the Hot Rats
Two members of 90s Britpop heroes Supergrass have completed work on a new covers album, under the name The Hot Rats. Singer Gaz Coombes, along with drummer Danny Goffey recorded the album with with Radiohead cohort Nigel Godrich.
Speaking about the album to BBC 6 Music, which will feature songs from artists such as The Kinks and The Doors, Godrich said: “I saw them doing a cover of ‘Beat It‘ when they were promoting their last record as a two piece, so we decided to record it. Then we got in the studio and realised there were some better songs that we could be doing.”
Meanwhile, Coombes told the station how they decided on ideas for the record: “We sat in the restaurant across the street, drank loads of wine and just worked out what kind of songs we could record,” he said. “But we did it in a way we could put our own personality and character on there to give it a real nice angle. There’s an element of classic mix tape to it.”
Speaking of their cover of Beastie Boys classic ‘Fight For Your Right’, Coombes said: “That’s a great song and the lyrics are really cool. It doesn’t really have any chords on it, it’s about the beat and the rap. But we decided to make it sound like The Who.”
“Another one I loved recording was I Can’t Stand It by Lou Reed because it was quite simple and we got all these female backing vocalists to sing on it.”
The duo will appear at this year’s Reading/Leeds festival on the August Bank Holiday weekend.
The Hot Rats, Drive My Car
Their cover of Drive My Car is identical to the original. What happened to “put our own personality and character on there”