Despite how many times you can hear it on classic rock radio in Canada, Red Rider’s “Lunatic Fringe” was actually not a hit in Canada when it first came out in 1981. It was, however, a #11 on the brand new US “Rock Albums & Top Tracks” chart, which launched in March of that year. (The chart has been known as “Mainstream Rock” since 1996.) As such, it’s tied for their second biggest hit in the US with “Human Race.” “Lunatic Fringe” is also their only chart entry in Australia in case you care and their most covered song. Americans may know it as a wrestling or UFC intro track, it has a strident intro and a lot of sense in this context.
The song was written by lead singer Tom Cochrane about anti-Semitism but, because he recorded his demo the night John Lennon was shot, it’s popularly believed to be about Lennon’s murderer instead. It, um, obviously resonates in this particular political climate.
Also from Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe, but down the road in Hamilton, hard rock band Sven Gali got their start 12 years after Red Rider. They never had any hits in the US, and never had a hit as big as “Big League” in Canada, but they did once have a Top 10 hit in Canada, back in 1993, one of those “hard rock band sings an acoustic ballad” songs that were huge at the time. They only released two albums in the ’90s and though they reunited briefly in the aughts, they didn’t start putting out albums again until recently. They released their third in 2020 and put out their fourth just last year.
To coincide with that new album they’ve recorded a new cover of “Lunatic Fringe.” They’ve dropped the haunting keyboard intro, replacing it with arpeggio guitars. Actually they’ve dropped the keyboards from the entire song, so they don’t double the instrumental hook as they do in the original. Instead, Sven Gali up the heaviness across the entire arrangement, with louder guitars but also notably louder drums. The keyboards in the original hook are replaced with distorted guitar. Instead of the sirens at the end of the original there is a looped sample of JFK’s famous inaugural address.”
It’s very faithful to the original, just significantly louder and heavier. Perhaps it’s an opportunity to rediscover one of the bigger Canadian rock bands of the 1980s. Check it out:
