Corrosion of Conformity are back and freer than ever — and that’s because they’ve kicked off a new covers series with a blazed-up take on English rockers Free’s “Fire and Water.”
COC unveiled the cover today (September 22nd). It’s explained that the band are going to be delivering a series of tributary songs through the newly-launched Riffissippi Studio Jam Sessions.
Describing the new project as “just a bunch of fellas…loving the rock,” guitarist-vocalist Pepper Keenan noted that the southern sludge-and-crossover greats started on the idea during downtime from making their next full-length record.
“We had a very cool space set up where we would essentially hang in the large room with everything mic’d and everything we needed, including a turntable and a bunch of our favorite records, which we would play and chill out between takes,” he explained in a statement.
“We were hanging together, and I pulled out a Free album and Fire And Water popped up. [COC drummer] Stanton [Moore] jumped up immediately and said, ‘Who the fuck is that!?’ He had never heard it before. We were baffled, but it was awesome to us that he had never heard it. He said, ‘let’s cut that!’ I said, ‘man, that’s friggin’ Free and kind of like holy ground that you don’t fuck with.’
“But we started thinking about it and damn, Stanton charted it out like the drum wizard he is. I said, ‘I can’t sing like that, man. He’s the king.’ Someone in the room said, ‘just sing it like you,’ so we went for it and had a blast doing it.”
It’s as yet unknown what the next cover will be, nor when the band will formally deliver a follow-up to 2018 album No Cross No Crown, but you can check out Corrosion of Conformity enjoying their Free jam sesh via the player up above.