“Have a Drink On Me” is one of the deep cuts from AC/DC‘s classic Back in Black, one of the most successful albums of all time. So, as with any album that has sold that much, deep cuts stop being deep cuts and tribute albums flow.
American noise rock band Whores have tackled this sorta-deep cut for the new Magnetic Eye tribute Back in Black [Redux]. For their sludgy version they’re joined by Bill Kelliher of Mastodon.
The original “Have a Drink On Me” begins with that iconic slow, bluesy lead before the song dramatically picks up the pace and careens through Brian Johnson’s lyrics about getting drunk. Whores play that opening riff slower and way lower than the original. And though they pick up the pace some, they never match the speed of the original song. Lead singer Christian Lembach shouts the lyrics even less melodically than Johnson did in the original. When the sing-along chorus comes along, it’s like he’s suggesting it and you might do have that drink if you could be bothered.
There’s no sign of the blues in this version until the solo, just lumbering guitars and bass. But the solo, played by either Lembach or Kelliher, is really something, almost bringing the song back into loud the very loud blues rock territory of the original. This is where hard rock has gone in the 40 years since Back in Black was released, and it’s interesting to hear a cover that sounds almost like what the Melvins would sound like covering AC/DC, albeit with a different singer.
