disrespect what they created.
Sometimes people look at our covers and say, "That looks just like that other cover." I say, "And?" It reminds them of a cover from way back when. If you know the cover, then pull it out and compare it. I don't care. It's supposed to bring back memories.
Everyone always says I'm a rapper, and that I'm exactly like Peaches and M.I.A. People just take any female artist and compare me to them.
I did a cover of the James Bond theme, and I felt like such a fraud, because the original is so good.
Because immigrants have always been particularly prone to repetition - it's something to do with that experience of moving from West to East or East to West or from island to island. Even when you arrive, you're still going back and forth; your children are going round and round. There's no proper term for it - original sin seems too harsh; maybe original trauma would be better.
I told Bernie Taupin that his best lyrics were for Song For Guy just because it doesn't have any words in it. But there you go... I'm a wind up! But a good Elton song for karaoke is I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues... "laughing like children, living like lovers, rolling like thunder under the covers..." Everyone can join in!
If you look at items of clothing like denim or polo shirts, they came from someone else's idea and everyone now makes them, but even so, I sometimes want to buy into the newer thing because it looks good or whatever. I mean, I copy many things - almost everything I do could be called a copy in some way. But I copy with a certain respect. I have a high regard for the original, and so I want to put my twist onto that. It's just like sampling music - when it's done well, the new work communicates a respect for the original source material.
Whenever I hear somebody cover a song, I don't like to hear it stray too far from the original. I like to hear some of the new energy that a band will put into it, but you kind of want to hear some of the basic parts of the song. I mean, that's what makes it the song that you like.
One of the reasons that DC, Marvel, and other comic book companies have always asked me to do covers and variant covers is because they know that when they tell me 'icon,' I jump over their words, and I give them an iconic cover - but while I'm doing it, there is going to be an idea there.
You make something, and you really have fun with it, and you try to put emotion in it, and at the end of the day, you have no idea how the tide is going to fall. You don't know if everyone's going to like it, if everyone's going to hate it, if it's going to be like you're a media darling, or all of a sudden you're a sellout. You have no idea.
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