Jorn Lande Returns With Heavy Rock Radio!

Norwegian metal powerhouse Jorn Lande is returning to the game with a new album of covers entitled Heavy Rock Radio.  I know what you’re thinking, “Oh great, another album of covers from some other metal act.”  Well, sit on it bucko because let me tell you, when Jorn Lande does something, he doesn’t just do it note for note.  Jorn manages to take a song no matter who the original artist was and make that song his own while staying tried and true to the original.  Jorn did the impossible by releasing DIO, an album of Dio covers after the passing of his friend and hero and if anyone could pull it off, it was him and he did so.  This time around, with Heavy Rock Radio, Jorn has dipped into some of his favorite songs and put the ol’ Jorn Lande spin on them.

Heavy Rock Radio is not an ordinary album of cover songs, it is truly a songbook of hits. Featured – among others – are great versions of the Eagles’ “Hotel California” and Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”, they all get the JORN style treatment and become powerful and epic, without losing their commercial touch. More great classics included are John Farnham’s “You’re The Voice”, Queen’s “Killer Queen”, and two absolute melodic rock evergreen gems in Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” and Foreigner’s “Rev On The Red Line”.

 

The original concept of the album was to create a jukebox of radio hits, but to avoid leaning too much on the pop side of rock, JORN decided to blend the tracklisting with a few more up tempo rock tracks as well, such as “The Final Frontier” by Iron Maiden (“probably the closest you get to anything commercial with Iron Maiden,” says JORN), “Live to Win” by Paul Stanley (a song which was also featured on the popular television series South Park), and a few hard rock classics show up as well such as Deep Purple (“Stormbringer”), Dio (“Rainbow In The Dark”) and Black Sabbath (“Die Young”) to complete the mix.
JORN says: “The most important thing was to treat these songs with respect for the original versions, my goal was always that the original artist would be honoured and find my version relevant. At the same time my intention was never to compete with the original song and artist, but make it a strong alternative version to enjoy. At the same time it is a well-deserved homage to these artists and bands, who influenced me strongly.
I have wanted to record these songs for quite some time, but was always too busy writing and recording my own music to make it happen. Originally I had a list of 40-50 songs I wanted to do, but I had to strip it down to about 15 songs before deciding on the final track list. This means that there are some unfinished business musically, and I will most likely record more of these songs in the future.”

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