Something Borrowed: "Feed My Frankenstein," Beasto Blanco/Alice Cooper

The apples don’t fall far from the tree on the latest release from Beasto Blanco. The leader of the band is Alice Cooper bassist Chuck Garric, and the female vocals are provided by Calico Cooper, who just happens to be Alice’s daughter. So, I wonder how they got the rights to cover an Alice song?

All jokes aside, this is an interesting take on a song that’s not one of my favorites in the Alice catalog.

Something Borrowed: "The Hunt," Sepultura/New Model Army

It's been a while since I’ve done one of these, but I hit this song in my shuffle today and had to crank it up.

I’ll admit when Sepultura’s Chaos A.D. came out in 1993, I wasn’t very familiar with punk band New Model Army and didn’t know at first that this was a cover. But I loved it from the first play of the record.

Something Borrowed: "Tobacco Road," David Lee Roth/The Nashville Teens/John D. Loudermilk

Every now and then my shuffle hits a song from David Lee Roth’s Eat ’Em and Smile album, and I remember how much I loved that record.

Sure, it’s silly, corny and completely over the top, but that’s precisely what I want from Diamond Dave. That flamboyant, and at times, yes, goofy personality is part and parcel of why I’ve always loved him and why, in my mind, Sammy Hagar was never a replacement for him despite really being the better singer. 

Roth also has a knack for surrounding himself with great musicians, and that was especially true of this record, which featured the likes of Steve Vai on guitar, Billy Sheehan on bass and Gregg Bissonette on drums.

At a time when Van Halen with Hagar was moving toward a more pop-oriented sound, Eat ’Em and Smile was a loud blast of wild-eyed rock ‘n’ roll that was essentially a middle finger to what Roth’s former band was doing. At least that’s how I saw it.

Something Borrowed: "Let It Go," Betraying the Martyrs/Idina Menzel

I feel like I may be the only person on the planet that doesn’t love Disney’s Frozen. Everyone I talked to raved about it, and when I finally saw it, I thought it was terribly overrated.

The animation was nice, but it just wasn’t a very good movie — and certainly not up to the standards of a really good Disney animated movie. I thought the first 45 minutes were pretty boring, and the next 45 minutes were just OK. Even the songs that everyone else went crazy over, I thought were a bit overdone.

Something Borrowed: "Can't Find My Way Home," House of Lords/Blind Faith

In 1990, my music listening habits ran the "gamut" from hard rock to thrash. If it didn't have a loud guitar, I wasn't interested. Classic rock radio was also a fairly new concept as. So, I suppose, I can be forgiven if I didn't know this tune was a cover when I first heard it, even if the original band included a few rock heavyweights.

Something Borrowed: "In the Navy," Alestorm/The Village People

Alestorm has a long and sordid history of strange cover songs — well at least as long as the band's brief history can provide.

Scotland’s premier purveyors of pirate metal have, after all, done rousing good covers of “Wolves of the Sea” (originally done by Latvian pop act Pirates of the Sea), “You Are a Pirate” (from the Icelandic children’s show Lazy Town) and “I Am a Cider Drinker” (originally done by the scrumpy and western band — whatever that is — The Wurzels).

Something Borrowed: "Ain't No Sunshine," Black Label Society/Bill Withers

I’ve been a fan of Zakk Wylde since his pinch-harmonic screaming debut with Ozzy Osbourne on No Rest for the Wicked. He was a six-string shredding madman who brought a much-needed energy and a much heavier sound to Ozzy’s band.

Over the years, through Pride and Glory and Black Label Society, we’ve come to know a different side of him, but one that’s just as captivating as that loud, brash, flashy side we first knew.

Something Borrowed: "I Gotsta Get Paid," ZZ Top/DJ DMD

Leave it to ZZ Top to take a regional rap hit and turn it into a smoking blues rock celebration of cool.

