Watch members of Faith No More, Anthrax, and Slayer do an Olivia Newton-John cover.
Yeah, that title’s a bit clickbaity for writing about this Mr. Bungle live clip, but come on! How do you not mention an all star lineup doing a killer cover song?
Sometimes, the YouTube algorithm throws you a nice surprise.
Mike Patton, part of the rare breed of multiple-personality vocalists that includes Robin Zander, Dir En Grey’s Kyo, and Corey Taylor, has been on tour with his original band, Mr. Bungle, since last year - a welcome development after he returned from a break he had taken after being diagnosed with agoraphobia. (Anybody who knows anything about Mr. Patton knows that, being a notorious workaholic, he rarely, if ever, takes time off.)
One thing Patton is notorious for is whipping out random cover songs during his live performances, a trait that started to manifest itself after he had joined Faith No More in 1989, an early example being his sneaking the chorus of New Kids On The Block’s “The Right Stuff” into the middle of “We Care A Lot” on the Live At The Brixton Academy home video and live album.
Around the same time, the band, at Payton’s encouragement, started doing a straight cover of The Commodores’ “Easy” in their set, which the band itself welcomed as a replacement for the version of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” that was part of their repertoire since it was a bonus track on the CD edition of The Real Thing - and to spite the more narrow-minded metalheads that were coming to FNM’s shows hoping to hear “War Pigs”. Their version of “Easy”, of course, would get immortalized first on the Songs To Make Love To EP and then on future reissues of the band’s Angel Dust album.
The seemingly oddball, yet serious cover song choices has been part and parcel of Payton’s DNA, in and out of his two main bands alone, ever since. Just type in “Mike Patton covers” in the YouTube search bar sometime and you’ll see what I mean.
As of this writing, Mr. Bungle - with original members Patton, guitarist Trey Spruance, and bassist Trevor Dunn along with thrash metal’s answer to Malcolm Young, Scott Ian (Anthrax/SOD) on rhythm guitar and ex-Slayer überdrummer Dave Lombardo behind the kit, are on tour in the Pacific Rin, prefacing a Spring 2024 US run. It was in New Zealand recently, that the band whipped out yet another new cover song.
Yep, Mr. Bungle whipped out a straight cover of Olivia Newton-John’s “Hopelessly Devoted To You”, her character’s aria from the movie version of Grease, in front of a packed house. Patton retained the song’s original recorded key signature and doesn’t strain for the high notes at all. Seriously, how fucking good of a singer is this guy?
Not only was this performance impressive, but this video also reminded me of something I’d long forgotten - and that’s how fucking good of a song “Hopelessly Devoted To You” is in the first place. It’s one of longtime ONJ collaborator John Farrar’s best songs that he’d written for Olivia - hell, as far as I’m concerned, it’s the best song he’d ever written for her. This is a flat out timeless torch song.
Thinking even further, Farrar’s participation in the Grease soundtrack album as co-producer and contributing songwriter (he also penned “You're The One That I Want” for the film) actually helped improve the quality of that album’s track listing. The producers had wisely culled down the original Broadway track listing, leaving in its stronger material and replacing the dreck with Farrar’s contributions, Sha-Na-Na’s performances from the movie’s high school dance scene (which populate all of side three of the original double LP plus the end of side two), and the Barry Gibb-penned-and-produced, Peter Frampton-guitar-driven, title song as sung by Frankie Valli.
Producers of future revivals of the Broadway musical have apparently realized this, and worked Farrar’s and Gibb’s songwriting contributions into the musical score. Quite honestly, to me, it isn’t Grease to anyone that grew up on the movie version without those damn songs. So there.