Obscure covers?

When bands cover songs from other artists, those are usually the big bands everyone knows about (well, at least among the fans of the genre), such as Kiss, Sabbath, Aerosmith, Zepp, UFO, Thin Lizzy, Uriah Heep, Nazareth, Scorpions, Maiden, Priest, Dio, Ozzy, AC/DC etc.

So, I was wondering, does anyone know of any bands that recorded or performed covers from lesser known bands, or, even better, released entire albums of such covers?

Off the top of my head, I know Hammerfall covered Stormwitch on their covers album, and Possessor did a Nasty Savage track on their latest EP. Does anyone know of any other instances where the band chose to cover a song by a lesser known band?

Helloween's METAL JUKEBOX was a pretty eclectic collection of stuff. They covered well known songs like Bowie's "Space Oddity" and Faith No More's "From Out of Nowhere" as well as fairly obscure tracks like Babe Ruth's "Mexican," the Alex Harvey Band's "Faith Healer" and Mahogany Rush's "Juggernaut".

Metallica started their career as an obscure covers band, they just didn't tell the fans that they were covers!

Hexvessel (with Rosie from Purson) have just covered Yoko Ono's Women of Salem and it grinds the original to dust. I don't know if this counts as Yoko Ono is one of the most famous women in the history of Rock music, but not really for her music.

I suppose Megadeth covering Howlin Wolf (Willie Dixon, Jeff Beck, I'll not argue.) was pretty off the wall. (particularly at the time!)

Dark At Dawn - Out In The Fields (Gary Moore cover)

I suppose that one's fairly obscure since they are criminally unknown, it seems.

CAULDRON BORN is covering HEAVY LOAD on our next album.

Powergod did two albums of all covers. Ult reviewed them here: http://www.nolifetilmetal.com/powergod.htm

Loads of obscure bands and great covers on those two releases. They even did a cover of Hear N Aid - Stars!

Iron Maiden covering Women In Uniform, a song so obscure, I forget who had the original.

kmorg wrote:

Iron Maiden covering Women In Uniform, a song so obscure, I forget who had the original.

An Australian band called "Skyhooks"



...I like the Maiden version better.

Tesla doing Ph. D's "Little Susie's On The Up"

Here is the orignal....


Here Is The cover...


Great White doing Angel City's (The Angels) "Face The Day"

Here is the cover....


The original....

Cauldron covered Black 'n Blue's "Chains Around Heaven".
Adrenaline Mob covered Badlands's "High Wire".
Judas Priest covered Spooky Tooth's "Better by You, Better Than Me", although I don't know how obscure Spooky Tooth were at the time.

Flotsam and Jetsam covered Lard's "Fork Boy".

Entombed covering Roky Erickson.

Place of Skulls - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (The Animals cover)

metalheaded wrote:

Dark At Dawn - Out In The Fields (Gary Moore cover)

I suppose that one's fairly obscure since they are criminally unknown, it seems.

their 'Don't Pay The Ferryman' cover (Chris DeBurgh) is even better!!





Dark At Dawn has also covered 'Deliver Us From Evil' by Warlord..not a ton of Warlord covers out there, not of that song. A lot of people are closed minded about his vocals though, typical..





Onward - Clockwork Toy (Loudness)...no YouTube link for this one but it's very good.


The Chasm covering Italian thrashers Bulldozer...





Antimatter covering Mr. White by Trouble, pretty obscure..

October 31 also covered Warlord's "Child of the Damned"

Here is a message board that that has a multi-page discussion on rare covers. It's a pretty informative read.

http://www.heartofmetal.net/t15434-killer-covers-vol-8675309

Not obscure but an interesting choice- Lion's Share covered City Boy's "The Day The Earth Caught Fire". Not very metal, but good!!

Jorn covered the same City Boy tune.

jettafiend wrote:

Here is a message board that that has a multi-page discussion on rare covers. It's a pretty informative read.

http://www.heartofmetal.net/t15434-killer-covers-vol-8675309

Yeah, those are killer covers. Here we discuss rare ones. Learn the difference!

Quote :

So, I was wondering, does anyone know of any bands that recorded or performed covers from lesser known bands, or, even better, released entire albums of such covers?

The Hellacopters (somewhat obsure themselves) released their final album Head Off in 2008, which is a whole album of covers consisting of other obscure garage rock/punk bands.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Helloween's METAL JUKEBOX was a pretty eclectic collection of stuff. They covered well known songs like Bowie's "Space Oddity" and Faith No More's "From Out of Nowhere" as well as fairly obscure tracks like Babe Ruth's "Mexican," the Alex Harvey Band's "Faith Healer" and Mahogany Rush's "Juggernaut".

How obscure is the Alex Harvey Band? I'm not familiar with them, but I have two other covers of Faith Healer, by Fish and The Cult, so that suggests that they couldn't have been too obscure. Maybe they were bigger in the UK and Europe than they were in the US.

For a band that have been covered as much as Sabbath, they haven't done many, but they did do this.



I don't know how big Crow were in the U.S but they were pretty obscure here, a great song though and I prefer this to Sabbath's version

Guns & Roses doing Ain't It Fun by Rocket From The Tombs via The Dead Boys. Rollins Band also do a version.

Citanul wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

Helloween's METAL JUKEBOX was a pretty eclectic collection of stuff. They covered well known songs like Bowie's "Space Oddity" and Faith No More's "From Out of Nowhere" as well as fairly obscure tracks like Babe Ruth's "Mexican," the Alex Harvey Band's "Faith Healer" and Mahogany Rush's "Juggernaut".

How obscure is the Alex Harvey Band? I'm not familiar with them, but I have two other covers of Faith Healer, by Fish and The Cult, so that suggests that they couldn't have been too obscure. Maybe they were bigger in the UK and Europe than they were in the US.

Not obscure at all in my world obviously (my handle on this board is based on their Faith Healer song), but for younger people maybe. They were once considered one of the top live acts in the UK. Britney Fox also covered SAHB's Midnight Moses.