A little more than a month ago, we said “Hello” to VC Pines after falling for his soulful new single “Smoke Without Fire”. Now, the London native born Jack Mercer is returning the pleasantries with a cover of the Lionel Richie classic. No surprise, it’s pretty great.
VC Pines’ cover was recorded as part of Mahogany’s ‘COVERS’ series of reimagined ’80s classics, and went live this past Friday (March 5). It’s an inspired choice, full of the rising artist’s personal brand of cool swagger, and allows Mercer’s voice to take center stage and never let go, even as the guitar solo snakes its way into the mix.
“I’ve always enjoyed covering other people’s tunes, that’s how I first started, by playing three hours of covers in local pubs every week for beer money,” Mercer says. “I never really did much though in the way of changing the songs up dramatically unless it was to extend a guitar solo for 20 fucking minutes or do something for the drunk audiences to interact with. It was all fun, but like I said not that inventive. So yeah, when Mahogany asked if I wanted to hop on a ‘COVERS’ session I really took the opportunity to take an old classic and really switch it up. I took the cheesiest song I could find (no offense Lionel) and this came out.”
Absorb it all below.