Every Halloween, people of all ages love to dress up like their favorite characters, animals, etc. It's only fitting then that a number of local bands would dress up as other bands to perform as them. At least, that's what's happening at a few events this Halloween weekend at the Visulite Theatre and Milestone Club. Bands are dressing up as famous artists — for fun, or for serious — to play short sets of their favorite tunes. So, why were the bands chosen and what can people expect? We asked a bunch of the bands to give their reasons:

The Business People as The Strokes

We chose to cover The Strokes because in our lifetime they were The Beatles. When The Strokes came out, rock swept the world again. We want to create that fever again. So, everyone should expect raw, drunken energy captured only for a short time in the early '00s. The rebirth of rock.

— Nic Robinson

Dr. Cirkustien as Faith No More

Faith No More and Mike Patton have been an influence to the core members before the formation of Dr. Cirkustien. We like to push boundaries of musical classifications and have never fit any particular mold. Those attending can expect a version of FNM that only Dr. Cirkustien can regurgitate because we always take our fun seriously.

— Jerry Lowery

Swell Friends as Saves the Day

We all grew up loving and still love Saves the Day. It's going to be a blast playing these songs that mean so much to us. The hardest part was narrowing down the huge list of songs we wanted to play down to 20 minutes.

— Robby Hartis

Grown Up Avenger Stuff as Yeah Yeah Yeahs

We're very excited to perform as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs! Bands like that had a big impact on bands like us. We've been rehearsing the songs in band practice and it's been a blast — we're so geeked out to play the set for a real audience.

— Deirdre Kroener

S.O. Stereo as The Killers

In the beginning, all of our songs were mostly about "gettin' crunk," "makin' dat paper," and big-booty strippers. Then we listened to The Killers and it changed everything. They seemed to be a band that all of us agreed to being a strong influence to our music, and helped us define our direction. People should expect to not hear music about strippers or booty dancing. For that, we are sorry.

— Brandon Furr

The Waves as Jack White

I chose to cover Jack White — what a cool dude. I enjoy his eclectic rock style and passionate, interesting voice. Our music and melody already has its own swanky, raw style and I loved the idea of learning his specific rhythms and getting a peek into his songwriting methods. People can expect to be lifted, to be impressed, to be moved to dance and to sing along ... I don't think they'll be able to help themselves.

— Hayley Lakeman

Hectorina as Shania Twain

I think a lot of bands pick artists to cover simply because they enjoy their music and want to pay tribute. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but we in Hectorina like to approach situations like this as interestingly and fun as we possibly can while also challenging ourselves to choose an artist that could potentially be a disaster. Last year, we were the Bee Gees. The obvious choice for this year was Shania Twain. Because she's beautiful and perfect.

— Dylan Gilbert

ThoughtCriminals as Beck

I chose Beck because he was a huge influence on my music when I was younger, and it was a chance to use my live band to explore a few of those songs that had such an impact on me. Beck was the first person I saw in the mainstream that was as truly weird as I felt and I loved the way he moved back and forth between hip-hop, folk, noise and punk music freely and didn't care about genre. I don't want to give away too much of our plan for the show, but I will say that anyone that was a fan of Beck in the '90s should be super stoked about the set we've prepared. We've gone out of our way to study the songs and ensure that we're recreating the songs as accurately as we can, even studying how they recreated some of the songs live on the

Odelay tour.

— Mikal kHill

Red Jesse as Tom Waits

Tom Waits is one of the best, original voices in American music, and his noir song stylings are perfect for Halloween. We're gonna try and give y'all an authentic tribute to the songs we've chosen for the 31st.

— Red Jesse

Sherman Helville as Nirvana

We're doing Nirvana for this show and super stoked for it. Nirvana was certainly my first glimpse into punk and rock in a non-classic rock form when I was a kid. So, it's kinda cool to get a chance to emulate that. We're going to be on the small bar stage, I think, so you want to bring a lot of energy and in-your-faceness to the set, and a lot of inappropriate humor maybe.

— Austin Hill