Members of Alice In Chains, Mastodon and Metal Allegiance recently released a cover of “Rusty Cage,” originally performed by Soundgarden, as a part of Anthrax’s drummer Charlie Benante’s series of quarantine covers. William DuVall, singer for Alice In Chains, as well as Bill Kelliher, guitarist of Mastodon, and Mark Menghi, bassist of Metal Allegiance, were all featured on the cover track. In the cover of “Rusty Cage,” DuVall covered the vocals while Kelliher covered guitar and Mark Menghi covered bass.
“Rusty Cage,” was written by the late Chris Cornell and was released back in 1991. The song is featured on their third studio album, Badmotorfinger. Benante was especially excited to be able to cover a song by the iconic rock band. “‘Rusty Cage’… first song off of Badmotorfinger and a damn good one at that! This song makes me wanna drive fast. I was a Soundgarden fan as soon as I heard ‘hunted down,’” said Benante according to The PRP. Benante went on to state that he had seen the band numerous times back in the late 80s when Soundgarden was playing music festivals. He mentioned that he always found their sound to be unique.
While Soundgarden’s version of the song is unmatchable, the cover done by the members of the other iconic rock bands offers a fantastic version that shows great similarity to the original. DuVall’s vocals are on par when compared to Cornell. He kept the same consistency that Cornell maintained throughout the track. Benante, Kelliher and Menghi mimicked the exact pace and sound as the original members of Soundgarden. The concordance among the musicians made this cover an amazing tribute to Cornell’s work.
In September of this year, Soundgarden teamed up with Brandi Carlile to create new versions of “Black Hole Sun” and “Searching With My Good Eye Closed,” two iconic songs written and performed by Soundgarden. Kim Thayil, guitarist for the band, commented on Carlile’s performances by emphasizing how much she really nailed both versions of the songs they re-created. Thayil added how she did something that seeing performances from Chris Cornell did to him: sent shivers up his spine.
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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