Any cover act that wants to stand out from the rest needs a gimmick. That gimmick might be having a parrot shriek along to your renditions of classic songs, dressing up like a saxophone-playing Sasquatch in the woods, performing entirely on ukuleles, simply being Tony Hawk, or, in the case of The Merkins, dressing up like slasher movie icons for every video you put out.
The group’s latest is a cover of Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls,” now transformed into “Kills, Kills, Kills” by Möstly Crüel. The band is made up of Jason Voorhees singing lead, Ghostface on guitar, Freddy Krueger on bass (somehow, despite the knife-fingers), and Michael Myers on drums.
As you might expect, it’s a pretty straightforward cover except when it comes to a new verse by Freddy and the rest of the lyrics, which are an ode to being frightening movie murderers who the chorus assures us “love kills, kills, kills.”
The video’s a good example of the pubic prop-named band’s whole shtick, which is admirable in its constant desire to explore a pretty one-note premise to its fullest. There is, for instance, an LL Cool J cover called “Momma Said Chop You Now” performed, of course, by Jason. (Who’s also responsible for heading up a cover of Danzig’s “Mother.”)
There’s Ghostface doing “Call Me, Sidney” and the cannibal Feastie Boys performing “What’s Fa Lunch?” And, among the many, many other covers, there’s our favorite: The Slashstreet Boys doing a boy band routine with the full line-up of Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Ghostface, and Leatherface.
We have to give The Merkins credit for trying their best to make a scary cover band happen, though, even with the knives and creepy masks, they still have a lot of work to do if they’re going to steal the title of “most nightmarish tribute act” from the current champions.
[via Nerdist]
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