Pennywise‘s cover of “Ace of Spades” has been unveiled ahead of the release of the tribute album Killed By Deaf – A Punk Tribute to Motörhead, out October 31st.
The Cali punk vets offer up a roaring rendition of the classic song, sticking close to the source material. As guitarist Fletcher Dragge points out, Motörhead drew a fine line between punk and metal on “Ace of Spades,” so Pennywise didn’t have to step too far outside their comfort zone in order to knock out a convincing cover.
“Getting into punk rock around 1980, basically the only metal band that was allowed to be part of the punk rock scene was Motörhead, as far as I was concerned,” said Dragge in a press release. “If you saw somebody show up in a jean vest with the Motörhead patch on the back it was like, ‘There’s a metaller, but he can hang with us!’ ‘Ace of Spades’ was the track where you heard that and went, ‘That’s not metal, that’s punk rock!’”
Related Video
The rest of the tribute comp features covers by Rancid, The Bronx, Lagwagon, FEAR, GBH, and more. The closing track, an unearthed collab between Lemmy and The Damned playing the latter’s “Neat Neat Neat,” was released when the album was announced back in September.
Pre-order Killed By Deaf – A Punk Tribute to Motörhead via this location, and stream Pennywise’s cover of “Ace of Spades” below.