How to Be a Good Cover Band

He explains how they are lucky to be a band of people devoted to the honky-tonk song—which encompasses a great many elements, tempos, emotions and sounds. He says that while there's an expectation of the honky-tonk band to show up and play songs people can dance to, those dances can be slow, fast, mid-tempo. They can be sad, celebratory or romantic. "There's a fine line. Boys Named Sue are a great band and a blast to watch, but if they tried to do a song that breaks your heart it wouldn't work," Stockslager says. The King Bucks work within a range in which the Everlys, George Jones and David Allan Coe can all find a home. Thus, they can throw in an original inspired by any of the old standards they perform, and as long as they're true to the emotion of the honky-tonk, it too will find a welcome.

Hell, they've even freshened the vaudeville-like style of the old shows when, as Stockslager says, "June Carter would come out and tell the crowd a thing or two." It often comes in the form of what he calls their secret weapon: Joe Butcher. "He works all this blue material in between our stuff with five-minute rants," Stockslager says. "To me, it's classic. It's irreverent and fun." And he's right.

Still, there are rules, and here are King Buck Joe Butcher's regulations for being in a Dallas cover band, or this one, anyway:

1. Band members should be good-looking. Nobody wants to be forced to look at unattractive people for any length of time. Good looks trump actual talent any day.

2. At least one guy in the band should have a mustache. Not a goatee either. Those are for losers. A "soul patch" will get you kicked in the nards.

3. Blinding and/or maiming an audience member with a fire extinguisher (and subsequently ending their modeling career) is acceptable, but only once, and only if your name is Keith Killoren.

4. Never accept hog meat or homemade drugs as payment in lieu of actual cash.

5. Do not have sex with ANY musician, EVER, especially if they are in The King Bucks, as their virile seed will impregnate you just from looking at it, and the "devil baby" you give birth to will be the least of your worries.