Rick White (Eric’s Trip, Elevator) has put together a song-for-song cover of the iconic Sloan debut, Peppermint EP, that is as satisfying for its similarities as it is for its differences. In true pandemic fashion, White plays and records all the instruments himself on the cover.
According to White, late last year he rediscovered an unreleased demo he had recorded of himself performing Sloan’s “Lucky For Me” in 1995.
“I was just doing it for fun at the time, but hearing it again caused me to pull out their 1992 Peppermint EP for a fresh listen. It had been a long time and brought back a lot of nice memories,” says White via his Bandcamp page.
White then fully succumbed to a month-long stroll down Sloan Memory Lane, absorbing everything he could find from those early ’90s years and catching up with the band members.
Rather than a premeditated project, White’s cover of the EP seemed a natural outpouring of nostalgia combined with the knack that Sloan songs generally have for getting stuck in your head. White had already been working on new music for six months and the need to turn his attention elsewhere for a bit had found its muse.
Without any plans to release the EP initially, it ultimately proved too good not to share.
“I woke up one day in the midst of all this with the riff to ‘Marcus Said’ going around my head and had an urge to try recording a cover of it in a late 90’s Elevator style. It turned out to be quite enjoyable and I liked the results. Now here we are two weeks later and I’ve got the whole Peppermint EP recorded.”
True to the original, the songs are all fully recognizable and intact, but sound as if an Elevator plugin filter has been applied particularly to the vocals; going for something less crisp and grungy than the original. White’s guitars also take a more prominent position throughout the EP.
Despite retreading old ground, the new take is refreshingly different enough to warrant a listen and the project holds its own ground.
The icing on the cake? White spent hours recreating the album cover with his own face and you might not be able to tell which is the original.
Rick White | BANDCAMP