“Above playing covers”

So I’ve worked with a few artists that write and record their own stuff, and most of them seem to have this chip on their shoulder where they’re “above playing covers.”

What I mean by that is that they’ll refuse to play a show if they don’t have enough original material to fill their needed set time. Or they’ll say that “We’re not a fucking cover band” or something like that. Almost like shitting on cover bands or original artists who play a few covers during their shows.

I think it comes from the fact that they want to focus on their own stuff, but isn’t that how we all became good musicians, learning others songs and then taking elements from them and applying those to our own musicality.

It seems like a lot of up and coming artists want to skip that step.

Thoughts?