When working on last year's La Futura album, the bearded boys from Texas found inspiration from an unlikely source, a gangsta rap tune from Houston-based artist DJ DMD. The original, titled "25 Lighters," focused on hustling drugs and smuggling crack inside emptied out disposable lighters, which were easier to transport and pass. Of course, the ZZ version bears little resemblance to the original.

Something Borrowed: "Snowblind," Black Label Society/Black Sabbath

It's rare that an artist creates a cover that transforms and transcends the original, but I think that's the case with Zakk Wylde's version of Sabbath's "Snowblind."

Wylde, who spent longer than any other guitarist as Ozzy Osbourne's main axe slinger, taking over on 1988's No Rest for the Wicked before being quietly pushed out before 2010's Scream, has always shown nothing but respect to his former boss and the almighty Black Sabbath. "Snowblind" is one of several Sabbath songs that he's recorded over the years, and he always does it with great reverence.

Something Borrowed: "Long Haired Country Boy," Every Mother's Nightmare/Charlie Daniels

As most of my friends know, Charlie Daniels' "Long Haired Country Boy" has always been one of the anthems of my life.

There's something about that chorus: "I ain't asking nobody for nothing, if I can't get it on my own/ If you don't like the way I'm living, you just leave this long haired country boy alone." It seems like a good way to live to me, and even though my long hair is long gone, it's a tune that I still identify with.

Something Borrowed: "Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit Has Done Got Out of Hand?" James Hetfield/Waylon Jennings

So, we've already established that Metallica makes a damned good cover band, but when their frontman lets loose by himself, he's not half-bad either.

When I've Always Been Crazy: A Tribute to Waylon Jennings came out in 2003, there was a distinct feeling of "one of these things is not like the others" in the track list. You had Shooter Jennings, Jessi Colter, Hank Jr., Dwight Yoakam, Travis Tritt and others. Then, toward the end of the album, you have Metallica's James Hetfield. Huh?

Something Borrowed: "Black Sabbath," Type O Negative/Black Sabbath

It was the song that announced the arrival of heavy metal. That menacing tritone chiming out across the musical landscape like bells of doom. There's no way that this song could get any darker, spookier or more evil, right?

Enter Type O Negative, and their even more oppressive take on the song.

Something Borrowed: "Bullet the Blue Sky," Sepultura/U2

There are a couple of reasons I shouldn’t like this song.

First, it’s a cover of my favorite U2 number, and while I’m not a huge U2 fan, covers of my favorite songs by other bands generally don’t work for me – with a few notable exceptions, this being one.

Second, I’m not a big fan of the more hardcore-oriented Derrick Green version of Sepultura that arose after the departure of Max Cavalera.

Something Borrowed: "We Don't Need Another Hero," Northern Kings/Tina Turner

There’s only so much cheesy awesomeness that you can pack into a single video and song, and Northern Kings get every bit of it crammed into this cover of Tina Turner’s theme for the third Mad Max movie.

For those not familiar with Northern Kings, it’s a side project featuring four of the top singers in symphonic Finnish power metal. It includes Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica), Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot), Jarkko Ahola (Terasbetoni, Dreamtale) and Juha-Pekka Leppaluoto (Charon). Up to this point, the project has been largely for fun, with the band releasing two albums of symphonic metal covers of mostly 1980s pop tunes.

Something Borrowed: "Temple of the King," Angel Dust/Rainbow

If you're going to cover a song by the mighty Ronnie James Dio, you'd better bring it. If you're going to cover one of my favorite songs by Dio, you'd better blow me away. Much to my surprise, Angel Dust did just that with this version of Rainbow's "Temple of the King."

Something Borrowed: "Stone Cold Crazy," Metallica/Queen

Editor's note: Today, I launch a new feature here on Hall of the Mountain King called Something Borrowed. Each Wednesday, I'll take a look at a cover song that I like (or maybe one that I hate, I haven't decided if I'm going there yet) and say why I think it stacks up against the original. Enjoy.


No one can deny that Metallica is one hell of a cover band. Before this series reaches its end, I'm sure they'll have several entries in it. If I had to choose just one Metallica cover, though, this would be it.