The ‘covers of songs in styles you wouldn’t expect’ genre is well worn. Almost worn out, in fact.
The funk cover of the Star Wars theme tune. The disco cover of Beethoven’s Fifth. Every heavy metal cover of commercial pop tracks – “Hahaha! It’s Britney Spears, but they’re screaming the lyrics! AHAHAHAHAH.” Rubbish.
But there’s life in the old girl yet, as evidenced by this toe-tappingly funky cover of Iowa’s favourite nine-piece metal freakshow Slipknot, courtesy of comedian Rob Madin, better known as Brett Domino of the Brett Domino Trio.
Strap yourself in and check out the cover below.
https://twitter.com/iron_madin/status/1309407521195651073
So at first glance, you’d think that Slipknot + Funk = Total Disaster. But it… works? It works. It actually works.
First thing to note is the super talented Rob appears to be playing all the instruments, which is laudable in itself. But the real genius lies in the arrangement of the track.
Any idiot can crank up the distortion and crank out a rock version of a Katy Perry track, but Rob actually understands the hit points that make a funk track funky, and expertly blends them with arguably Slipknot’s biggest tune, retaining the key elements of the original.
Rob started uploading Stylophone covers to YouTube back in 2008, and along with the Trio took part in Britain’s Got Talent in 2009. They performed a keytar-led cover of Michael Jackson’s Beat It at their audition, which a bemused Simon Cowell simply did not understand was meant to be funny.
His loss, as Rob’s videos have pulled in over 28,000,000 views and has gone on to become an established artist and comedian, appearing on shows such as 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, from which you may remember this classic track ‘Bin Guy’, a song written using exclusively (hmm, sort of) three letter words.
And if this doesn’t send you down a rabbit hole of comedy gold, then we have failed you.
