Question: if the band themselves consider all musician's songwriters of a song, then why shouldn't we? Some of you are making weird assumptions on what he contributed to the songwriting process. Isn't it possible that he could have, for example:
- Gotten the initial idea for the song
- Figured out melodies, both vocally and instrumentally
- Gotten ideas for riffs that he had to communicate to the rest of the band
And all this leaves out the more obvious ones, like coming up with lyrics, song melodies and drum parts. I'm not saying he did all that, and I'm certainly not saying he was the most important factor but to say that he suddenly isn't one of the band's songwriters, just a drummer who writes lyrics, just seems weird to me. Like trying really hard to downplay him, just so you have more reason to bitch at him. Stick to his actual quotes, there's more than enough there to take shots at, if need be.
And calling this a cover band definitely seems insulting to me as well.
EDIT: Well, two replies above me pointing it out much simpler than me. There you go.