"It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock'n'roll..."

Indeed. I've played in cover bands, well mostly sang in them, and that's kinda fun. That's easy, and usually the audience knows what's coming and they dig it.
Sometimes, though, especially when in more obscure cover bands...like when I was in this 70's cover band, we did stuff like Steppenwolf, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Eagles, Thin Lizzy, etc - all big hits from said bands - there were still a few occasions someone after a gig came and said:

"dude, the couple of covers you did were great, but I didn't like your own songs very much, stick with covers"
and I'm like, well, actually they are all covers...all top hits from the 70's
"yeah? Well maybe you should pick a more well-known era or songs"

Seems younger people really have never heard that kind of music before. They only listen to black metal or lady Gaga I presume, and maybe some Foo Fighters or something :-)

But, after a while, doing covers seems to me somewhat pointless. It's fun for a while, but, it'd be so much better to do your own stuff...only, then it's a real rocky road. Maybe after ten gigs in the same town you get a dozen people there who know who you are and it gets better slowly...but, it's damned hard to get there. I've been there with about 3 of my bands, which all broke up just as people were knowing us some and gigs were easy to get. At best it was good.

But, it takes years of hard work and at forty I doubt I have the strenght or enthusiasm to put in the effort and promotion and all that shaite any more.