Cemetery Skyline have just shared their cover of Cyndi Lauper‘s take on the Roy Orbison track “I Drove All Night“. The goth metal supergroup’s keyboardist Santeri Kallio shared the following explanation for this somewhat unconventional song choice:
“We were in the middle of writing the songs for ‘Nordic Gothic‘ and the tracks were flying back and forth over the Baltic Sea when Markus suddenly come up with the idea to make a cover version of the 80s classic ‘I Drove All Night‘. Some may consider it as a Roy Orbison hit, but back in high school I used to bang my head to the wall with Cyndi Lauper‘s original version.
So as an old fan of the song – I just could not resist the idea. The rest of the band soon joined the excitement to give this classic a new darker crust. I also like to think that Markus’ passion for vintage cars had something to do with the idea to cover a song which is all about manically driving in darkness the whole night. We basically changed the song’s Cadillac to a hearse and all was set.”
While the studio version is just now making its way online, the band’s bleaker rendition has made it into their setlist on numerous occasions thus far.
Cemetery Skyline is:
Vocals: Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity, The Halo Effect)
Guitars: Markus Vanhala (Insomnium, Omnium Gatherum, I Am The Night)
Keyboards: Santeri Kallio (Amorphis)
Bass: Victor Brandt (Dimmu Borgir, Witchery, ex-Entombed/Entombed A.D., ex-Firespawn and many more)
Drums: Vesa Ranta (Sentenced, The Abbey)
