Inter Arma Slay Neil Young’s “Southern Man,” Announce Covers Album
Inter Arma have announced a covers album titled Garbers Days Revisited, a clever play on words based on the name of the band’s former practice space and Metallica’s 1987 covers EP Garage Days Revisited. The album will include reimaginings of songs by Nine Inch Nails, Prince, Venom, Tom Petty and more.
The band has released a cover of Neil Young’s “Southern Man,” a frequent staple of their live sets, to go along with the album’s announcement, and whew, it’s a whopper! I guarantee you’ve never heard Neil Young this heavy. I love how distinctly Inter Arma this version is as opposed to just a straight cover — the guitar tone, the arrangement, the vocals — to the point that if a young Inter Arma fan were unfamiliar with the original they’d probably think the band wrote it. Us olds, of course, know what’s up, and it works on both levels.
Drummer T.J. Childers offers of the album:
“Hunter Thompson used to punch out pages of Ernest Hemingway on his typewriter just to get the feeling of what it was like to write that way. The same can be said for anyone learning a great cover song: there’s a lot to be deduced from the information there. Actually learning the songs can lead to inspirational, new musical ideas.
“Covers have been an integral part of Inter Arma since the beginning of the band and some of these songs have a direct lineage while others are a little more… obscure. As timing would have it, we hope this provides a bit of an escape for listeners, given the surreal circumstances we’re in at the moment, because after all, great art should provide an escape which is part of why we chose to do this: sometimes you just wanna be runnin’ down a dream…”
Garbers Days Revisited comes out on July 10 via Relapse; pre-order here. Track list and Neil Young cover embed below.
- “Scarecrow” (Ministry Cover)
- “Southern Man” (Neil Young Cover)
- “Hard Times” (Cro-Mags Cover)
- “March Of The Pigs” (Nine Inch Nails Cover)
- “The Girl Who Lives On Heaven Hill” (Hüsker Dü Cover)
- “In League With Satan” (Venom Cover)
- “Runnin Down A Dream” (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Cover)
- “Purple Rain” (Prince Cover)
