Ducks Ltd. have teamed up with illuminati hotties for a cover of Jesus & Mary Chain’s ‘Head On’. It comes with the announcement of Ducks Ltd.’s new cover series, The Sincerest Form of Flattery, each installment of which will see them collaborating with a different artist. Listen to their take on ‘Head On’ below.
Talking about the track, Ducks Ltd.’s Tom McGreevy said in a statement:
I really like covers! If memory serves the first time we did one as a band was when Evan’s parents came to visit Toronto from Australia and we had a show while they were in town so we learned a song called “Before Too Long” by Australia’s poet laureate Paul Kelly (who for those who don’t know him is sort of like Australia’s Bob Dylan/Bruce Springsteen/Elvis Costello all rolled into one very beloved guy). We’ve kept doing them live, both sincerely (The Go-Between’s “That Way”) and as something of a goof (Tom Petty’s “American Girl”), ever since and every time we do one we feel like we learn something about songwriting and arranging that makes us better at making our own music. This project is kind of an extension of that exercise, and as a band who obviously wear our influences on our sleeve a bit, it’s a fun way to share some stuff we’re into.
The original “Head On” is total a classic. The lyrics are just so brilliant in an understated kind of way, but I actually started thinking about covering it after listening to the Pixies’ cover of it on Trompe le Monde (which is the best Pixies album, don’t @ me). They really kick the shit out of it, in a totally different way than The Jesus and Mary Chain do, and it made me desperate for a chance to sing it, and also got me thinking about ways you could adapt the vibe of it to make it fit into our world a bit. Sarah Tudzin has an immense and powerful production/mixing mind and one of my favourite singing voices of anyone doing stuff right now, so we asked her if she’d be down to work on it with us and she helped us figure out how to make all the pieces fit together. Truly a high honour! She also persuaded us to record our guitars through actual amplifiers for the first time ever, rather than going straight into the box like we normally do which feels momentous! Amplifiers! Who knew!
Ducks Ltd. recently released their one-off single ‘Sheets of Grey’, following their 2021 debut LP Modern Fiction. Check out our Artist Spotlight interview with Ducks Ltd.
