Deafheaven, AFI, and Alexisonfire members cover Smashing Pumpkins track ‘1979’
The ‘Two Minutes to Late Night’ YouTube channel has made a return in 2023 with members of Deafheaven, Touche Amore, AFI, Alexisonfire and Zwan taking on a heavier cover of the classic Smashing Pumpkins track ‘1979’ from their third studio album Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness.
The channel, which regularly sees an all-star lineup of musicians tackle a classic cover, gained traction during the early periods of Covid lockdown, having a newly formed supergroup record their parts from home.
The show will soon make a return to a live setting as part of a talk show hosted at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn. Seeing as the new format is just around the corner, the all-star lineup covers have become slightly less frequent, but according to this one, no less awe-inspiring.
To record the metal/post-hardcore version of the Smashing Pumpkins’ classic, Gwarsenio Hall hit up Jeremy Bolm of Touche Amore to take on Billy Corgan’s iconic vocals, and he is captured in the same vein as the Pumpkins’ frontman in the car-ride show from the band’s original music video.
The rest of the outfit is comprised of Daniel Tracy from Deafheaven on drums, Wade MacNeil of Alexisonfire on guitar and backing vocals and Hunter Burgan from AFI on the bass guitar. The song was originally written by Billy Corgan just four hours after he had initially been recording a demo by the name of ‘Strolling’ with Flood.
However, Flood felt the song was not strong enough and challenged Corgan to write something better. Corgan subsequently touched into his childhood – he was 12 years old in 1979 – and wrote one of the band’s best songs. The return of ‘Two Minutes to Late Night’ will see a star-studded cast at the Saint Vitus Bar on February 14, 2023, with a set of live covers being performed by the likes of Baroness, Dethlok and Black Dahlia Murder.
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