When you sign up on various music sites you’ll be asked who your influences are. Sometimes this is just informational; it gives your profile some depth. Often, however, you’re being asked because this will define where you’re positioned on the site. This means that if the site is searched looking for bands that sound like one of your influences, your band comes up.

Here’s where you need to make some important distinctions. Your band may not sound anything like your influences. For example, let’s say that you’re a huge Beastie Boys fan and you add them as an influence. Your band is straight forward rock band. Someone searches “The Beastie Boys” and your band, a band that sounds nothing like The Beastie Boys, comes up and is ignored. Now, let’s say you sound like Weezer, but you don’t like Weezer. Someone searches “Weezer,” your band doesn’t come up and they never know that you exist.

See the problem?

You need to have an accurate description of who you sound like. The point is not to tell people that so-and-so has influenced your music when you sound nothing like them. It’s like saying that Jesus has influenced your career as a hitman or a pornstar; it just sounds silly and it gives people the wrong idea. The truth is, if someone can’t hear elements of another artist in yours, they really haven’t influenced you all that much, so there really is no need to list them. If your music isn’t really that guitar-heavy, telling people that Jimi Hendrix is one of your biggest influences sounds disingenuous. You may like Jimi, but if you don’t take anything from that for your sound, he hasn’t influenced your sound at all.

Keep in mind that it’s possible to sound like a combination of bands, mixing elements of each. Maybe your sound is like Motley Crue meets Billy Joel, or something unusual like that – this is OK. You’re an original band, so you shouldn’t sound exactly like another band, but you could have similarities, whether major or minor, that people can grab onto as a start.

Does your singer have a deep voice? Maybe that adds a Pearl Jam element to your music. Do your songs consist of four power chords and a basic songwriting style? That might mean you sound like Nirvana. It’s really just a way for people who have never heard you to gauge your sound.

It’s important to get unbiased assessments of who your band sounds like. Ask your friends, people who are at your shows, club owners and sound tech who they think you sound like and start using the feedback to formulate your influence list. If you don’t really listen to or like the bands that people tell you that you sound like, you can always work on changing your sound, or you can tell people, “We really like BAND ABC, but people say we sound like an early BAND XYZ.”