John: Float On

What a pleasure to have John on the show this week. Many thanks to him for his time, good humour and vulnerability. As I mentioned in the show, Tomato Tomato has a new record out called It'll Come Around. Check it out if you love sweet harmonies. Also thanks to Tim at Sound of Pop (Tomato Tomato's publishers) for permission to use Chasing Rainbows at the end of the show. Iron Horse's cover of Float On (as always, I'd encourage you to listen to the whole track either before or after you listen to this week's show!) is part of a remarkably large sub-genre I'd broadly label as "bluegrass covers of pop music". Though I'd always loved some of these things as novelties (The Gourds' cover of Gin n Juice comes to mind) I had no idea of how much of this stuff was out there before researching John's story! Iron Horse alone have recorded two separate Metallica tributes, a Guns n' Roses record, as well as tributes to Nirvana and The Shins. What I like about Iron Horse is that they seem to come by their practice of bluegrass honestly rather than playing it for "let's laugh at the poors" yucks as some of the bigger bluegrass "tributes" like this cover of Thunderstruck by Finnish band Steve n' Seagulls does. Anyway, if you want to keep digging, there's a spotify playlist or (even better IMHO) you can just google "bluegrass cover" of any great pop song - the harmonies and musicianship of great bluegrass players really pull out the sweetness of good pop music. Make sure you follow The Volume Knob on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or at our website volumeknob.net. You don't have to be someone Keith knows to have your story on the show! John's story was pitched via [email protected]. You should send me the story of the song that saved your life, too!