"We're trying to focus on how we need to change and grow and evolve and become the greatest band there ever was."
Don't laugh. The guy's serious.
"The pieces are in place," Covert says by telephone from his Chicago home. "We're in a position of strength right now. In the past three to four years, we've nailed every goal we've set. We're getting a national following and remain the kings of the Chicago pub scene."
Sioux Falls has played a moderately significant role in the growth of the thinking-person's pop band, hailed by some as America's answer to Squeeze.
For one, the band illustrated a recent CD, "Cheap Beer Night," with a photo taken outside the Pomp Room. For another, the band's many mid-week gigs at the downtown club helped to turn it into a drum-tight touring outfit. Finally, Covert lived for a time in Brookings.
They return on Saturday for a late-night show at the Pomp Room and an early-evening acoustic set at Zandbroz Variety.
Now, the Bad Examples are looking to break out.
Covert knows that the next album must be the definitive portrait of the band. As opposed to anything the band has done in the past, this next disc will be the one that people will base their judgments on.
Covert is prepared. "The only thing it can be right now - the only thing we can do is to make the next album one of the best albums of all-time."
Not one of the Bad Examples' best albums, but one of the best albums by anyone ever.
As Covert says, the groundwork has been laid.
Band members paid to make their first CD, "Bad is Beautiful," because they wanted to be free of record company interference.
They wanted to learn how it was done without the muddling of a label representative. Then they hit the road to promote it, playing 200 shows a year for three years. "Cheap Beer Night" is a result of that intense touring period.
Last year Covert slowed things down to work on his writing and re-fire his creative juices. He got into acting again, then wrote a batch of songs that he released as a soloist under the title "Eat At Godot's."
With three good discs behind them, Covert and the band are now hoping to break out of the club-only scene. In December, they did a show at Chicago Theater where "people hang on every word. We brought in a string quartet, we had a saxophone, harmonica, mandolin, vocals. It was a really wonderful chance to do something that was purely musical," Covert says.