I know I’m not the only 30-something country music fan that grew up listening to a little punk rock.
I grew up on a steady dose of Alan Jackson, George Strait, Reba, Brooks and Dunn and the rest of the ’90s country greats, but there was a time when I got into bands like Blink 182, Green Day, New Found Glory, Taking Back Sunday etc…
But no matter what kind of music you like, songs don’t necessarily have a “style.”
Sure, certain genres have certain musical tendencies… but you can take a country song and make it sound like a rock song, just like you can take a rock song, add some fiddle and steel, and make it country… if you’re Sturgill Simpson, you can take your entire catalog and make it bluegrass.
Hell, we saw Billy Strings make Post Malone bluegrass too.
The point is, once you have the song written, you can make it sound anyway you want. You can play with the production, the tempo, the melody and arrangement and make something completely new and unique out of something old and familiar.
That’s what Alex Melton does.
Alex has garnered a sizeable following on TikTok and YouTube by taking punk songs and making them country, or… taking country songs and making them punk.
He took Blink 182’s “First Date” and made it into a pretty decent country song, as well as Dixie Chicks’ “Wide Open Spaces,” and made it punk. He also did Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down” and turned it into “Sugar, We’re Going Down Yonder.”
He’s done punk covers of country songs, country covers of punk songs, Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin” in various different styles, Post Malone covers… it’s pretty cool stuff.
But recently, he tackled arguably the biggest country song of the past decade in that of the Chris Stapleton arrangement of “Tennessee Whiskey.”
The song was originally written by Dean Dillon and Linda Hargrove, and first recorded by David Allan Coe and then George Jones, but of course, Chris Stapleton took the song to new heights with a bluesy rendition from his 2015 Traveller album.
And while the melody is just a little slow to really lend itself to a great pop punk version, believe it or not, this pop punk “Tennessee Whiskey” cover just WORKS.
