New Video – “Apeman” (The Kinks)

As part of our Pledgemusic campaign in late 2015, one of the rewards we offered was to record a video of ourselves covering any song that the pledger requested.  “Apeman” by The Kinks was requested by Lance Nicholls.  Lance is a close friend of Molehill, and he has been requesting that we cover this song for years.  He has always talked about how he loves the lyrics and how it’s a great social commentary.  We decided that the best way to do this song was not to try to re-create what the Kinks did, but to create our own instrumental arrangement to give it a “Molehill feel”.  The original version has a lighter, more classic feel, driven by an upright piano riff and clean guitars during the verses.  We decided to build our version around a distorted bass riff, but also attempted to keep some of the light “bounce” of the original using a high syncopated guitar track.  We also added some strings during the chorus, and changed the 50s-throwback feel of the bridge to a heavier call-and-response lead guitar section.  We recorded the audio and video at Kingsize Sound Labs and Tribeca Flashpoint Academy in Chicago.  As with our other Pledgemusic cover (“I Won‘t Let You Go” by Snow Patrol), we had a great time putting this together.  We are huge fans of The Kinks, and it was a very fun challenge to take a classic song like this and totally revamp it to make it our own.  Lance, thanks so much for the pledge, and we hope you enjoy!