Merseyside music makers King Hannah emerged last year with their debut EP Tell Me Your Mind And I’ll Tell You Mine, but have not yet had the chance to tour it. That’s set to change later this year with a headline tour around the UK. To remind us all why we should be excited to go see them, they’ve shared a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 classic “State Trooper”. They say:
“We have always loved the Bruce Springsteen album Nebraska, how sparse and raw it sounds, and how it is effectively a live demo recording. We wanted to keep that live-feel when covering State Trooper and so we tracked the song live in our little home studio. We tried to do justice to the atmosphere of the original when arranging the track, with rumbling tom-heavy drums, warm creamy guitars and intimate slap-back vocals.”
They maintain that tense atmosphere of the original, with Hannah Merrick admirably capturing that slipping-under-the-radar menace of Springsteen’s narrator – right down to the wolf-like howls. While the original stops after three minutes, King Hannah put their own stamp on it by extending further into one of their signature gorgeous guitar outros, burning beautifully like the tail of a comet – or the tail lights of the song’s protagonist driving off into the night, having eluded being stopped by the “State Trooper”.
Listen to “State Trooper” below or on streamers, and scroll down to see King Hannah’s newly announced tour dates.
King Hannah’s “State Trooper” is out via City Slang. They’ve got these tour dates coming up:
16/10/21 :District – Liverpool (UK)
20/10/21 :YES (Pink Room) – Manchester (UK)
21/10/21 : Hyde Park Book club – Leeds (UK)
22/10/21 :Broadcast – Glasgow (UK)
23/10/21 :Star and Shadow Cinema – Newcastle (UK)
24/10/21 :The Cookie – Leicester (UK)
25/10/21 :Jericho Tavern – Oxford (UK)
26/10/21 : Hare & Hounds – Birmingham (UK)
27/10/21 :Lexington – London (UK)
28/10/21 :Hope & Ruin – Brighton (UK)
29/10/21 : The Louisiana – Bristol (UK)
Make sure to follow them on Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
