Watch A Wet Hot American Summer-Themed All-Star Metal Version Of Jefferson Starship’s “Jane”
The Jefferson Starship are one of those weird rock-history stories — a band now mostly remembered as a strange little connective-tissue thing. The Jefferson Airplane had been one of the standout bands on the late-’60s San Francisco psych-rock scene. In the mid-’70s, co-founder Paul Kantner pushed the band in a more sci-fi direction, and the Jefferson Airplane changed their name to the Jefferson Starship. In 1984, Kantner left the band, and the remaining members, after a court battle, went on as just Starship. Under that name, they scored three exceedingly generic #1 hits in the mid-’80s. That means that the Jefferson Starship are now remembered as a kind of in-between space. But now, they’ve got their own episode of Two Minutes To Late Night.
On the latest installment of Jordan Olds’ consistently great covers series, a bunch of all-star metal musicians have teamed up to take on “Jane,” a minor 1979 hit that’s probably most remembered these days for showing up on the Wet Hot American Summer soundtrack. The Wet Hot connection is definitely the only reason why “Jane” is this week’s song, and the video really goes running with that theme. The song was already a perfectly functional ’70s studio-rocker, and it translates to triumphant metal without too many adjustments.
The Two Minutes To Late Night version is anchored by drummer Johnny Kelly, who used to play in Type O Negative and who now plays in Danzig and Silvertomb. (Type O and Danzig have both gotten their own episodes of Two Minutes To Late Night.) This version also has lead vocals from Johanna Sadonis, of the Berlin-based metal band Lucifer, and guitars from her Lucifer bandmate Nicke Anderson, who’s the frontman of the Hellacopters and the former drummer for Entombed. Royal Thunder’s Mlny Parsonz plays bass, and Cory Barhorst, formerly of Kylesa and currently of Black Tusk, plays keyboards. As always, Jordan Olds joins in as Gwarsenio Hall. Watch the cover below.
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