When most bands release a covers album, it’s usually to honor other artists. When Blues Traveler recorded a covers album, it was meant to honor the group’s fans.

“Cover Yourself,” released in October, has Blues Traveler reinterpreting and rearranging 11 of its previous songs, including “Run-Around,” “Hook” and “Carolina Blues.”

The idea for the album came about when the band planned to record acoustic versions of its hits for iTunes.

“We started out and decided we didn’t want to just rehash the same old arrangements and, as is common with us, we got more and more involved in it,” guitarist Chan Kinchla said to the Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Mass.)

“Then we got the fans involved, voting for their favorite songs on our Web site. We just had so much fun doing this one we kept going, and eventually decided iTunes wasn’t going to get it," he said.

The band’s biggest hit, “Run-Around,” from the multiplatinum album “Four” turned out to be the hardest song to remake, Kinchla told the Patriot Ledger.

“It is our most recognizable song, so drummed into everyone’s heads — including ours,” he said. “That was the toughest to come up with a new take on, because we were really stretching to reinvent our sound.”

Blues Traveler performs Dec. 14 at the Crystal Bay Casino.

The covers album follows 2005’s “Bastardos!,” which shows the jam band venturing from psychedelic to soul to its rootsy blues-rock. All Music Guide gave “Bastardos!” four-and-a-half stars, and called it “the richest, most diverse album they’ve ever done and quite arguably their best.”

The group started in 1983 in New Jersey, when high school friends singer-harpist John Popper and drummer Brendan Hill formed a blues cover band, according to the Associated Press. The group expanded into a quartet with the addition of Kinchla and bassist Bobby Sheehan. Based out of New York, Blues Traveler made the rounds of the New York City club circuit.

A self-titled debut album was released in 1990, followed by “Travelers and Thieves” in 1991. The band’s third album, 1993’s “Save His Soul,” was the first to break into the Top 100, according to All Music Guide. The aptly named “Four” would prove to be the band’s breakout album, spawning the hits “Run-Around” and “Hook” and selling more than 6 million copies. Subsequent albums were 1996’s “Live From the Fall” and 1997’s “Straight on Till Morning.”

The band hit a rough patch in 1999: Popper, who had been experiencing chest pains, underwent an angioplasty shortly after the release of his solo album, “Zygote.” Weeks after the surgery, bassist Bobby Sheehan was found dead at age 31 in his New Orleans home, according to All Music Guide. Kinchla’s brother Tad was brought in to replace Sheehan, and keyboardist Ben Wilson was added.

Blues Traveler came back in 2001 with its sixth record, “Bridge,” followed by the live album, “What You and I Have Been Through,” in 2002, and “Truth Be Told” in 2003.

Chad Kinchla told the Patriot Ledger the band plans to record an album of new material in January.