Richard Marx, the former adult-contmepo hitmaker and current funny Twitter guy, never really made metal. Marx did co-write Vixen’s 1988 pop-metal hit “Edge Of A Broken Heart,” but that’s not exactly the same thing. So that means that Marx’s latest track is a bold leap into unknown territory. It’s a fun one, too. For his latest trick, Marx has gotten together with Matt Heafy to turn his own 1989 chart-topper “Right Here Waiting” into a thundering double-bass-driven metal attack.

Matt Heafy is the frontman of Trivium, an Orlando band that’s been cranking out crunchy, squealing festival-style big-tent metal for a long time. Heafy started the band when he was in middle school, and now, nine albums in, they’re still doing it. Like Marx, Heafy has been staying busy on the internet during the pandemic, and the new version of “Right Here Waiting” feels like an extension of that.

As Metal Hammer reports, Heafy recently told the Bringin’ It Backwards podcast about how it happened:

I saw his son was wearing a Trivium shirt, so I hit him up on social media. [He’s a] super-amazing guy. We stayed in touch. One day, I [wrote to him], “Hey, let’s do a song together.” And then he texted me, “Let’s do it.” So I did a metal version of “Right Here Waiting,” and he did the vocals on it.

On the new version, Marx sings “Right Here Waiting” like usual, even as riffs explode all around him. Heafy adds in his own raging Cookie Monster vocals. It sounds weird! It also sounds like the kind of thing you make when you want to let Rand Paul know that it’s time to stop fucking with you. Listen to the new version and check out the original below.

Check out our recent interview with Richard Marx here.