The Replacements
In honor of the Futureheads' new record, News and Tributes, I sat down with lead singer Barry Hyde to piece together a bit of musical will. If his band succumbs to death by rock cliche, let's say, and perishes in some manner of fiery crash, no doubt a News and Tributes tribute record would follow soon thereafter. I asked Hyde to choose which bands he'd like to see on the record.
"Yes/No," Queens of the Stone Age. "It's going to have to be a hard rock band. I think they're one of the best live bands ever, and that song was written so to be impressive live."
"Cope," Motorhead. "I think they'd have to rehearse it quite a lot, because it has jazz chords in it, but I think they could do it."
"Fallout," The Kinks. "I think they'd do their own version of it, but I would love to hear [Ray Davies]'s voice on it.
"Skip to the End," AC/DC. "We nicked it from them, that groove."
"Burnt," Pixies. "It's got a bit of a Pixies feel to it. You've got acoustic guitar, combined with some quite-odd other guitar lines. It's kind of like Frank Black and Joey Santiago. It's also got a really Pixies-feel on the bass, really simple, and quite driven."
"News and Tributes," Cocteau Twins. "I think they could do quite a good version. They kind of reformed; they were meant to perform for Coachella last year and had some rehearsals.
"Return of the Berserker," Lighting Bolt/The Boredoms. "They could probably make it even more berserk-take it to a new level."
"Worry About it Later," The Who. "They're still playing. It's got a Who-feel to it. It's got quite big chords. You could imagine doing a windmill strum to that one."
"Favours for Favours," The Mystery Jets. "It's got quite crazy guitar harmonics, and I think that their guitar player, Will [Rees], would do something quite amazing with that."
"Thursday," Bjork. "It's quite ethereal, and there would be a lot of space for her in that song to fit lots of Bjorkism, like vocally when she makes all of those crazy sounds and sounds like she's from a different planet. I think she'd quite like it."
"Faith," Field Music. "This is the band that we're on tour with at the moment. It's very soft and gentle, but then it kind of explodes, and goes in three dimensions. I think they're a band that plays with wonderful controlled dynamics, and I think they'd be a great band to rearrange it and make it their own."